After our restful day visiting the source of the Nile River in Jinja, we drove for a few hours to Mbale for a youth conference. We unpacked our bags at a guest house (hotel/motel), and drove the two minutes to the girls’ school where the conference was held. School was not in session, so they had accommodation and room for the 800 students attending the conference. While the conference was a student ministry conference, the ages of the attendees ranged from 10 to 27.

The theme of the conference was 2 Timothy 2:15, which encourages, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.” Each day began at 5am with individual quiet times until 6:30am. Breakfast then lasted until around 7:45am, which was followed by a time of worship and Bible exposition. Then, from 8:30am-4pm, hour long sessions informed the students of the Biblical approach to understanding many different topics. Ralph and I chose two of the topics before leaving for Uganda, so we brought our prepared lessons. We were not expecting it, but when we arrived, we were seated on stage, even during the sessions. This is a cultural way of doing things with which we soon became more comfortable.

In my lessons, I encouraged the students in the area of evangelism and being the light in the darkness. My Scripture passage was John 1 because there we see Jesus Christ setting the pace as a light into the darkness. His journey to earth to bring the truth about God was the ultimate evangelistic action. We also see that John the Baptizer used his existence to point to the truth of Jesus. The phrase I repeated was, “If you have the light, then shine it into the darkness!” I also had the privilege of sharing is a second session about some practical tools for sharing the Gospel and being the light in the darkness of the world. This includes the G.O.S.P.E.L. acronym I mentioned in the previous blog post, as well as the Cause Circle.

Here’s how THE Cause Circle works, as described on the Dare 2 Share website:

You have 100 times more influence on your friends than a stranger does! THE Cause Circle is a simple tool that will help you be purposeful about sharing Jesus' message with your friends. It will help you identify your friends, and then remind you to pray, to pursue spiritual conversations, and to persuade them to consider Jesus' message.

Here's how it works.

Write the names of your friends in the center of THE Cause Circle. Identify three friends you want to share the gospel with, then write their names in the "pray" section of the circle. As you find opportunities to pursue spiritual conversations with these friends, advance their name to the "pursue" area of the circle. Then go back and add another friend's name to the "pray" section. When you have opportunities to go deeper in your spiritual conversations with your friends, move those friends forward along the circle to the "persuade" section. Your hope is that over time you will be able to persuade all your friends to:

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  • Accept Christ
  • Belong to a Church
  • Commit to THE Cause

After I shared about evangelism, Ralph was able to put some flesh onto the structure that I had described to the students. He talked about his personal experiences in sharing the Gospel with his unsaved friends. In addition to this, he encouraged the students not to give in to the temptations of the world. He encouraged them to be the next generation that will stand up for God and for the truth.

For some of these sessions, Emily and Theresa sat with us on stage, but for some of the other sessions, they enjoyed working with the men and women who were preparing food and cleaning the dishes for the next meal. Through this, they were able to engage in conversation with the Ugandans and learn about some of the cultural cooking methods and strategies. Between the sessions, we enjoyed talking with many of the students and even exchanging email addresses and contact information.

It was a great encouragement for us to see the zeal and excitement of the kids during the sessions and especially worship time. We also had the opportunity to share the gospel with a few of the people we met at the guest house, including the owner who is a Muslim. He didn’t place his trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but the truth was proclaimed into his life and mind. The Lord is working throughout the world!