Kakaron, Uganda Report & Landmark Baptist Church Organized

Circle of Prayer

The month of March has grown each in anticipation, prayer and expectation with regard to what God is doing and is going to do with our ministry in Uganda. 

However, after our Texas group left there was much vehicle maintenance that needed to be accomplished.   We pulled the transmission out of the Toyota (twice), replaced rear main seal, replace every bushing front & rear and installed new rear shocks. 

We then headed deep into the interior of the Kerio Valley to continue the work we started in Uganda during January of last year. 

Our usual team of teachers and evangelists included: Pastor Peter, Pastor Shadrach, Pastor Japheth and Pastor Timothy who has been walking into Uganda monthly to teach our new converts.

                   Evangelism Team

 

This team has been instrumental in every phase of our ministry here in Kenya and now Uganda.  We find this example of raising up a team of God called men set by Jesus himself as well as the Apostle Paul. 

                                                   Preaching God's Word

While the work of evangelism and planting new indigenous Churches was taking place we also see an important training program that would be repeated time and time again for many generations of disciples to come.

As you read the Word of God you cannot help but to recognize this pattern as the words “we and they” are frequently used throughout the pages of the New Testament.  

Also accompanying us was the district Chief Joshua who is a member of the Landmark Baptist Church of Cheposabei.   

         Chief Joshua of Pokot Leader in the Kerio Valley

Gospel Teaching

Gospel Preaching

I cannot overstate how big of a blessing Chief Joshua has been to us and our work.

                                          Chief Joshua Teaching...

Remember, he presides over around twenty-five Pokot Villages in the Kerio Valley with tens of thousands of residents. 

He is a powerful  Pokot leader who is also a powerful Christian leader, so needless to say, we are blown away whenever he takes time out of his municipal duties to travel with us to Uganda and fully participates in evangelism and discipleship training. 

His conversion has impacted the entire Kerio Valley in so many ways. 

Probably one the biggest impacts he has made on the valley is that he successfully moved the day of the market and cattle auction from Sunday to Wednesday so that the Pokot tribe would be able to attend Church and worship God. 

Praise the Lord for a man that takes a stand for God and has gone against what is probably centuries of tradition!

As I look back at our ministry to the Pokot tribe, (which I was advised against in the beginning due to danger), I can say that God has done something great when we see that they have now taken the lead role in the Kerio Valley to set aside the Lord’s day for worship through the actions of Chief Joshua. 

I believe this is a great place to repeat what is being said in heaven: 

"Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God! 

We saw many receive Christ as Lord and Savior through one on one soul winning and we were able to encourage the faithful saints of Kakaron through doctrine and discipleship training.

Additionally, we baptized those who were saved last year and organized the Church. 

         Chief Joshua and Missionary Chuck prepare for Baptism....

That a great moment in time to see the Biblical pattern for Church planting continue just as our Lord and Savior Jesus intended.  

                                                    Church Organization

Church Pews

Church Vote

Church Organization

One of the keys to successful Church planting is to have a God called Man to lead these new converts.

I am always cautious and a bit apprehensive to see who God has called to Pastor these new works but I was reminded this week in a big way that God is still in control. 

Now don’t laugh, because I am sure that you need to be reminded from time to time that God is in control and is completely able to do His work just fine without us, however, we humbly thank him for allowing us to go in His name.  

God has called a young preacher named Moses who has a young wife named Mama Dorcas. 

                            Pastor Moses Baptized

After seeing the heart of this young man, his wife and carefully watching and evaluating His leadership capabilities, I left Uganda with great joy in my heart knowing that the work there was in the capable hands of an indigenous Pokot Pastor.

Who can better pastor Ugandan Pokots than another Ugandan Pokot? 

                                                               New Pastor Moses

Moses led his people by example and was the first to follow Christ in scriptural baptism.

I loved his humility, passion and commitment he demonstrated for the Lord Jesus.

We will try to match his passion and zeal for God through our commitment to teach and train him to be a solid fundamental Bible preacher who will not stray from our doctrine which is the doctrine of Jesus and His Apostles.

On an equal note, His wife, Dorcas, was found faithfully leading the youth choir and supporting her husband.    Pastor Moses and wife, Dorcas 

It is no secret that a husband that has a faithful supporting wife generally has a successful ministry.  Please pray for this young local visible  congregation of baptized believers as they are united in the belief of what Jesus has said and have coveted together to do what He has commanded. 

There is a larger picture here I need to record for this great work God has started.

The village of Kakaron is located in the middle of at least fifteen other unreached villages. 

