Missionary Letter — August-October 2024

From the McPaul Brothers

TO WHOM HE WAS NOT SPOKEN OF, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand” (Romans 15:21). The deliberate spreading of the gospel to new places and new people is paramount to an

evangelistic mission. Ever since we began full-time mission work in Uganda, we have been trying to push the gospel into new areas of the massive capital city we have resided in, Kampala. But there are “Samaritans” in other cities and “Ethiopians” along the ways who we will never reach if we do not, like Phillip, go further out, preaching Christ to them. After much prayer and preparation, our ministry is becoming more missionally-minded, not content to stay in just one city (however large and relatively unreached it may be). Much of the success of Paul was in his itinerancy, and it is our desire to follow him as he followed Christ.

Malawi: Storm on the Fiery Sea

In August, we conducted a month-long mission trip to Malawi, a country in southern Africa. Malawi (“flames”) is named after the long lake on its eastern border, which, in the sunrise, looks as if flames were leaping up from off of it. This is, in fact, the first country we visited over 7 years ago, in 2017, on a short-term trip, which God used to call us as evangelists to Africa. During that first trip, the nucleus of a church was begun, though not well nurtured. After about 6 years of them facing significant internal-struggles, a friend of ours visited the country and ordered things, providing significant help financially and ministerially. He planned a large mission trip for August, 2024.

A team of people came from several places, mostly from the U.S. and Uganda. I (Jesse) also went together with about a dozen from our church in Uganda. Though we had many apparent

conversions and baptisms of new believers, things did not go as planned. The Malawian man who was the de facto leader of the church, Phillip Banda, was a clandestine, covetous, callous man, who perceived the mission as a threat to his “authority,” and it was not long before a grim spiritual battle erupted between him and most of the expatriate team. The result was a storm of conflict, and a conclusion of the “Truth Conference” in flames.

The mission was not all in vain, however. I had been fellowshipping with and training a man I led to Christ on the first trip 7 years before, Sylvester. We had also been holding small church services in his home concurrently during the trip, and so, like Paul in synagogues, when things dissolved at the first place, we directed all new faithful disciples to this little house church, and that is where the trip ended. That small group of believers continues to meet and preach the gospel, and we pray God may grow them by little and little. God used the trip to manifest a fraud, and to start a godly church, contrary to all expectations. “Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires” (Isaiah 24:15).

 

 

Mbarara: Advance into the Ankole Kingdom

In September, we conducted a 4-day mission trip to Mbarara, a city in Western Uganda. A long-time church member of ours, Elias, was going to begin law-schooling in the city, and we decided to take him by car, as well as a small team for a survey trip of the city of Mbarara. This was a significant excursion, during which a pattern for future reconnaisance work was forged.

 

We immediately connected with an independent Baptist church in the city center, which had some time back been turned over to a local African leader. Pastor Claudian showed us around the church property, and blessed us in the name of the Lord as we began our evangelism. For two full days (Friday

 

and Saturday), we went soul-winning. The people were very open, intelligent, humble, and receptive, which, again, was contrary to what we supposed of the Banyakole people. Of the 20 who seemed to receive the gospel message, 3 came for the church service on Sunday, and 2 others who had just received a gospel tract. We had a beaming report of the city as we returned.

Since the trip, Elias has continued to preach the gospel during his freetime in Mbarara, and visit other independent Baptist churches in the area. This was a small step for our church, but a giant leap for the future evangelization of Africa.

Northern Uganda: Go and Bring Forth Fruit

 

In October, we conducted a 2½ week-long mission trip to Soroti, Lira, and Gulu, three major cities in Northern Uganda. This mission initially was conceived as a short survey to just Gulu, but God helped expand our vision to include these other two cities. Indeed, there are three distinct people groups that make up the majority of the inhabitants of these cities: the Iteso in Soroti, the Langi in Lira, and the Acholi in Gulu. We came to see each city was quite distinct, and the experiences we had in each varied widely.

