“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
by Michael Omondi
Every believer who is truly following Jesus has this burden for God’s kingdom: to spread good news to people. First, you start with your community. Your neighborhood becomes your Jerusalem. Every soul that has not been claimed for the Kingdom of God is your kingdom assignment. Winning these souls, or planting a seed of God’s Word in their hearts, depends on your acting to do so, so that in due time when God has them ready for salvation they will come to him. Someone has to go and tell them about this Jesus. After all, some of the great final words of Jesus on earth were, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20).
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| Students preaching the Gospel in Obunga last month |
I have served at Ndoto Community Church for more than a decade now, and I not only love these folks, but also the whole Obunga community at large. My love and desire for seeing the whole of Obunga come to Jesus is still burning every day. Of the things I have witnessed in those years is the openness of people, still to this day, which many consider to be “days of evil,” to hear the message of Jesus Christ. Almost 7 years ago, in 2017, as a pastor of a church mostly full of children and youth, God laid it on my heart to organize a door-to-door evangelism, and the result was a staggering number of adults who weren’t even connected to Ndoto opening their doors for us to come in and share the Word of God with them.
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| Students preaching to a group of motorcyclists last month |
In that year we trained the youth and young adults to come alongside me. As I sat down one week after some evangelism we had done with some Ndoto-sponsored students, I realized how much we still needed to do. The words of Jesus Christ our Lord in Matthew 9 sounded so fresh, as if he was speaking them to my ears. “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'” (Matthew 9:35-38).
I read these words again, and felt sad in my heart for the lost. Out of this came a new zeal to regroup as an organization, as a church and God’s house, to add to the number of people called by Jesus to reach the people in this community. This is how God’s Kingdom comes.
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| Students on door-to-door mission |
The miracles come from being present. Once we visited a neighbor and prayed for him, but he also knew that his landlord was sick, so he took us over there to pray for her, too. The fact that people are willing to not only open their doors to us, but also take us to other houses where people need prayers is a sign from God that a lot of people are thirsty for the Word of God. The people that have come to join our church as a result of the work done by going door-to-door are a constant reminder that if we had laid back and never gone to them, they would have been like all the others who never heard.
People are willing to hear the cry of God’s heart for the church at large, to know that there is still a longing and yearning for your neighbors to come closer to God. Where is your Jerusalem? Obunga is our Jerusalem. This movement has given us the call to now keep training our sponsored youth in evangelism, so that when school is out, together with the staff at Ndoto and our church members we may go out in our community doing outreach with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Out of this student evangelism, Ndoto Community Church is now doing evangelism every Thursday, going door-to-door in different regions of Obunga. People are longing for truth, and the Holy Spirit has given birth to this ministry in our hearts. We say yes Lord, use us, as your church, your people of Obunga working in our own community, our own Jerusalem. We remember clearly the words of Paul who said, ” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)
May the Spirit of Jesus Christ give you the burden to spread His Word in your Jerusalem, as we also labor for Him in Obunga.
