The Impact of One
As restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic began to ease in rural Uganda in August, HOPE61 trainers there began to schedule and facilitate ENGAGE trainings across the region. Careful to abide by all governmental and health standards in place, people attended these trainings to learn how to prevent human trafficking in their communities and how the pandemic has caused heightened vulnerability to this evil.
In early September, HOPE61 trainer Wilber Bwire traveled to Kenya to lead a training for church leaders in a village there. In that training, Wilber met Andrew Nbosi, a pastor in Kenya who has family in a small village in Uganda. After the training, Pastor Andrew was determined to take what he had learned back to his Kenyan church, but he was also adamant that his relatives in Uganda needed to be trained as well.
Wilber quickly learned that this Ugandan village did not have a church, but he knows that the entire vision of HOPE61 is to equip the local church to prevent human trafficking. Everything that HOPE61 teaches rests on the firm foundation of a loving and caring local church congregation to prevent human trafficking and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with vulnerable people.
Pastor Andrew was so passionate about seeing his relatives trained to prevent human trafficking that Wilber knew of only one solution to this problem. Wilber would need to plant a church in the village. Through much prayer and conversation with the people of the village, Wilber organized the first meeting of this new church under a jackfruit tree, where they thanked God and worshiped him. Later, he returned to lead them through HOPE61’s ENGAGE training.
OMS has a vibrant and successful village church planting (VCP) ministry in this region of Africa. The vision of VCP is to see a church in every village in Africa through intentional training and multiplication. This small new church in Kifuyu, Busoga District of Eastern Uganda, is now connected with the VCP trainers in the area, and they are all praying that God will allow this small congregation to prosper and multiply into many other villages in the Busoga District and beyond. Not only will new churches start up throughout the area, but they will all be equipped to prevent human trafficking in their communities.
Only God could take a passionate pastor in Kenya and a young HOPE61 trainer from Uganda and create the opportunity for the Gospel to spread to unreached areas through this new church plant and HOPE61’s ENGAGE training. From engaging with this one person, through this one meeting, the Gospel will spread to many more! All glory and honor to God!
Your prayers and financial support make these trainings possible. For every $5 that is donated, one more church leader can be equipped to prevent human trafficking in their community. One person may not sound like a big impact … until you remember Andrew, one Kenyan pastor who started this whole story. Join HOPE61 today in making an eternal difference around the world!
By Tom Overton, HOPE61 Global Director