In Soroti, we connected with a fantastic independent Baptist church, Temple Baptist Church, led by a wise and hard-working American missionary, pastor Sutphen. The church has been around for almost half a century, with an orphanage project adjoining it, taking care of over 40 orphans at a time. We were impressed with the doctrinal and dynamic preaching, even of one of the trained local pastors (which is highly unusual from our experience in Africa). We stayed from Saturday-Wednesday in the very organized—yet comparatively small—city, evangelizing all day. We had a couple dozen people who appeared to receive the gospel, and 5 of those we preached to came for a church service, including a man who knew of the church since he was a little child, but had not yet trusted Christ.

In Lira, we attempted to fellowship with a local independent Baptist church, but found the Philippino missionary who ran it very unreasonably hostile and unwilling to receive us even for even just a few days. We were perplexed, but not in despair. We preached the gospel for two full days (Thursday and Friday), and, interestingly, had a couple people we led to Christ on the first day come to learn how to go soul-winning the next day. Of the three cities, Lira was the most congested and unpleasant, but, paradoxically, the most receptive. People were 1.5 times more likely to receive the gospel message in Lira as opposed to Soroti.

In Gulu, our small car-team of 4 increased to a team of 12, with a few more soul-winners from BBC joining us for the week-long work planned. By Saturday evening, we were all in Gulu city and settled into our respective lodgings, with a couple hours of evangelism conducted. The independent Baptist church in the city, Kica (“Grace”) Baptist Church, also run by a long-time American missionary (and one who had known us from our first two years working with another church in Kampala), received us very gladly. Pastor Wright commended our example of zealous evangelism, and rejoiced about our plan to have a week of soul-winning in the city. God knew we needed his encouragement, because Gulu proved to be the most difficult mission field we have ever experienced in Africa yet.

 

It took over 5 hours, on average, to see even one person just profess faith in the preached gospel. The Acholi especially had a hard time understanding basic gospel concepts, due to heavy indoctrination from a young age. Nevertheless, by prayer and faith, we persevered, and after a week of all-day soul-winning, we had over 100 people who seemed to receive the gospel, 4 of which came out soul-winning with us, and 15 of which came for a church service, either on Wednesday evening or Sunday morning. We were even given the opportunity to preach the gospel to a prospective audience of many thousands on pastor Wright’s radio, Calvary Radio. We left Gulu full of joy, and with a greater dependence upon God learned, and

a much more robust spiritual fortitude formed.

 

 

 

Fruit Back Home in Kampala

Throughout August-October in our current home-base in Kampala, the Lord has continued to cause us to bear fruit for Christ. With much energy being placed on the mission-front over this time period, we indeed saw less occurring in the beloved capital of Uganda, though, by God’s grace, like the tree by the waters, we never “cease from yielding fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8). We had 68 baptisms of professing new believers in Kampala. With well over a hundred people coming for services each Sunday morning, and much more than half of that for evening services, the “little flock” continues to mature spiritually.

 

Prayer Requests

 

As we enter the final two months of 2024, we have three big prayer requests:

1. Pray that God would stir up the old soul-winners of the church to be more exceedingly zealous to evangelize for more time, given many will have more free time to do so with school terms soon ending and the festive season upon us.

2. Pray that God would raise up new soul-winners from among the many new believers coming to church. We are attempting to be even more intentional in taking new people out preaching the gospel, and desire that more faithful soul-winners be trained up by the end of the year

 

3. Pray that God would give us guidance and direction for future ministry/mission labors. We have many ministry projects and mission plans in the works, and need God’s help to ready them and to make them realities.

For example, we have a big evangelistic week planned for the Christmas-New Year time, and future possible trips to Western and Eastern Ugandan cities in our hearts.

We give thanks to the saints abroad who take both an interest and a part in this labor for the Lord, however small in impact on Africa at the present time our gospel-work may be. It is, we trust, like the mustard seed, “which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Matthew 13:32). None of these missions would have been possible without the generosity of God’s people to this ministry, for which we glorify God. Let us all rejoice that God is visiting these Gentiles, and taking out of them a people for his name (Acts 15:14)!

May the grace and peace of God be with you.