She said more words about how God was going to use me, and that people will see that he is the one at work in me. And then she prayed for me. In the morning, I went home. I prayed again, but really, I did not think that I would join the ordained ministry. I kept on telling myself, “Yeah, I can serve God in other ways, but not as an ordained minister, not as a pastor.”

When I finished law school, I looked for and got a job with a Christian organization. I was National Coordinator for the peace and justice program, and I was doing well. I was seeing a bright future in the organization. Even the leaders of the organization would tell me so. So I said, “Okay, I think I’m on the right path.” At the same time, I was also active in church ministry in my local church.

One day, my pastor told me, “The church is in a season of recruiting people to go for the ordained ministry, and I think you should apply.” I said, “I will not apply because where I am serving, I’m happy there, and I see God blessing me. I don’t want to join the ordained ministry.” He said, “But God can also bless you in the ordained ministry.” I said, “Sir, I am the son of a pastor. I live in Kampala and I don’t own a home. I pay rent. I pay school fees. My experience with pastors is that you are not even sure of the salary you will get at the end of the month. So I don’t want to subject my family to that situation of lack.”

So I brushed it off. But when I reached home, and I told my wife, she said, “Why are you resisting? You apply.” And this is a woman whom I had told before that God is calling me to join the ordained ministry after I got that prophetic word. We were still dating at the time, and she said, “If you are going to be a pastor, I will not marry you.” Now I’m telling her the pastor is telling me to apply, and she says, “Why are you resisting?” It was then I realized, it seems I’m left alone, my wife, the pastor, and of course, God had already been telling me, they were all pointing me in one direction.

God’s Leading to Theological Studies

So you don’t want to be like Jonah, who resisted God’s call and ended up in the belly of a fish. So I picked the forms and I applied. My intention was to show God that I’m not refusing, but I really wanted to fail the interviews. We were 40 people who did the interviews, and I was among the two who performed best and got the scholarship. The Diocese of Kampala, which is the administrative structure of our church, wanted to sponsor only two.

And so now I was like on a hook. I have already shown that I have an interest, though I was being deceptive, and they have chosen me. The bishop knows, the church leaders know. How can I say no now? It was during those days that God started to speak to me, to work on me. I remember a song that was ringing in my heart, a song which I had last sung when I was in secondary school.

The song says, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey”. It was in my heart. Even when I was sleeping, the song was coming. I am going to work, the song was coming, and one morning, when I was going to work, the song was in my mind.

I was asking myself, “Why?”, and the voice told me, “You are resisting God. You are not trusting Him. You are not obeying Him. You think that he cannot provide for you, and your lack of trust is causing your disobedience, and there is no other way you will be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.” It was a clear message.

That day, when I reached the office, I opened my computer, went to my email, and wrote my resignation email. I sent it to my country director, whom I had not told that I was doing interviews. That’s how it happened.

I was still struggling with the issue of how I would provide for my family, school fees for my two children, and then rent. But God has His ways of teaching us lessons.

While I was at school struggling, God had used a lady to write to me. She’s a German lady who is the CEO of an NGO, a non-government organization or charity organization in Uganda, and is involved in supporting children who need school fees. She wrote to me, saying that she wants me to be on the board of directors for that organization in Uganda.

I said, No, as I was already on 3 different boards. I was the general secretary for the Uganda Christian Lawyers Fraternity. I was on the parish council of my church. I was on another NGO board. So I said, “That is a lot already, and I have started my theological studies, and I don’t want to disappoint you.” So I resisted. She said, “I need you because someone told me that you are an honest man, and I need you to be on my board.”

God’s Provision

I said, “But I may not perform as you expect.” She said, “Even if you attend a board meeting once a year, it will help me.” I said, “Okay”, since she’s not going to put pressure on me. She made a trip to Uganda, and then she met me and even visited me at my home, met my family, and then went for a board meeting.

After the board meeting, she said, “Don’t worry about fees for your children. I’ll pay for their school fees until you finish seminary.” That was a three-year course, Master of Divinity. When she said that, I was like, Oh, God, you are teaching me a lesson, taking away my stubbornness and foolishness. But that was not all.

In the organization that I had been serving, I had organized a Christian lawyers conference, and some lawyers were coming from the US, joining us in Uganda.

When the organizer on the US side heard that I had resigned, she wrote the country director, asking if I could help, at least have that conference take place. So the country director called me and asked me to give a few hours to the organization, to organize, and then also one week to be a part of the conference when the US attorneys come to Uganda.

