Supporting the church in its mission to the world is very much at the heart of who we are. Encouraging the church in our supporter countries to realise its mandate to help the broken and poor, and training the church in our partner countries to be the people God calls them to be form the two sides of our call. It is in the partner countries that the Comfort International Ministry School (CIMS) works to equip the church leaders.
At present, it is in Uganda where the demand for training keeps growing. There are now two Foundation Certificate classes at the towns of Busia and Mbale in the east of the country, as well as a Diploma level in Busia. I was blessed in mid-March to spend just over a week there, teaching The Messianic Hope in the Old Testament to Foundation Certificate students and Ephesians to Diploma level.
There have been around a dozen Kenyan pastors (pictured below) crossing the border to attend the training and they have formed a committee with the hope of beginning CIMS there. Resourcing another CIMS would be a big challenge so do pray for that.
We like to keep tabs on whether we are meeting the need and it was heartening to hear from many students how helpful the training has been. It is noticeable how living in an environment of faith and a far greater expectation and experience of spiritual realities shapes the lives of many of the students. Sadiki (below left) was a muslim who felt ‘the Christian God’ was weak until his home was robbed and God gave him a vision of where thieves had buried his belongings and he went to the forest and found them there. Ounda Rosette (below right) was also woken by God speaking to her to go to the training and the church she leads is now flourishing. It is encouraging that her assistant pastor got saved at the CIMS crusade led by Marilyn Harry a few years ago! We visited her church on the Sunday where I preached and witnessed the church pretty much at capacity.
The present conflict in Eastern DRC had cast some shadows over the possibility of the training taking place but we praise God it was able to go ahead. 108 pastors (including some Church Evangelists) attended, with some of them having travelled from South Kivu for three days including an 8-hour boat journey. There is a request to replicate the training in South Kivu and again that would be a considerable stretch on resources and would need God to really step in!
We had bought some mattresses for the CIMS training and many of the students slept in the church throughout the training. Some of the women of the church cooked food for the training – usually a plain but tasty plate of Irish potatoes, rice, beans and a piece of local beef.
The training went well with the first module being The Story of Salvation in the Old Testament. It took place at Bethlehem church, which is the church Dieudonné leads. This training is covering the Methodist church leaders of North and South Kivu as a starting point but we would trust that further training will broaden church participation and also bring in more women. On the Sunday I was invited to preach to the church and it was heartening to see the church at capacity with extra seats being put out for a good hour after the service began. The day before (Saturday) the training had to be suspended for a couple of hours as a wedding took place and it was good see Les Adorateurs (The Children of Liberty choir) take part in that celebration.
The situation of the church leaders at the training is hugely challenging. Constant war, poverty, hunger, displacement brings great pressures on both them and their people. However, the training felt like a real oasis of feeding on God’s word, fellowshipping and praying together and of the people of God from outside Congo standing together with those dear brothers and sisters and it was a special time.
As mentioned above, please do continue to pray for CIMS – the requests and opportunities to expand the programme are constantly growing. At present we have requests to restart in Rwanda, expand to South Kivu in DRC, start training in Kampala, Uganda and expand the training over the border to Kenya. The personnel and funds to do this would be a considerable increase so we really need to know it is of God and to find partners in delivery of the training and resourcing.
