Jesse and John McPaul are independent Baptist, church-planting missionaries working in the African country of Uganda, operating particularly within the capital city of Kampala, based in Namuwongo, which is located in Kampala’s southern division (of four city-wide divisions), Makindye. They currently lead their first church plant in Africa, Bible Baptist Church, founded officially at about the beginning of 2022. BBC is a locally, organically grown church from ground zero, with currently over a hundred regular church members. The church holds thrice-weekly services of doctrinal and dynamic Biblical preaching, and daily soul-winning outings which have seen (and continues to see) tens of thousands of people personally led to faith in Christ.
Jesse and John are identical twin brothers, born in August of 1996, who were saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ when they were age 16, in 2012. Raised for the majority of their childhood in a small-town in Mid-Western America, Mohave Valley, Arizona, Jesse and John were led to Christ and Biblically baptized by a pastor of a Bible church (non-denominational) newly begun in that area.
After four years (2010-2014) learning and serving (for example, in door-to-door evangelism) in that church, they moved to attend university pre-medical studies, in hopes of becoming physicians. After about a year of attending and lightly serving in a denominational Baptist church near the university, they began attending an independent Baptist church on the other side of the town, influenced by an unquenchable desire to preach the gospel.
Their desire for the work of the Lord grew, and they felt certainly called to the work of the ministry as evangelists. They both, in time, sacrificed their secular college studies and worked at various jobs to earn a living during the interim period as they continued to study the Bible and train for their calling. They therefore performed extensive self-study, and gained invaluable experience and skill in evangelism. They were used in that church to, among other things, each lead over 1,000 people to Christ, and preach helpful sermons in various lacking churches across America, as opportunity arose. A short-term mission trip to Malawi in the beginning of 2017 helped them to realize their calling was to preach the gospel in Africa.
Ministry in Africa
In June of 2019, Jesse and John were presented with the opportunity to come to Uganda to work with a novice independent Baptist missionary intending to start a church in Kampala. The pastor and church held a farewell party for them, blessed them, and prayed for them corporately.
Shortly after arriving in Uganda, the missionary they intended to work with had suddenly and unexpectedly decided to give up on ministry in Uganda, so Jesse and John worked with an established independent Baptist church in the city. After a little over 2 years serving there as volunteers (that is, totally unpaid), they were called to start their own church, and the pastor and church prayed for them and blessed them as they left.
After some preliminary independent work, they officially formed a Ugandan NGO, BaptistsforAfrica, under which they legally founded Bible Baptist Church, a Biblically-based, independent, fundmental Baptist church, at about the beginning of 2022 (the first service was held in December 2021). The plan, prayer, and hope is that indigenous evangelists and pastor-teachers will be trained and sent out to evangelize and begin churches all across Africa. Also, as evangelists, Jesse and John intend to personally plant multiple large, thriving churches (such as this first one), and nurture them to independence with a plurality of elders set as the long-term leaders.