COME AND SEE THAT YOU MIGHT BELIEVE

'Come and See that you might believe'

It is class time at NGCS after a month and a half of recess! Learning resumed on Monday, August 9th, 2021 with 25 students in class.  We are so blessed to have Brother John Antony Fewks from Hillcrest Church of Christ, Abilene TX with us to do a class on the Book of John. This is an elective course attended by both online and full-time students. John is using a book he wrote called" John on John: Come and See so that you might believe". A very interesting title there.

John and his wife Jacque, run a printing ministry known as Global Seedsowers that primarily creates and prints materials that aid the church's teaching and preaching ministry for free. We are so glad he found time to be at NGCS. Going by the student's assessment, John's presentation skills rate is very high. This necessitated a need for another appointment next year, as the Lord wills. 

John in class (10/08/21)

Come and see so that you might believe has become the talk within the school corridors.  After this, John flies out to South Sudan on Saturday afternoon for another week to teach a class at the Bor Vocational Centre. We look forward to yet another exciting time with a seminar on how to Teach Children with MS Carl Thompson, beginning on Monday, August 16th, 2021. Come and see so that you might believe the Lord Jesus is the messiah, and Savior at NGCS, and His command, we call the Great Commission.

Kongoi Winyo Church of Christ

From all of us at NGCS we say Kongoi missing (thank you so much) for blessing our kitchen with a bag of 90 kg of maize. This will save the school KShs8,000 meant for corn flour for 3 weeks.  This indeed is a reminder to us that NGCS is greatly indebted to the church locally. Such a gift speaks volumes before the Lord, in matters doing the Great Commission. Winyo Church is a congregation that abounds in love and a passion for missions. Their constant engagement with NGCS through sending and sponsoring students here, facilitating our ordination and graduation ceremonies, is a clear testament of such a commitment. We proudly say we are you.

Loading at Winyo church compound(10/08/21)

I acknowledge receipt of your blessings on behalf of the school. We are all overjoyed with this gift.  Please, know that you have pioneered this path.  If I would appeal to the Kenyan church, I would say, Winyo Church has shown us what is doable.  To the elders and leadership at Winyo church, Ladies of Hope ministry, sister Florence, and Janet, and all those that prayed for the school driver back to Nairobi, we thank you so very much. 

The gift was received in Nairobi (11/08/21.

 

MY STORY AND MY NEEDS

NGCS Matt. 28: 18-

By Frezer Mustafa Badi, NGCS

 To begin with back in South Sudan, I lived in Yei County of central Equatoria state with my family members where I was working in our home clinic. Due to growing of insecurity in the country, I personally left South Sudan in the year 2016/07/07 up to date due to civil war in the country that had displayed over millions and claimed over thousands lives of south Sudanese citizens based on killing and torturing of innocent people by the government soldiers and rebel soldiers where it caused panic and fear in the hearts of people.

       I final decided to cross to Congo first before coming to Uganda where i moved on foot from Yei town to Congo through the bush after escaping a narrow death after leaving my house in the evening some group of gunmen reached to my house to attack me but the good thing, I left early they only collect my belonging that night and they killed our close neighbors that same night but God was on my side

        After staying in Congo for six months later some of my brothers joined me there then we planned to leave from Congo to the border with Uganda where there are registering refugees. After registration we were taken to a refugee settlement of Palorinya under Obongi district but still in the camp has time go by life wasn’t easy depending on food from UNCHR eight kgs per person for one month sometimes we finished before the end of the month! We only survived by grace of God without parents that was in the year 2017. By this time, I was studying the word of God through WBS under the study help of Brant Gaddi.  After going through all the lessons, I wanted to be baptized. I was directed to one, Achan who immersed me into Christ on January 30^th, 2018, in the refugee camp. I live to remember this day.

 

 

In 2018, connected my brother Amos Alemi with world Bible school. We started attending services in Jerusalem under church of Christ located in morobi zone three camp tank 26. So, after he finished WBS lessons and baptized, he had a chance of coming to study in Kenya through his study helper when he was coming, he left in the camp as I continue struggling with life alone but God was graceful. I was employed in one of the organizations under medical sector where I work as Nurse aid in the camp.

 Early 2021, I asked my brother Amos Brother Amos if I could join him at NGCS to study the word of God together. Amos tabled my request before the NGCS Principal, of a man from Uganda to come and study the word of God.  I take it positively because he is my savior and sustain in the camp, my request was approved by the Principal of Nairobi Great Commission School for me to be here. But the challenge was that there was no passport to cross the border of Uganda and Kenya. But when I asked him, he helped me by connecting me with one of his friends working in migration office in the border he helped me to cross to Kenya via Busia border line to reach safely in Nairobi without disturbance. That is briefly how I came to be in Nairobi Great Commission School today. I think the East African community Spirit works here.

