MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEWYEAR From Pastor Johnson and family

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given..."
Isaiah 9:6
Hello friends! Merry Christmas!
God has been so good to us this year and we thank him for his provisions and open doors.
God has given us more friends and partners in ministry.
This year with help from Mark&Margaret and support from People for Missions, we started a House of Hope where 16 children who formerly did not have stable homes, now have a place they call home, with a house mother that does take good care of them.
Also with support from Whitney and Darlene-friends from the USA, we were able to start a children sponsorship program in our church. 100 children were registered for possible support and 33 already have sponsorship.
Most of these orphans normally don't enjoy their Christmas, because they cannot afford good food for Christmas like the rest. We planned to have them with us at home this Christmas season, and thank God with support from friends it was made possible, 40 children had Christmas with us at our home.
The children were so excited and happy because they ate a good meal and took a soda which they don't take in months.
We also had fun together,sang and praised God together, it was a warm fellowship together as a family.
I and my family thank all of you our dear friends that are a great blessing to us. May the good Lord bless you abundantly.
Please be part of many exciting things that the Lord is doing in Kabale, as you pray for us and support the work of God.
For more information, write to us at: jbakashaba@gmail.com
Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!

GO...MAKE DISCIPLES

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations..."
Matthew 28:19

To be able to keep the church strong and growing and lay a good foundation for the multiplication of the church, we started to raise up leaders through training disciples.
We hold monthly leadership seminars and small conferences in every village monthly. And the Pastors come to our main church in town once a month; where we do evaluation, discipleship and plan together as we lay strategies to reach more villages for Christ and strengthen the existing churches.
We have also started a certificate level theology course to train our leaders in good leadership principles to help our Pastors be good and exemplary leaders.
In 2005, God brought our way Pastor Doug Paradise, a missionary in Vietnam. He has a burden for making disciples. God united our hearts together and we planned annual leaders' conferences to help strengthen and encourage the Pastors.
He comes to Kabale every year and holds a leaders' conference, where we gather leaders from the rural places all around Kabale. We offer them transportation, feed them and accommodate them and teach them the word of God.
The 2007 Conference was held in November, Pastor Doug came with his long time friend and co-worker from California, Pastor George with a Prophetic gift and Evangelism. Over 200 hundred Pastors attended this conference. We had a great time in the teaching of the word, as the presence of God came down and leaders were strengthen in the Lord and went back rejoicing and vowing to serve the Lord with all their strength.
From these conferences, Pastors have testified that God had encouraged them. Pastors in the villages depend on the crops they plant. In church the total offertories are less than $5 every month. Because of hard conditions, these pastors get discouraged and often feel like giving up, but through these annual conferences they have been strengthened.
One Pastor testified that after resisting the call of the Lord for a long time after last year's conference, he was encouraged and he immediately planted a church in his village with our support.
Many have grown in the Lord and are helping us to train more Pastors and planting churches.
Helping these Pastors will encourage them to serve God better. $50 monthly support would help a Pastor pay house rent feed their families and pay school fees for their children.
In case you would like to be a blessing to these Pastors, or support our Leadership training,please reach us at:
jbakashaba@gmail.com
Or Pastor Doug Paradise at: dougparadise@yahoo.com