I gently reminded Pastor Moses in parting that he has a lot of work ahead of him to reach the lost in the surrounding villages; he humbly agreed and said that he would try by the grace of God.  

                                    Moving Forward To God

William Carey once said, “God is not looking for people of great faith  tbut for individuals ready to follow him”.    

Thank you for every prayer and for every dollar given so that others might hear the glorious gospel.

Bro.Chuck & Sis. Terry Fernandez
Uganda, East Africa

Phil. 4:13

                                                Pastor Jamie Hogan....Writes below.

A Note from Pastor Jamie Hogan, Oakland Missionary Baptist Church

Bro Chuck,

 It is always amazing to see God work, no matter where you are in the world!!!
When you and Sis Terry came and visited with us at Oakland MBC and presented the work, I could tell from the beginning that they loved the work in Kenya.  I turned down a trip to Tanzania years ago and promised God that if another opportunity ever came up, I would not turn it down.
I found out that Bro Don was coming to Kenya, I “kinda” invited myself.
He took me up on the offer.  I thanked God for another opportunity to come to Africa.

I have witnessed God truly work in this mission trip.
The opportunity to help evangelize Morweisi and see that many people make professions of faith, is truly amazing.  Then to be a small part of the worship service at Chepsobai.  The excitement that the church was showing by meeting us at the road and following after us as we drove to the church and to find folks worshiping God with zeal and excitement was an awesome sight!!  The privilege to help baptize saved folks into their membership, after receiving the authority from the church, was a true honor.  The friendship and fellowship that I felt with the folks at Chepsobai was truly heart felt.  I have great memories of my short time there that I'll never forget. 

The work at Myanja and Lake Victoria was more physical than spiritual, but the work was great just the same.  One of the greatest things about this trip was seeing pastors from sister churches travel great distances to serve God by working on the buildings of their sister churches.  To see their dedication to the Lord, putting others before themselves, gave me such a blessing.  These 3 brothers in Christ (Pastor Japheth, Pastor Shadrach and Pastor Peter) were the example of sacrificial love that we are to show others.  They had many things to be doing at home, but chose to put the needs of others before their own.  They were being true stewards of what God had given them. 

God will provide opportunities when we least expect them.  We arrived at Wichlum to work on finishing up the poles and I was ready to work on them.  But as God would have it, something else happened.  Bro Peter and myself were sent out to evangelize for a while since there was plenty of help with the poles.  That short evangelism trip was a summation of the responses we receive from the world today.  A few heard the word with gladness and asked Jesus to forgive them and to save them.  We had 3 profess to us that they had asked Jesus to save them and what an amazing thing. Praise God.  Some we spoke with told us that they were already saved and thanked us for sharing the gospel with them and others.  Some we spoke with told us that they would wait a while to think on the matter and some rejected the Word.  It was awesome to see God move through our witnessing and to feel God's presence in our work. 

Thanks Bro Chuck for the opportunity to come.  This trip has truly blessed me and touched me in a mighty way.  In my mind, this mission trip is the definition of a true biblical based mission trip. God is awesome and I praise Him and thank Him for the small role I played in this trip. I will continue to remember you, Sis Terry, your work and the pastors that I've met in my prayers.  May God continue to bless you!!

Kenya March 2014. Two Reports from Our Texans

Pastor Don Moore, Providence Missionary Baptist Church, Center Texas
Pastor Don writes;
Mission work in Kenya with Brother Chuck was such a blessing to me. The different villages that we were in were a real eye opener. I saw a people that were receptive to the Word of God. The seed had already been planted and the Lord allowed us to water and God gave the increase! For this I rejoice! We saw sixteen people profess Christ as their Lord and Savior in our first evangelism outing. The men that Brother Chuck has trained are top of the line. They are on fire for Jesus. Some of them are walking many miles to get the gospel deep into the bush. The Doctrine that these men have received in such a short time is amazing. God is working in the lives of the people here in Kenya. For all who care, I encourage you to pray for Brother Chuck and Sister Terry. I saw and experienced firsthand what they go through on a daily basis. I saw a village where Satan is working hard to stop the Gospel from being taught. He tried this last week to prevent the local Church from getting a permanent place to worship. This Church at Wichlum needs your prayers as does their Pastor George and Brother Chuck as they teach and do evangelism. He puts his life on the line each day, please pray for them. There is so much more to say but words cannot really express just what I have experienced here. If you get a chance, come to Kenya and work with Brother Chuck and Sister Terry. In closing, this by far was my best mission trip ever and I have been going on mission trips since 1998. I have been blessed.

