Garth Brooks is one of my favorite all-time musical artists. Sure, some can say that he ruined country music, but it can also be said that he SAVED country music. And one of my favorite songs is “The Dance.”

“Looking back on the memory of the dance we shared beneath the stars above. For a moment all the world was right. But how could I have known that you’d ever say goodbye…”

No one is saying goodbye but I love the way he looks back on an experience with such love and passion, knowing that the joy of that dance was worth the pain and heartache. And in some ways, that’s how I feel about looking back at 2024.

The year was too busy…not in a healthy way or a way to celebrate, but in a way that could have really beaten us down. And that’s something we have to address in 2025. But at the same time, 2024 was FULL of amazing God moments, both in family and in ministry. Here’s to “looking back…”

Disciplemaking Groups – Gina and I have continued meeting with our disciplemaking groups. Gina focused on moving through Steps to Freedom with the ladies in her group and was amazed by some of the truths that came out of those conversations (you can learn more about this HERE). Overall, these were conversations where God was showing up and Gina could see Him work (also through her co-leader). Leland focused on healing and rebuilding the damaged relationships within his disciplemaking group (long history, long stories). One major way we saw healthy relationships blossom was through home visits – not only did Leland and his co-leader move around to visit each member, but the members were moving to each other’s homes between meetings. The feel of the group drastically changed because of the healing power of intentional relationship, and God has used that to speak some needed truth. Our prayer going into 2024 was that God make it clear which men are truly open to being discipled and allow Leland and John to pour into them…which He did, and we are! We’ve also had disciplemaking groups with MTI students, and those were all led by men and women who have been discipled over the past ten years… what a powerful fruit of disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

Messiah Theological Institute – MTI graduated 34 students in November. We were blessed to have a great partnership with LIU teachers helping throughout the year, really raising the bar and standard for our classes. We were blessed by a few visiting teachers in 2024, which also brought experience and wisdom into the classrooms. We continue to push students for the practical application of what they’re learning and always follow-up on their DBS and Disciplemaking groups that they’re starting in their churches and communities. This has been an area where God has shown us the students who are bearing fruit (and those who are not).

Conferences – We were the lucky hosts of the 2024 National Churches of Christ Conference. We hosted 160+ church leaders, 60 of which were from different regions of Uganda while approximately 100 church leaders came from Eastern Uganda. We spent 3 days talking about being shepherds like Jesus and reconnecting with friends (Read more HERE). We also hosted our annual Youth Conference in December 2024, where we had over 320 youth from Eastern Uganda come together and focus on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Beyond these, we were blessed to host three one-day trainings on Children’s Ministry in different areas, led by Dr. Shannon Rains of LCU. We were able to provide churches with Children’s Bibles, teaching resources, and even some curriculum.

Travel – We made three long-distance trips in 2024: Rakai, Kyankwanzi, and Lamwo. The visit to Rakai was incredibly encouraging, where we could see what God was doing through relational disciplemaking and we could taste the sweetness of the fruit from the past seven years. Churches showed evidence of maturity, leadership, and inter-dependency (as opposed to utter dependency). We found the same in two-thirds of the churches we visited in Kyankwanzi when we visited in April 2024. In fact, one of them became an amazing example of how God is planting NEW churches through relational disciplemaking. The other church has shown sincere unity, as compared to previous years of great internal conflict, in their commitment to constructing a church and their mutual submission to one another. The churches we visited in Lamwo were surprisingly encouraging, but for slightly different reasons. They had a passion and energy for serving the Lord and building His Kingdom, so a very promising soil to build on. We haven’t yet been discipling leaders from this area because it’s pretty far, but we hope to in the near future, so please be praying about that (more to come).

Discovery Bible Studies – We continue to train and equip local churches and followers of Jesus with DBS tools and the Bible, itself. In 2024, we trained 9 churches on Discovery Bible Study and follow-up on the training for 14 churches (this is all in addition to the 17 MTI students we trained on DBS). Through these groups and trainings, we distributed over 500 Bibles in 6 languages; plus, we found a resource for audio Bibles that will enable us to give those in the future. These DBS groups and the Bibles we distribute through them, are proving to be an excellent way for the Word of God to be in people’s hands, minds, and to transform lives.

Community Development Projects – In 2024, we multiplied the community development projects that we had been doing into new areas and churches. We started 5 new goat projects and 3 new sheep projects; and we launched VSL groups in churches. The groups from 2023 (Read HERE and Watch HERE) have all shared their blessings with additional members and now those projects are on to the second and third beneficiaries. Even some of the new groups have been able to give out young goats/sheep to additional members. The previous VSL groups have continued strong and we get regular testimony of the fruit from those groups; our prayer is that the newest VSL groups enable financial sustainability and growth for the members of the groups.

Sustainability Projects – In 2023, we began making some steps towards sustainability in Mbale. NOW, in 2024, we continued that effort by purchasing solar panels and expanding our water collection efforts. Our goal is to reduce our dependency on the government supplies of water and power in order to reduce our monthly expenses. We also visited several friends and partners in America to launch fundraising efforts for the Apartment Construction. You can read ALL about it HERE, but we also hope you will join us by contributing to this endeavor in the New Year.

We also began a leadership team to help build towards leadership sustainability. This is a very new endeavor so things are still growing, but the prayer is that from this team a Ugandan Leadership Board can grow to help guide and lead the ministry in Christ-centered, disciplemaking ways in the future. Please also join us in prayer for this…

Thank you for reading about what God has been doing in the work in Mbale (and beyond). We are thankful for His provision, guidance, and patience with us…and we are thankful to YOU for your love and partnership. “May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forevermore.”