REACHING OUT TO OTHER COMMUNITIES

"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses unto me..." Acts 1:8

After seeing what God was doing in our community;setting the captives free, healing the sick and transforming lives, we begun to reach out to other communities with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Most of the rural communities are bound by the spirit of witchcraft and idol worship. The main religion being catholic, most of these people worship Mary. The majority of rural people are drunkards who spend most of their time in bars.
We started to preach Christ,to these villages. There are places where they had never heard of the saving grace of Jesus. But as we started to preach the gospel, many begun to receive Jesus as Lord.
Kabale is mountainous, and public transportation does not reach most of the villages, and so we have to walk up these hill. At one time we walked over 50 km to reach to a village where we were to plant a church. With no equipment or public address system we would shout at the top of our voices to get a big crowd hear our Jesus story. In Africa since people are not busy all the time, it is so easy to gather a huge crowd especially when you use a music system and public address system.
It was not easy to penetrate some of the jungles and villages with the gospel, since most of them do not believe in Jesus and are bound by witch craft but with much prayer, people begun to be delivered and to come to Christ.
We would carry hand outs like used clothes, to the needy, pray for the sick and support the weak and the elderly with food and other essentials at home.
We started to see fruit as many people started to respond to the gospel and come to Christ one by one. We started to train leaders and plant churches in most of these communities. We stirred revival in every village as hundreds begun to forsake shrines and bars and come to church. At one point in one village several shrines were burnt down and a school of mediums and fore tellers was closed down as people repented and started to come to church. Several witch doctors surrendered their lives to Jesus.
Many forsook their old ways and came to Jesus. People begun to repent of stolen property and all wrong doing and many reconciled with their neighbors and relatives.
We would buy some peace of land for a few people who come to Christ, and build for them a house of worship. It takes around $1200 to buy a piece of land and buy tin for a temporary church shelter. We usually build with mud and wattle since it is a bit expensive to construct with bricks and mortar. Some of the churches still worship under trees and others in rented houses.
Today we have planted 30 churches in villages all around Kabale. We have trained 50 Pastors to take care of these churches to the glory of God.
Please pray for us, we need equipment and a public address system. We also need a truck to help us reach most of these areas without public transportation. Also pray for the hard to reach communities, sometimes our team members are beaten and mistreated. Pray that God will give us the grace to reach the unreached.
For more information write to us at:
jbakashaba@gmail.com

Touching The Community With the Love of Christ

"Blessed is he who is kind to the needy" Proverbs. 14:21

Our community is the most densely populated part of our Kabale. It is a community of very poor people, who have been leaving under the oppression of Satan with a lot of evil like drunkard-ness, adultery and witchcraft. Resulting in many of the household heads dying leaving behind lots of orphans and widows. Many young girls have given birth to children with no responsible fathers. All this have left the community in utter poverty and yet the community does not have any viable source of income or any economic activity.
When the Lord sent us to this community, we started to preach Christ to them and repentance from dead works.
However it became increasingly difficult to win these souls to Christ leave alone bringing them to church, considering the tough situation they go through. The average families take a single meal per day,others take two days without a meal. They live without good clothings, in our first services, it would be the Pastor only putting on shoes. Many people children especially sleep on mats with no beddings.
We asked the Lord for wisdom and a new approach to preach Christ. We started to mobilize friends to give us used clothes and shoes to give to these people. We also started to support some families with food. With support from friends today we feed 30 families every year, who are graduated after training them income generating skills.
Margaret Noblin has been a blessing to most of these families, she and her friends have helped train these widows how to make crafts and jewelry and she has helped get market. Most of these families can now support their children with at least a meal per day.
This has caused a turning point,many families have given their lives to Christ because of the love we have shown to them. Last month we baptized 40 new converts. Many are already serving the Lord and winning their relatives to Christ.
If you want to be a blessing to our community please contact us:
jbakashaba@gmail.com