 About my relatives most of them are in South Sudan, but a few are in Uganda side of West Nile Region Koboko and Arua district. My daddy and mom I left in South Sudan with some of my brothers and a sister. My parents are not educated due to insecurity in the country. It was unfortunate my father got accident in the year 1996, when I was about three years he was shot by a gunman on his left leg. Later on, he was brought to Kenya for further treatment where it led to one of his legs to be imputed, he survives with one leg. We thought that will be his last day to breath but God was great to him. That left him as disable person right now which leads to some of brothers not to have access to school with me and one of my brothers our Aunty help   us to bring us in her home in Uganda to have access to studies. Early this year that aunty of mine passed away when I was already here in Nairobi.  Just after a week later, my nephew was shot dead by some groups of gunmen within South Sudan in Yei County.

That is few information about my relatives.

        My need for the training in Bible and mission at NGCS is to:

1.       To be fully equipped for the ministry that God has called me to serve

2.       To nurture me and develop in God’s word.

3.       To have good knowledge about doctrine of the Bible which will enable me to defend the word of God with biblical knowledge

4.       To learn more about how to win souls to Christ because without training you will always miss how to approach people in the community and beyond.

5.       To give a healthy message to unreached people about the kingdom of God and the important of been born again in Christ. With this few are priority to my ministry.

Followed by my future plans after here Nairobi Great Commission Great School if I will have someone to support me, I need to continue with theology up to degree. To be missionary in future to meet many other people across the world with the Gospel that is my heart to serve God faithfully in the future plans based on the knowledge to work with other people in the ministry. Not only that in the future I need to see majority of my family members getting saved that is my prayers for now based on my trust in the Lord. In the future I also plan to do other courses that will help me in ministry because I love to serve life of people especially in medical where I have knowledge about it. In future, I need to have theological seminary school in South Sudan and clinic which will help us to do missionary work effectively.

 MY VISION BACK IN SOUTH SUDAN OR UGANDA.

1.       My vision in Uganda and South Sudan is to see majority of the people reached with the Gospel.

2.       To have a big team that will always be ready to go out for mission.

3.       My vision is to have partners to do ministry work with them.

4.       My vision is to plant churches around Uganda and South Sudan. 

MY CURRENT NEEDS IN HERE IN THE SCHOOL.

1.       Dressing coat which includes clothes and shoes

2.       Computer

3.       Bag for keeping my properties safe

4.       Money for Personal effects. Those are the financial support that you may help with if possible.

    There’s need for psychological advice, sometimes I over think about my young brothers back in South Sudan how to help them to go to school. It has real tortures my life. I need to see them in school because there are still in a war zone.

   For the one who will read this short story about my life be blessed.

 

                                 (Mustafa Frazer Badi, NGCS Year I, 2021/2022 cohort)

 

NAIROBI GREAT COMMISSION SCHOOL (NGCS)

WHAT I CAN ASCERTAIN FROM THE ACCOUNTANT/FINANCE ADMINISTRATOR’S OFFICE

 

Hello to you all!

 

My name is John Githige, I am married to Lilian Wamweru, we are blessed with two daughters namely; Bancy and Beverly.  I remain thankful to God for His abundance blessings.

I joined NGCS back in the year 2012, this is my nineth year in service. I appreciate this God given opportunity to serve in Christ’s Kingdom.

Since joining NGCS, I have seen the school admit many students coming from different back grounds with diverse needs, of which some are financial while others are more of psychosocial needs.

Nevertheless, we thank God who has used our staff team and many other stakeholders; continue to diligently serve in this noble calling ministry.

Additionally, we can’t go out without mention of our various Churches both locally and abroad mainly in the United States who have come out to partner with NGCS.

We also acknowledge Organizations and Individuals who have also extended their assistance in prayers and financial support which has enabled continuity for NGCS serving in God’s Kingdom.

Consequent to the partnership with our various partners & stakeholders, NGCS has continued to roll out graduands for the last thirty years. The impact of NGCS to the community and more also to the Church of Christ family has been phenomenal.

Many of our graduands are making a commendable impact out there in different sectors offering service to the communities around them, be it in Church Ministry through planting of more churches, education field, empowering the less privileged and broken families.  Some have ventured into medical and sanitization sector in rural villages and urban slums. This is just to mention few examples but all in all, we acknowledge the immense contribution NGCS has made which comes as an encouragement and a consequent challenge for us to strive even more.

