Author: Leland Sawyer

2024: What Lies Ahead…

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Welcome to the NEW YEAR: new opportunities, new challenges, new faces, and new movements of the Lord! We are excited to start our 8TH YEAR in Uganda serving the ministry here, and we are looking ahead to the ministry the Lord has laid out ahead of us:

DISCIPLEMAKING GROUPS – As always, our #1 priority is making disciples that make disciples for Jesus. And we try to line up all of the ministry, resources, and time we have to accomplish that purpose. In the upcoming year, we know we need to update the Disciplemaking Workbook we use in order to make it simpler to access within village settings. This will enable and better equip men and women who we are discipling to use it more adequately in their disciplemaking efforts, further encouraging the multiplication of disciplemakers. This is one effort to continue to equip and empower Ugandan church leaders to form more discipleship groups, helping to grow leadership and spiritual maturity. We have already scheduled 10 churches for training on Discovery Bible Study and 15 additional churches to follow-up for encouragement and further teaching on how to use the Bible study method. This is also how we hope to distribute Bibles and DBS books in different languages. Currently, Leland meets monthly with a group of 6 men and Gina meets with 10 women. In addition to this, the Mission has helped another leader begin a disciplemaking group at LivingStone International University of 14 students. And at our monthly theological school, we have begun four new groups, and we will be discipling them throughout the upcoming year. So in all, the Mission is leading/coordinating seven disciplemaking groups ourselves, and we hope to add one more new group in 2024. We also know that many of the men and women we have discipled over the past decade are discipling men and women in their own communities and churches, which is EXACTLY the point: Disciplemakers making disciplemakers that continue to multiply disciplemakers for Jesus Christ! Amen!

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2023 in Retrospect

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Every year is different, and every year is the same. Every year brings challenges, but what those challenges are can be different each month and week. Every year brings celebrations and successes, but we never know what that will be until they come. This past year has been a GREAT year in ministry, though it has been moving at a back-breaking speed. The stories of transformation and Holy Spirit impact continue to pile up, but so do the challenges and the work. We find ourselves continuing to pray as Jesus instructed: “Lord send your workers to THIS field!”

Here is a recap of some of the things we’ve been doing as a family and mission here in Eastern Uganda. Warning: This is a long post, but praise God – He has been moving!

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Counting Sheep

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The vast majority of the Ugandan people whom we disciple, train, and befriend with live an agricultural lifestyle. In fact, statistics say that 76% of the almost 50 million Ugandans live in rural areas and that 74% of Ugandans survive by agricultural means. This means that they live by what they grow in their gardens AND the livestock they are able to raise. In April, we were blessed to be able to help one local church start a sheep project that will multiply throughout the church and help improve the lives of church members, and the community they live in. Allow me to introduce you to the Kapuwai Sheep Project:

When we wanted to begin a project to help local Ugandans, we first started by asking the Lord to make clear a church leadership that we had good relationship with, and who we have seen growth in spiritual maturity – one that we could partner with. We thought of Kapuwai because we have discipled several church leaders from there who had an eagerness to grow in their own spiritual maturity, as well as a Christ-like leadership dynamic. When we sat down with them, we asked them about the lives of the church members: challenges, struggles, aspects of poverty that were more difficult for them, and ways that church members provide for their families. The prayer was that God would lead us into the RIGHT project for the RIGHT church…(We have seen and made the mistake of bringing a project that we think is good but doesn’t fit the area, and so it is doomed to fail from the beginning.) Through many conversations, we discussed several different ideas which did NOT work for Kapuwai, based on their knowledge/experience/desires or by our funds available.

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Checking in the Fields

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At home, we have a vibrant and diverse garden! We grow all kinds of tasty treats and necessities (check out the details HERE). And we plant throughout the year because we have a way to irrigate. We love our little garden, but it takes a lot of work. It’s not as simple as plant, wait, and harvest. There are many steps along the way.

The same is true of sowing spiritual seeds in ministry. We can’t expect to plant the Word of God and wait around for the good fruit to come. No! We need to continue pouring into those people along the way (this is what we mean by relational disciplemaking).