NEHEMIAH INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES SUPPORT

In 2004 NIM Bible study teacher in her visit to Uganda came to our church and since then, our church and NIM started a good relationship that resulted in NiM supporting 40 students in our church mainly paying their school fees in high school. This gave our children a good foundation for a bright future.
Last year, NiM sent our children shoes and clothes, which were distributed to our youth and Sunday school children. To some of the children because that was the first time to put on shoes, they struggled to fit their feet in the shoes.
The church and the community are so grateful to all NiM friends especially in USA and China for their gifts, you have made a difference in our community.
NiM has also touched the needy families in our community, the one time gift to feed the hungry was received with great joy as many families in our community,especially those who come to church were blessed with potions of food and washing soap for three days.some of the food rations were given to the very poor patients in Kabale Hospital.
The People with disabilities were also blessed by the generous support from NIM. Moses from our community got disabled with polio when he was 10 years, and since then he could only move by crawling. The wooden pieces he had broken. Thank God with support from NIM, he can now walk. He said "I thank God and those he used to give me crutches i can now walk comfortably and be able to go to church".
Recently we distributed the crutches,canes and sticks to a certain organization in our community that takes care of People with Disabilities; most of their patients are people who were involved in accidents, children born with polio and those who have been amputated in hospitals. The in charge was so happy and appreciated our church for being a blessing in the community.
Some of the Medical items sent to us, were donated to the Medical center of our partners in Gaba-Kampala. And the remaining crutches and medical items are yet to be donated to Kabale government hospital.
We are so grateful to NIM and the Montreal Bible Church in Canada for their generous support and their contribution to touch our community with the love of Christ. May the good Lord bless you abundantly.
Kathleen of NIM Bible study have sent us Mp3 cds several times with great teachings from the NIM teacher and they have been a blessing to our church members especially those with access to cd players. May the good Lord bless you all.
If you want to know about NiM and how you can make a difference in our community through NiM please contact Kathleen Farnham at:
farnhamk@mac.com
Or visit NIM website at: www.nimbiblestudy.org

CRYSTAL CHON,AND THE CHRISTMAS GIFT

Chon, a wonderful sister from Califonia, came visiting our church with a team of preachers in 2005. She was so much touched by the numbers of children in our community especially in their desperate state. She was especially moved seeing naked children all over the community, most of them going hungry and many with no opportunity to go to school.
Our community is a slum, that was so much affected by AIDs and other diseases due to prostitution and too much poverty, resulting in too many orphaned children. These depend on the mercies of God to live, many especially boys have had to run away from home and they depend on left overs thrown away in to garbage bins.
When Crystal Chon went back she told the story of her trip to Africa and the suffering https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJwYAuALJMxacpS9M1hoDT9MR4ajE9gLZ5YqwtiBV5A7fXYa-v2CPM0Th2hMJWuZR5oQC43EOzekXfFEvxbwVSxfN91S_8GkdimDBXIwpKJHvOESUFR9p4Z5A8y0DVxYB09heo1pfzxsQ/s1600-h/Sunday+school+kids+in+new+clothes1.jpgchildren in Africa to her friends. She, together with her friends sent to our children a Christmas gift that same year.
With the Christmas gift they sent, we were able to feed 100 children with a good meal and a soda on Christmas day. This was memorable to the children in our community, they have never forgotten this day, since it was their first time to have such a kind of Christmas and they have not had another one like it, since. We also bought clothes for all these children.
Crystal, helped our church buy a desktop computer, that has helped most of our youth to learn computer, to the glory of God. It also helps us to keep our documents.
We are so grateful to Chon and her friends for their generous support.
To know much more on how you can join Chon to bless our children and transform our community please contact her on: cchon@hotmail.com
Or write to us at: jbakashaba@gmail.com

May God bless you.

PARTNERSHIP WITH PEOPLE FOR MISSIONS

MARK & MARGARET COME TO KABALE
Mark and Margaret Noblin who were already missionaries in Uganda, felt a need to visit Kabale at the close of 2005. This however begun of a great relationship that was to bring about a transformation in our community.
In 2006 Margaret felt led to help start an Awana children discipleship club in Kabale. The Kabale church was ready for this with many leaders willing to volunteer to teach and train the little children.
By and by the Lord kept opening one door after another and in 2006, Mark and Margaret signed a relationship of People for Missions and Revival Tabernacle with Pastor Johnson Bakashaba, the Senior Pastor of Revival Tabernacle.
Since then Mark and Margaret have come periodically to Uganda and to Kabale with different teams to minister in the church. Some of the assignments have been helping with House of Hope children, training in Awana and Sunday school, giving out free medication to the community, teaching in the church services,training in crafts and
jewelry and encouraging the saints in the Lord.
If you feel like joining Mark and Margaret on one of the trips to Uganda and to be a blessing some where, please contact Margaret at:margaret_noblin@msn.com


















THE ROCK SPONSORSHIP
In our pursuit to transform our society through educating and training leaders, it became increasingly difficult to pay school fees for students in colleges and Universities because of the big amount of tuition needed.
But along the way, God opened another door. Mark and Margaret are both board members of the Rock capital organization, that has a vision to train godly leaders and therefore helps to sponsor students Christian leaders.
Today the Rock is helping pay tuition for Christine one of our potential leaders in the church at a Nursing institution.