As the staff in charge of finances let me point out that on behalf of NGCS we appreciate our partners who have come out to assist the institution in realizing its clarion call: The Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20) through their kind generosity in financial support.

1.       On our part as NGCS we continuously target to raise finances locally through available streams of revenue such as fees collection from our students and coming up with income generating projects, an example: we supply water to a few neighbors from our School Borehole.

2.       One of our greatest struggles has been realizing the fees from our students due to the fact that majority of them come from very humble family and church backgrounds, where poverty cases are predominant.  As a result, the projected target of fees collection is hardly met.

3.       As a school we juggle around with the finances given by our partners, realized fees collected together with what has been raised from the income generating streams.

4.       Consequently, as The Finance Administrator I find myself running an Accounts’ Office with a budget deficit. Therefore, am compelled to readjust and address only the vital budget lines and postpone some of the school activities up to when funds are available. E.g.  When our students are on semester holiday break our operationally expenses come down marginally, and therefore to some extent the budget deficit is cushioned with the regular incoming financial support. However, this approach has not been very much successful. Another aspect which has tremendously helped in solving the budget constrain is one-time ad hoc support from well-wishing organizations and individuals. These has been a reprieve in many instances.

5.       NGCS has endeared to be accountable with the availed resources. Through the NGCS Board, accountability measures are well in place and we always engage our partners with regular financial reports and overseeing that accountability systems remain in place. We also carry out external annual audit and comply with the generally accepted accounting standards. As a trained Certified Public Accountant (CPA) I have been able to accordingly advise and ensure NGCS maintains a solid and sound finance office.

As I conclude I thank God who has enabled our various partners in walking with us through. We encourage you our dear partners to continue praying for NGCS as you are an integral partner looking back since the inception and establishment of NGCS.

I also would like to encourage more Organizations, Churches and Individuals to pray with us and any in kind assistance to NGCS will be much welcome.

We are currently targeting to raise funds to modify our office block which we inherited from our founding missionaries. The current office block was essentially a residential bungalow house which we intend to convert it to a one storey building. By so doing, we target to create more classroom space for training our students. We have shared our projected budget with our current partners as we look forward to engage more partners to this noble cause.

Thank you all in Christ!

NGCS Finance Office:

 John Githige

 THE ESSENCE OF LIFE   

Life can mean different things to different people, depending on their life orientations, experiences, and religious, or held beliefs and practices. Therefore, life seems to elucidate different answers from different perspectives and standpoints. In another's context, life entails all that is there to be seen, conquered, and experienced, in an atmosphere of personal fulfillment; based on a given set of human standards and measures of success. 

A student of conventional  inquisitive studies and discovery, may easily and obviously reach a conclusion that  there is no definite answer in the subject of what id life? Again, he/she falls victim of skewed interpretation of what life really is. The cycle continues on and on.

When this is the case, all  human competition across cultures, is goaled towards achieving that is which the essence of life, based on the contextualized definition of life. Further still, some may adopt a hybrid type of definition of life, as borrowed from distant human cultures in history; or a observed through media and the present day global interactions.

Over the centuries, the question of what  life really is has dogged philosophers, religious, and political systems without count. Any serious Soul seeking to find out what the essence of life is, will make a departure from  existing simplistic and narrow paths seeking to define the essence of life. 

With such an effort, need arises to get to the root and the very genesis of things. If for and by way of philosophy, nothing can be or exist by itself whatsoever, then life cannot be by itself. An effort to understand world history, takes a student of history to down to the achieves of history in order such for answers  from past and present historians perspectives.

In the same way, a journey to the discovery of the essence of life takes serious students to the creator of all things. How does He define life, and the essence of life. In an by all means, this discovery can only be made possible from the creator's own  manual, the Bible.  An encounter with statements made by Jesus, the very author of life will help one to comprehensively and logically reach a conviction about not only the meaning of life, but the very essence of life. 

In John 14:6, Jesus made a very heavy and loud statement, " I am the way, the truth and the life".. (NIV). The question then could be, how can Jesus claim to be the way, the truth, and the life? In a world full of many "ways" of doing things, where truth is considered relevant to one's orientation, and the meaning of life has numerous answers, Jesus seems very confident, in this discourse with his disciples.

What I find interesting is in verse John  14:29. That he says these things before they happen so that the disciples can believe when they come to be. That a time was going to unfold when he would be the way. the truth, and the life. At least for them not to be troubled with our present day.

In the John 17:2, Jesus dialogues with His father in prayer, as his disciples listen to him. Again, he claims that God gave him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to those that the father had given him. Beautiful. At least he clears the mystery of  who the way to the father is, and who gives eternal life. 

