Gratitude Reloaded

On 5^th December 1985, I clearly heard God’s call for my life and said Yes.

What an adventure it has been!

I was only a teenager then in form 5.

God has taken me places and done things TO me even as He did through me. That is why I am very grateful.

He has taught me and transformed me in ways that some people are unable to imagine the kind of person I was before that operation began. Just the other day we were talking with my friend and I mentioned the fact that I was chased from the scout movement in school for insubordination and he wondered whether I ever had issues with insubordination. Please thank God with me.

I remember the head teacher (they were called headmasters then) at Lodwar High School had vowed to expel me before we closed school when I refused to allow him get me a transfer because I had become a pain in his neck though I do not even know what crime I had committed. The only thing I know was that I was not good to authority and authority figures everywhere as even prefects feared me.

Anyway, God stepped in and changed me without changing my name.

I was scared of going back to school because of that vow, especially because the headmaster was a Catholic brother and he had just renewed his term.

But who is God? (direct translation)

I found that he had been replaced.

I therefore started Form 6 on a clean slate.

And that is where I started ministry. But of course that was also where my discipleship journey started with Mike and Ann Wekesa.

And the ministry even then thrived. With a friend we started a devotional minute before the assembly and it became almost another assembly. Where is my friend Joseph?

So much that in a Catholic run school they started including me in sharing devotions during assembly. That is where they started calling me pastor.

Where was I heading to?

As I was clearing, the new headmaster was giving me the leaving certificate. Then he opened my file and saw some unsavory reports.

He showed me and asked who was so bad as to write such things on my file.

Of course I told him that they were true and then shared the Gospel with him.

God has done so much in my life as I have followed Him in obedience.

From singing to songwriting to running and starting choirs to instruments,

From evangelism to preaching to teaching,

From encouragement to nurturing,

From missions to church planting,

From spiritual warfare to healing its victims,

From writing books to helping grow writers,

I am grateful to God, very grateful.

I am just scratching the surface of what God has been about my life since I responded to His call.

Please join me in thanking Him.

And pray for my next phase.

Of course I have written elsewhere about it but it won’t hurt to repeat.

I am old (if you are disputing, I think you are old too)

I feel God wants me to settle down to what old people spend their energy on.

I want to focus on raising another generation of ministers.

In short, I want anyone God has called to benefit from my experiences in ministry and not just my ministry. My ministry now is therefore using everything I have to build other ministers by pouring myself into them.

‘Ministry and Mortality’ and ‘Varsity on the Hill’ are posts talking about this aspect of my ministry. You can get them on the blog.

I feel I should stop travelling (and haven’t I travelled!) unless for the express purpose of raising or growing ministers. I want to travel to resolve ministerial issues. I want to travel to encourage ministers. I want to travel to empower ministers. I want to travel to equip ministers.

Ministers are my focus in this phase.

Talk of mentoring and equipping.

Therefore as you join me in thanking God for these 34 years of great faithfulness, please say a prayer about these ministers that He will be bringing my way for the ministry God has for me toward them.

But I am very grateful to God.