Christine is very happy and the church is very grateful, because after the training, Christine will be more helpful to transform our community and to be a blessing to many people on need.
Plans are also underway to support Sam, another undergraduate leader in our church, who failed to raise tuition in Kabale Christian University, along the way.
There are many other young people most some of whom have completed their studies at high school and need support to go to college.
If you feel you can help make a difference in the lives of these young leaders please contact Margaret Noblin at:margaret_noblin@msn.com
Or visit the Rock Website at:http://rockcapital.org/

AWANA & HOUSE OF HOPE:Transforming the community

AWANA COMES TO KABALE

In the year 2006, God opened a door for our ministry to partner with People for Missions a missionary organization from the USA. God led missionaries Margaret and Mark Noblin to come to Kabale and eventually partner with us.
With the help of Mark and Margaret,we got to know Awana International, a child discipling ministry. And the same year, with Yvonne Pickens, Awana was launched in Kabale-Uganda.
Awana has had a lasting impact on our community. Many boys and girls have committed their lives to Jesus. Former street children are now in the church and ministering in the Sunday school. Because of its impact, some mothers too have come to church and given their lives to Jesus. One Moslem mother later told us,"my child sings praises to Jesus every day and prays in Jesus' name before eating food and before going to bed"
Today the mother is in church and has converted to Christ!
The children here used to fight so much and be involved in a lot of evil but today,children in Awana have influenced the entire community. Children every where sing Jesus.
With support from Preston wood Bible church- Yvonne's church, we were able to purchase Awana uniform for over 100 children and some teaching materials. The community has over 500 children. Our prayer is to win all of them to Jesus.

For more information on how you can help these children please contact Yvonne Pickens at:yvnnpckns@netzero.net

HOUSE OF HOPE -A SHELTER FOR THE HOMELESS

"For i was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me..." Matt 25:35,36

With so many parents having died of different diseases and situations, there was a big problem of shelter for so many children in our community. Many resorted to run to the streets in such of food and shelter.

As one of the ways to transform our community, we agreed with Margaret and Mark that we partner with House of Hope which basically helps to house homeless children and provide them with food, clothing, school fees and medical care.
It wasn't a problem to identify children in need of this kind of help, the problem was to choose from the many. So we decided to choose from the children who were already in Awana and being discipled, to make a good foundation for a start.
In April 2007, House of Hope with support from People for Missions,started in Kabale with 16 helpless children and a house mother who herself in a widow with three children and is a committed Christian and leader in our church.
This has brought about a tremendous impact in our community. It's a living testimony of the love of Christ in the community. Four of the boys are former street children. One lady looked at her son and she cried, she could not believe, she said she had given up on her son.



Children are so grateful, all of them testify that they had lost hope of going to school. John, a former street boy, when he stepped in the gate screamed, "God has remembered me". To some this was the very first experience to sleep on a bed with a mattress and bedsheets. To many it was a miracle to have a single meal in a day. Prossy, one of the girls testified recently that she would use one book for all subjects, she would tear the book and make several other small exercise books.
We are so grateful to every one supporting this children in the House of Hope.
For more information on how you can join in to support these children and many more like them, please contact us at: jbakashaba@gmail.com

KABALE CHILD SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM- Giving helpless children an opportunity to go to School

"All your children shall be taught by the Lord,and great shall be the peace of your children." Isaiah 45:13
We felt that if we have to transform our community then one of the primary goals would be to equip future potential leaders out of this community through education. We felt that if we helped take the children of this community to school as we disciple them, then that way we would be able to preserve the word of God for the next generation and thus bring about transformation in the community. It wasn't going to be easy,but we started with few children as a family and then the church got involved.
Soon, with help from a few friends here and there and we were able to put back to school 40 children who had dropped out of school for lack of school fees; these were in both primary and secondary levels of education.