I said, Okay, I think I can manage to be away from the university for one week. They came and we did the conference. After the conference, I shared about how God is taking care of my school fees, but they also asked me about everything that concerns me, my worries. How can they pray for me? I told them to pray for me about the rent. So when they went back, one of them wrote to me and said, “Don’t worry about rent. I’ll pay your rent until you finish the theological course.”

Learning God’s Ways

That’s when God made it clear to me that you have always misunderstood my ways of provision. You thought you were the one who provided for your family, but I am the one. I’m the one who gives you the ability to work and earn, so now that you are not working and you’re studying, I will still provide as I have always provided.

That was a great ministry to me. It has changed my perspective regarding God’s provision and how I need to trust Him in all that I do.

There are times when I have needs and the enemy is telling me, you know, you should have done this and this, and I remind myself God has provided for you when you never expected.

It is we who lack trust in him, but he’s always faithful. Very faithful.

The moment I handed in my dissertation, a job at a promotional level as the country director of an organization was waiting for me. While I waited to be ordained at the end of the year.

So at the exact moment I finished the course, I would no longer receive school fees and rent; God had prepared a job for me. I even came with a vehicle. God is amazing. I didn’t have a vehicle before I got it. After obeying God and going to Theological College for the ministry, I came back, they said, “This is your office. Here is the key.”

I started serving, and by God’s own arrangement, the church allowed me to continue to serve, to lead that organization, because it was a Christian organization. I also served as a pastor in a church as a non-stipend pastor, but with a paid salary by the organization.

Establishment of Equip and Send Ministries

The time came when God led me again in his ways, really not that I planned it. He led me to start this ministry called Equip and Send Ministries.

There are a number of pastors who are out there leading churches, but they have no training at all. They don’t have Bible study methods. They have not been trained on how to get and deliver a message, so they are teaching things that come their way. They are passionately serving, and the people, the Christians, are passionately following, but they are following someone who is teaching them a mixture of African traditional religion with Judaism, with Christianity, with astrology, horoscopes, and they think all that is Christianity.

Vision and Impact of Equip and Send

God called us to train these pastors. We have a three-year course for pastors who are untrained because they do not have the money to go to Bible College, and they don’t have the academic qualifications to be admitted. So we are training them in Bible study methods, Bible survey, servant leadership, forgiveness and reconciliation, trauma, healing and awareness, and pastoral counseling.

We talk about the economic transformation of his people. How can a pastor participate in the lives of people spiritually, but also help them to see the resources around them and become good stewards so that they can earn a living and serve God better.

We teach them how they can respond to Islam as church leaders, as Christians, so that they are able to be good ministers. They are told to love everyone and draw them to Christ. You can’t draw people to Christ by being an enemy. You have to understand who they are.

That is our three-year course for church leaders. But we also have annual general leadership conferences for church leaders. Again, we teach them about leadership. How can a pastor lead himself, then lead the family and lead the church? But also, as we do that, we realize that there are other needs that the pastors go through. As I told you in the beginning, you not only attend to the spiritual needs, but there are also physical needs.

They pastor Christians who are so poor, and the rich are taking advantage of them. So we have an access to justice component. But there are also pastors who are taking care of orphans, trying to do what they can, but they are not able. So we have an orphan care support program, and we have children on the website now that need to be supported. Our website is equipandsend.org.

On the website, you will find our programs and testimonies of pastors who are being transformed. But you also find the aspect of how to support children who are in need, and also how to donate to any ministry that you want. Is it the access to justice program? Is it the training of pastors? Is it the training of children, sponsoring them for education? You’ll find all that.

What is most encouraging for me throughout this whole journey is how God has been leading me to where I am now. I realized that I could not have found peace anywhere else, other than seeing a pastor who came with a mixture of beliefs, still believing in African traditional beliefs, mixing them with Christianity, having all that mixture. You start with him in the first week, and by the time they finish the three years, they have been transformed. They have a refined gospel.

They are no longer teaching prosperity, making promises of blessings that are not real, so that they can get money. You know, there is a number of them that are exchanging God’s blessings for money. They use the pulpit to rob people by telling them lies. But that’s because they don’t know better; they have mentors who are doing the same, and they think that is success. When the pastor is rich, making a lot of money, they say he has become very successful. They think that is Christianity, yet it is a lie from the enemy, from the devil.

And so when you have a group of such pastors, you are with them for three years, and you teach them the truth of God’s word, and by the end, they are testifying of how they now know how better to serve you. Thank God you see you are doing something, and you appreciate that God has called you. I appreciate that God has called me to participate in the building of his kingdom by equipping and discipling those who disciple others.