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Lead Like Jesus

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The Mbale Mission exists to “train, equip, and disciple leaders in the Ugandan church” with the purpose that they may also train, equip, and disciple others; DISCIPLEMAKERS that make disciplemakers, all following Jesus in everyday living. While we are not perfect, we put everything we plan and do through the lens of making disciples who make disciples. That is why in 2022, we began a Leaders Conference to gather leaders from the many churches we work with in ONE place for a time of teaching and sharing, specifically geared towards Christian leadership. This year we focused on key scriptures regarding Christ Like Leadership:

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One by One Makes a Bundle

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There is a Luganda proverb which says: “Kamu kamu gwe muganda,” which means “One by one makes a bundle.” The idea is that a bundle, or large amount of something, is actually just a collection of one item repeatedly; this idea creates the mentality that we don’t have to accomplish BIG goals all at one time, but rather can build up one step at a time. Brick by brick; step by step.

This is the idea of Village Savings & Loans groups…that everyday, ordinary people here in Uganda (and across the developing world) can drastically improve their livelihoods and sustainability if they’ll do it one small step at a time. Village Savings & Loans groups, or VSLs, gather local community members together for the purpose of small-scale savings and loans. Because the vast majority of people in developing economies do not have access to banks, they don’t have access to savings accounts or bank loans which enable upward economic mobility. But VSLs brings those things into the community, working within relational contexts and pre-existing social structures to further a community together. This is not only a realistic approach, but it is also one that works in the culture of Uganda where relationships are at the center of life. It has the added benefit of being Christ-centered and Biblically-oriented, empowering each group member to be a Godly steward of what has been entrusted to him or her AND restoring human dignity by recognizing the value and giftedness of each group member.

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Why Disciplemaking is SO Important

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What is a disciple? Is it different than a convert? What do I mean when I say discipleship or disciplemaking?

One of the things we have felt over the past several years is a constant need to DEFINE terms and clarify what we mean by them; what the Bible means by them. It comes from a belief that the words we say and use have real impact only when there is a shared and clear understanding of what those words mean. When I would ask my father-in-law, “What color is that stop-light?” he would automatically say, “They are all green.” He was color-blind, so he had never seen colors through my eyes and we didn’t have a common understanding of what each color was.

Similar things have happened here in Uganda. When we moved here seven years ago, we thought we had a great understanding of the English language…boy, were we wrong?!?! Words we always knew to mean one thing suddenly had a very different meaning, both in Uganda and in other parts of the world. Even our British friends question our English so much that we have stopped saying that we speak English, rather that our family’s heart language is “Texan” and we are learning English.

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2023…New Year, New Opportunities

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As a New Year is upon us (beginning year number eight for our family in Uganda), we are off and running towards the work that the Lord has put before us. Last year was such an encouraging and challenging year, and as we look back on it we can see how God provided for many things throughout. If you haven’t read the reflection on 2022, I would encourage you to go HERE first.

Once we know where we are coming from and where we want to go, we can clearly try to plot the course for the upcoming year. We have spent the past two months clarifying some of our 2023 ministry, personal, and family goals, and I want to take a minute to share those with you here:

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2022 Recap – A Year at Warp Speed

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What a year it has been! Having now celebrated Christmas in Uganda, we are taking the time to reflect on the past year – personally, as a family, and as a ministry. A New Year will bring NEW opportunities, but first, let’s look back on a great year…

Discipleship Groups – At the end of 2021, both Gina and I finished meeting regularly with our discipleship groups. Those groups had been meeting for more than three years (thanks to Covid lockdowns) and we were ready to launch into new groups. The other women’s discipleship group met throughout 2022 and finished their meetings in November 2022. We have now completed 4 discipleship groups of men and 2 of women, plus one more co-ed group. Those are in addition to the 12 groups we have walked with in MTI. In total, we have discipled over 120 men and women to be passionate disciples of Jesus and to be make disciples in their churches, communities, families, and villages. In September, we also began new groups – Gina with a group of women and Leland with a group of men. We are seeing the fruits of disciplemaking and spiritual growth in many of these churches, and we thank the Lord for this focus. (Click HERE for more.)

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Training and Equipping for Ministry

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Last Saturday, November 19th, we were thrilled to celebrate and mark the 21st Graduation of our theological school, Messiah Theological Institute (MTI). We had 27 graduates completing the training that began back in April. It was a day full of celebration, congratulations, singing, dancing, and joy. And it marked the completion of these students commitment. It was a really good day!

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