In the picture is Pastor Johnson and Pastor Michael, the associate pastor with some of the 40 children.




Though hard, we struggled on and on, raising funds in a hard way, but our desire remained to take the children of our community to school.


The majority of parents can't afford to take their children to school because they are very poor. Besides, most of the parents are single mothers who got children with irresponsible fathers and others are widows and relatives. The rest of the children are orphans without any one to run to for help. Our community is full of thousands of children in a helpless state. Some don't have a place they call home,they sleep from place to place, with no bed or beddings. Eating a meal a day to many is a miracle, some children spend two days without food. This has caused many children to run to the street in search of company, shelter in unfinished buildings and food from garbage bins.

We started praying that God would bring our way, people that will support us in our pursuit to touch our community with the love of Christ.
In July 2007, God joined our hearts with Jeff & Whitney from Elk city, who have a heart for helping children with education. God knitted their hearts with Darlene from Texas who committed herself to meet administration costs to start up a child sponsorship program for our community to help raise support for a hundred needy children, to start with.
Today 33 children are fully sponsored.God has opened for us an opportunity to take young children to school, through a child sponsorship program with friends from the USA. A donation of $35 per month, one can take a child to primary school;paying school fees, buy a uniform and a pair of shoes, give lunch to the child and pay for health care.
You will be given all the information about the child you will sponsor for he or she will be like your child and you can keep hearing from the child or children every month.
Thank you all who are sending gifts to sponsor a child, your gifts are already making a difference. May God bless you.

For more information to know how you can help to transform a child's life, please in this way contact: Jeff and Whitney at: whitney-123@hotmail.com

PASTOR JOHNSON BAKASHABA

ABOUT ME

I was born in 1968 in Kabale Uganda. I lost my parents at an early age. I grew up with my relatives, who picked me up and raised me as their own child. They took me to school up to secondary school. My dream was to become a Medical Doctor, but calamity befell me in 1987, when my uncle who was paying my school fees died. I dropped out of school and started to help my auntie with business. Around then i gave my life to Jesus and a new life begun as i found new hope in Jesus Christ. God called me into ministry in 1988, i joined Bible school in 1989 for three years after which i started to serve in Pastoral ministry in our local church. God led me to start the present ministry in 1997 in a slummy place part of Kabale. We started 5 people but have grown today to 200 people. We have planted 30 churches in western Uganda.
I am married to Margaret and we have 3 children and 5 adopted children.
Because of the good seed of compassion my foster parents planted in,God has put a burden upon me to take care of helpless children. I spent my very first earnings to take orphans to school. My home is a shelter to home less ad suffering children. My desire has always been to see disadvantaged children go to school, have shelter, food and clothing.
I thank God for different people he has brought my way to make this dream a reality. May the good Lord bless you abundantly.
For more information write to us at: jbakashaba@gmail.com or call us at:256-772-564449

REVIVAL TABERNACLE MINISTRIES

BACKGROUND:

When God sent us in this slum, you could literally see no hope for such a community. People here were drunkards, prostitutes and murderers. And most of them bound by the evil spirit of witchcraft.The community has no economic activity for income, they basically depend on casual labors and small businesses. There is too much poverty in the land and because of a lot of prostitution there are so many children loitering on the streets, most of whom have lost their parents to diseases like HIV/AIDS. Other children are born of single mothers and child mothers. With no help these run to the streets for begging and many turn into thieves and the girls into prostitutes. Because most parents can't afford school fees, the majority of the children don't go to school. We started to pray and to reach out to the community with the gospel of salvation through Christ. However it became increasingly difficult to transform the entire community without meeting their basic needs especially feeding, clothing, medical care and education.
We pray that God will bring our way,people who can join hands with us to reach this community with the love of Christ.
For more information on how you can help, reach us by e-mail on: jbakashaba@gmail.com