Brother Don Moore, Pastor

Providence MBC

Center, Texas
Note: Please remember to pray for us on Wednesday as we travel to Uganda to preach the gospel and to follow up on those we led to Christ last year.
Brother Don Moore...

              Nic Wheeler Teaching...and writing below

What have I learned from this mission trip? I came into this mission trip thinking wow, Jesus wants believers to share the Gospel with the whole world? It seemed to me like an impossible mission. We flew over London, and drove by the slums of Nairobi... And all I felt was how hopeless it was to reach the world with the message of Jesus' love for mankind. I said to myself that There are soo many people in this world and so few messengers, how can we even make an impact? However, this mission trip showed me how wrong I was. We were given opportunity to serve our God with men who have laid their lives down to follow Him. These Men left their comfortable living, their families, and their friends.
God led them into desert valleys, mountains, enemy lands, and some of the most dangerous regions around.
They led the way, as they were led by God. We shared the Gospel where it had never been shared before, we helped build buildings to help strengthen the Churches, and we helped encourage those Churches to continue in the faith.
And through it all, I saw a passion for the Gospel of Jesus like I have never seen before. I saw hope. We were told stories of how even In the face of great obstacles, God still provided. I saw men and women praising God, reaching the lost, improving their knowledge of the scripture, receiving Christ into their lives, and being baptized.
I learned that my vision of God was small when I arrived, but after seeing how God was truly doing a great work all throughout western Kenya, I realized that from two sayings from the people we have been living with during this whole trip held an amazing amount of truth about our God: "Turot Woah" our God is Big, and "Anaweza Yesu" Jesus is able! God is not small and His mission is not impossible. Our GOD is BIG and His mission is possible, because Jesus...is able!

Nic Wheeler, Member

Providence MBC

Center, Texas
                                     Uganda Kokoron....Missionary Chuck

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Kenya, Africa. March 2014

Brother Don Preaching....

The Group from Texas has come and has gone, please pray for their safe return as they are in the process of flying back to the USA as I write this post.   With so much taking place over the last ten days I am afraid that I need to record more of journal log instead of first person narrative entry which is my usual style.   So here we go.

The week began traveling back from the Kerio Valley only to return to Eldoret to do laundry and repack for the coming week of activity.  

This is the less glamorous part of mission work but none the less important. Our first stop would take us to the base of Mt. Elgon and the Landmark Baptist Church of Mayanja where we help the church family start the process of building the brick walls. 

The Church has patiently and persistently formed and baked bricks over the last two years and finally arrived at the stage where they were ready to move forward.  Our Texas building team did an excellent job of teaching our Kenyan brethren the techniques and methods we use in American. 

Pastor Jamie....

Kevin Dockins

Nick Wheeler

Bubba Bricks

Building 

Bigger Hammer

Missionary Digging

Kevin Dockins

Kevin Dockins

 Resetting Posts

Finished Stage One

Ladder

Measuring

Loading Trusses

The next day was the beginning of our two day Pastors seminar which afforded our visiting Pastors Don Moore & Jamie Hogan to teach twenty of the men of God we have been working with during the last six years.   Bro. Don taught our men on what it means to be a man after God’s own heart, security of the believer and justification while Bro. Jamie taught on stewardship and training up a Timothy.   While I love teaching and investing in the lives of our men, it was good for them to be taught by other men of like faith and doctrine in order to give them another perspective. 

We were also privileged to be joined by Bro. John Wyonyi & Bro. Steven Labolia who are both Kenyan Nationals and are currently serving as Missionaries to Southern Sudan.   They did an excellent job of teaching on missions. 

While the Pastors where teaching at the seminar, the rest of the Texas group help me organize and collect building materials to be taken to Lake Victoria for the start of two new sanctuaries

Seminar

Immediately following the seminar we traveled to Lake Victoria for three days to start the building process at the Landmark Baptist Church of Wichlum and the Landmark Baptist Church at Got.   This is when things got interesting and we all could sense the spiritual temperature being ramped up on the battle field. 

There are very distinct times in ministry that you are able to discern how real and intense the battle for the souls of lost men is and you must persevere through very intense satanic attacks for the glory of God.

Some might call it “Murphy’s Law”, but for those of us doing God’s work this week, we knew exactly where the problems were coming from. 

My mind was drawn back to Nehemiah as he had to fight off the attacks of Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian while rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.  I have a vivid mental image of Nehemiah with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other while fighting off the attacks of the enemy.

The Bible uses words like: buffets, tempts & hinders to describe the attacks of Satan on God’s people.    During the four years we have been working at Lake Victoria I have never experienced such difficulties, problems and frustrations as we had to endure this week.