The essence of life is simply knowing Christ, the author of both earthly life, and eternal life. To know him, be found in him, and to make him known to others, by way of preaching the gospel, the way of Salvation. This is what NGCS students endeavor to achieve in and with their training at NGCS.

Paul teaching a class on personal development

Harun Miheso teaching a class on OT Survey

A volleyball game after class, not a bad idea

 Founded on the Lord's very commission ' ... Therefore,  go and make disciples of all nations, (Mat.28:18-20,NIV), NGCS has existed to do exactly that since 1990. A visit to NGCS main campus, will not be a visit until you  appeared in a signature photo, with a background reading, 'Equipping Christians in Holistic ministry and missions., To provide Transformative Training in Church planting and maturing towards unity for Christ'. These two statements sums up the vision and mission of NGCS.

Over the years, the School has strived to live to its founding objectives despite the many challenges common with any preacher training School. God has confirmed his grace immeasurably by providing both resources and direction for the School in otherwise very difficult times. 

Md Sussy Nandama teaching English at NGCS -22/01/21

Just like many sectors in the society, the advent of Covid-19 pandemic, reorganized the school in a big way. For the first time, the School created an e-learning platform to ensure that learning was going to take place as the World was battling with the pandemic. Just as the saying, need is the mother of discovery, the School administration in conjunction with the Board, moved with  speed to develop the e-learning platform, which has now become a very popular way of instructing not only at NGCS but in Kenya as well.

However, there were a myriad of challenges to this mode of learning as experienced here. They ranged from the Country's unpreparedness for e-life, poor power connectivity in the towns and villages where NGCS students come from, lack of smart gadgets that would enhance e-learning, lack of skills from both the students and lecturers, and unreliable electricity in Kenya. At the end of the day, one would take a deep breathe ... we managed. How, by the help of God. 

Despite the challenges experienced with the program, there was a 55% success in the first semester and 90% success in the second semester. The  school's education committee and the board, held separate sittings to better things in the second semester and the future. Today, the school has adopted a hybrid mode of instruction. This means that every class at NGCS is hosted in the Big blue button, that enables recording and joining by all registered students from their most convenient places possible. There are 6 students taking online classes, and 16 others taking a residential program from Nairobi campus.

A section of the class at NGCS

Joshua Ogada -IT class -25/01/21

Charles Ngoje teaching-22/01/21

Students in IT class -25/01/21

Have you ever seen a miracle? Yes, a miracle. Am sure by and large, my blog will draw readership largely from the Churches of Christ far and beyond. The subject of miracles raises endless theological submissions. Even from the best brains and scholars within the brotherhood.  This year, God taught us without count that Him alone can do miracles, anyway, anywhere, anytime. He is not limited to any particular context nor generation. The scripture is fulfilled in our very own times, 'The Lord shows mercy to whom he choses to'

A miracle in my context means and must mean going against the natural laws, science, and worldly wisdom. For my case, it refers to doing what only the divine power can do, through human or supernatural agents(empowered), or direct  action from the heavens. 

Brother Charles Odoyo Ngoje is back from the 'abyss'! Yes, the abyss. Late last year, were were struck with bad news that elder Charles had contracted the deadly Covid! It sounded like the first one week, he was not going to make it! His close family members painted a glimpse picture of let's  hope... The Lord overturned the natural laws to allow him live again! Praise be unto His name in the heavens in Christ Jesus name!

In a close talk with him after his class at NGCS, Charles said " I don't know how I fell sick, but I know the Lord has spared me with some longer time here. Perhaps to do different things differently" This is so amazing. One would recognize his composed and authoritative voice, but his struggles to walk straight and with his profound agility were observable. 

However, Charles has a very bold resolve not to be put down by his feeble muscles, but to be alert in the Holy Spirit's power to do his roles at his family, Winyo Church, and NGCS.  Brother Charles needs our prayers as he recovers fully by the Lord's grace. 

NGCS needs prayers from men and women that will care to trust that the Lord can do new things at the School. The the students in class here are being reset in their minds to meet with the porter. Please, pray for their health, families and ministries. 

It cannot be complete without thanking  our ministry partners for standing with NGCS over the years. More so, in this very last 10 months after Covid-19 pandemic changed many people's fortunes in a strange way. You chose not to drop NGCS from your list of burdens. To God we feel indebted for you forever. To the Churches, ministries, and individuals that have entrusted us with their students, we are you. Because of you, we remain standing.  We give all of you our promise, we will do our best by His help to train these men and women as the good Lord wills. 

Your servant in Him,

George Onchangwa Matangi