THE BUGONGI COMMUNITY

Bugongi as our community is called in Kabale is derived from the English word "algae" which normally grows in swampy places or water logged places.
Bugongi used to be extremely water logged and swampy and most of the lad was covered with water. Even now, during the rainy season many parts remain water logged.
This has resulted in children in the community ever being sickly with water borne diseases like diarrhoea, worms and malaria because of mosquitoes.
Not only are children affected, but even the adults are sick from time to time and many have died of diseases like Malaria. Malaria has claimed the most of lives in our village next to AIDS.
We thank God for friends who have periodically donated drugs to treat the sick people in our community.
The Bugongi community in Kabale as it is called, was known as a place of a lot witchcraft and idolatry, when we first came in, in 1997. There was also a lot of prostitution and drunkards coupled with thieves, robbery and murder.
Men and women alike were spending their little earnings on alcohol. Most of the girls in the community had resorted to prostitution for money and live hood but ended with unwanted pregnancies and given birth to children without responsible fathers. Some of the children do not know their fathers. And end up loitering the streets in search of food and sometimes stealing. Unfortunately most of the girls in the community have ended up dying of AIDS. It is a big problem for children to go to school because many families have up to ten children most of who are grandchildren or distant relative who are in most cases orphans. When we reached here the situation was beyond our capacity.
We launched out in prayer and intercession with a lot fasting and supplication.
With time we broke the strongholds of the devil and people begun to repent of their evil ways and run to church for salvation and hope in Christ. Witchdoctors begun to run away to other places because the community was becoming too hot for their witches and evil spirits. One stubborn witchdoctor was struck by the hand of God as he vehemently started to fight against the church, he died in one week. Bars too, started to close down one by one, there was a bar after every two houses, but now they were closing down. One man though he has not come to Christ, turned his bar into a shop. There was a house near the church with a small room housing 20 prostitutes, with prayer, most of them turned to Christ and the rest abandoned prostitution for other jobs in town. Some have since got married.The church was now filled with former prostitutes and drunkards.
Within five years the church shelter was too small for the growing numbers. We started to pray that that God would provide land that would house the church. In 2002 God provided a piece of land where we have since put a temporally church structure.
We are praying that God will provide funs to build a house of worship that will accommodate the growing numbers of people that are turning to Jesus as their master and Lord every week.
Today we have a membership of 200 believers, and the numbers are still growing. People are happy, they now have a place they call home, though it is still temporary.
Revival Tabernacle is home for several ministries, that target helping needy children and orphans to raise them into godly leaders. We also have ministries that target women, discipleship and Missions.
With several ministries like House of Hope, Child sponsorship program, Food distribution-Mercy ministry, Awana children discipleship and Sunday school, Rock University scholarship Kabale chapter, and Evangelism, we need a stronger and bigger building for offices and meetings and members need a auditorium for worship services in order to grow into God honoring leaders.
Please pray for us as we aim at reaching more and more people in our community until Bugongi is totally transformed.
Our vision is to build a Christian school to help teach our children in a god fearing way. We also plan to build children homes in the community as well as a community clinic.
With your prayers this vision will one day become a reality.
If you want to be part of this, write to Pastor Johnson at: jbakashaba@gmail.com

The path of the just is like a shining light

TESTIMONY
From a humble beginning, Pastor Johnson Bakashaba was born in Butobere, Kabale in Uganda, and was called of God to reach nations for Christ and to bring a difference in the lives of many people.
Though he didn't grow up with his parents, well wishers brought him up and paid his school fees and this later made a turning point in his life. While staying with his Auntie, he got a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, and was later commissioned to serve God for the rest of his life. The support from his Auntie made a lasting impact upon his life to take care of the unprivileged, the orphans and the poor.
Today Hundreds of people have been blessed and changed through his ministry.
To the desperate and hopeless he has given hope through Christ, to the poor and those in need he has offered a helping hand, he is a father to many orphans and a pastor to many saints. He cries with those that are mourning and comforts those in despair. He strengthens the weak and uplifts the lowly. He helps the helpless and offers shelter to the destitute.
We thank God for him. To us, he is a gift from God.
May God grant him long life, so that many will be blessed through him.
-Members of Revival Tabernacle