With all that said, the Bible also says,

  1Co. 15:57  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

 We overcame flat tires, stormy weather and building material issues to complete the first stage of construction at both Churches.

 In addition to building we were able to do get some house to house evangelism done in Wichlum where we saw three people make professions of faith.

 I thank God for sending our brothers in arms from Texas whom have been a huge blessing to this Missionary and our brethren here in Kenya. 

They have maintained a solid Christian testimony before the saints here in Kenya and they have truly lived up to their Texas reputation of being hard working and God fearing.

Thank you for taking time to allow us to share this trail of faith that we are traveling on together.

To God be glory, great things he hath done!

Bro. Chuck  & Sis. Terry Fernandez
Kenya
Phil. 4:13

The Stars Are Bright, The Sword & The Shovel

Our Texas guests arrived on schedule and with their entire luggage which is always a concern when coming to visit Africa.   The dust had hardly settled from landing in Nairobi and we were off and running.  The group is staying with us for two weeks but two of them are only staying for one week so we needed to cram as much work as possible in their limited time frame to be good stewards as there is much effort and expense in their coming. 

Our first days together were spent helping them get familiar with our work, our people and the culture.  During those days, we had a fellowship at the Landmark Baptist Church of Mawe Tatu where they had their first opportunity to eat traditional Kenyan food and meet three of the key men in our work.   They were thoroughly impressed with Pastor Peter, Pastor Shadrach and Pastor Japeth as all three of these men have been instrumental in our work on Mt. Elgon, the Kerio Valley and Lake Victoria. 

 After our fellowship at LBC Mawe Tatu we traveled to the edge of the Kerio Valley, above, 

where we slept to be ready to descend into the valley in the morning. 

It would be there that I would hear how close the stars look and how beautiful the area is with Mt. Elgon looming in the background.   They said, as the old song goes that the “Stars are big and bright, deep in the heart in Texas” but they are amazingly bright at edge of the Kerio valley. 

   The next morning we ascended into the valley and visited a new village called Moriweris for evangelism. 

                                                     Village Elder

                                          Pastor Don Moore

Russ

                                                             Russ & Jamie

This Pokot village has never heard the gospel until that day and it would be a blessed day for everyone involved. 

As we spread out in what was desert heat there where as many as nineteen villagers that made professions of faith in Christ. 

Good thing that Texans are tough because the temperature was somewhere between 90-100’.   They felt the hardest part was that they were coming out of a cold Texas winter directly into the heat of a semi-arid region.   Each time we present the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ is special and sacred but there were particularly two people that really stood out in our hut to hut visits.

The first one was the senior village elder named Paul Ethodor, (probably not spelled right). 

He was so receptive in allowing us to bring God’s word into his village for the first time and was willing to start a Bible study in His home using the audio Bible we gave him. 

                                                  Praise the Lord!! 

At the end of visit with Ethodor a young man arrived dressed in traditional Pokot attire. 

The picture of Bro. Bubba in his overalls and Jackson in His shuka together is priceless and tells so much about both men.  Bubba & Pokot

 But what was striking to me was the expression and humility that the Ethodor showed as Jackson received Christ by faith.  I am not sure, but Jackson may have been one of  Ethodor’s son’s.  In any case, there was great joy as he bowed his head with Jackson to receive Christ.  It was as if he was relieved and as the senior man in the hierarchy of the village, he knew that this was a great thing for His people.

The Texans did an awesome job as it can be very intimating working through translators.

After village evangelism, we returned to the Landmark Baptist Church of Cheposabei to help dig footers so they can begin to lay bricks.   Missionary Chuck begins.....

They have baked thousands over the last two years and they are now ready to start building walls. 

 It was extremely hot and dusty work but everyone pitched in to dig two foot deep footers, even the women church members.           Mama Helping

The Pokot Church members were blown away with the senior saint of our group,

             “Bubba”, who outworked us all in that desert heat.  

 They loved him so much that they honored him with a traditional bow.                                                    Bubba Crowd....                                                         

Kevin Dockins

Terry's Ladies

Work day was followed by a great day of praise, worship, teaching and preaching.

                                                               Nick Wheeler

There would be one more profess Christ at the conclusion of the service and we baptized twenty new converts in the river. 

Car Wash

I  so  appreciate Pastor Don Moore and Pastor Jamie Hogan for bringing this group to Kenya to see and experience first hand the great things that God is doing.

They are faithful ministry partners who now have a new respect for our ministry.

To God be the glory!  Great things he hath done!

God Speed,

Bro. Chuck & Sis. Terry Fernandez
Kenya