We (Denny and Cassie Nuwagaba) learned about Good Soil Evangelism and Discipleship after our pastor and Sam, another man from our church, attended a Good Soil seminar in Grand Rapids, MI. Sam introduced us to some of the Good Soil materials. And he offered to go with us to ABWE in Harrisburg, PA to participate in Good Soil training in order that we could be equipped to train others using the Good Soil seminar resources.

Because we were planning to go to Uganda (Denny’s home country) to be missionaries, our pastor thought it would be a good idea for us to learn the worldview-relevant approach to evangelism that Good Soil teaches. One of the biggest challenge to successful ministry in Uganda is confronting the false religious teachings that Good Soil calls “worldview noise.”

Soon after learning about Good Soil, in May 2014 we attended a Good Soil seminar at ABWE and learned a lot of helpful concepts about effective cross-cultural evangelism and discipleship. They taught us how to penetrate worldview noise using the Bible’s Big story—presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ beginning in Genesis. And we fell in love with the Good Soil resources, especially The Story of Hope and The Way to Joy.

Later in the year after attending the seminar, we made a trip to Uganda and presented Good Soil to a ministry that works with university students, a ministry that we are part of called The Fine Pearls. When we returned home, we emailed Gil Thomas at Good Soil to tell him about our trip. Soon after that, someone from ABWE contacted us and encouraged us to consider joining ABWE. After meeting with Kyle Farran, ABWE’s Regional Administrator for East Africa, we realized that ABWE would provide the accountability that we needed. So, we attended an ABWE Candidate Seminar and were appointed as missionaries with ABWE to Uganda in March 2016.

In April 2017, we took a “vision trip” to Uganda, along with the pastor of our sending church (Gowen Bible Church) and several other friends. A couple of months prior to the trip, we announced to our church that we would like to take 100 copies of The Story of Hope with us on the trip and God provided the funds for these books.

This visit to Denny’s homeland gave us an opportunity to spend time with his family and friends. But it was primarily a wonderful ministry experience for all of us, as well as a vision-building opportunity. Kyle Farran flew in from Tanzania to help us develop a vision and think about ministry strategy.

We visited Kamuli, a drought-stricken district in Eastern Uganda that is roughly five hours from Kampala, Uganda’s capital and largest city. Pastor Sosan, the pastor of a church in Kamuli, invited us to participate in a church service. Denny and others from our team shared The Story of Hope in the service and talked to the congregation about discipleship. Eight people in the congregation professed to put their faith in Jesus in that service.

The following day, Pastor Sosan assembled pastors from surrounding villages. Our team talked to them about true discipleship. Even though some had come expecting to learn how to expand their congregations and increase their offerings, when they heard what we had to share about the true gospel they were excited and desired to learn more.

Over the next few days, we had several opportunities to minister in needy homes, a school, an orphanage, and a church that meets under a small tree in the village of Namayumba, about an hour outside of Kampala.

This vision trip solidified God’s calling in our lives to go to Uganda to evangelize people whose minds are filled with and confused by false teachings. We want to ground them firmly in true Biblical teaching. Our worldview-relevant Good Soil training and Good Soil resources, will help us to share God’s story of hope in Uganda in a way that people will (hopefully) clearly understand the gospel, sincerely embrace it, so that they will firmly hold on to it.

Would you consider joining us as missionaries in Uganda? We'd love to hear from you.

-Denny and Cassie Nuwagaba (nuwagabasonmission@abwe.cc)

Learn more about The Story of Hope and The Way to Joy resources: