Raising Hands Ministries International

10/05/2026

Yesterday was a Lord’s Day I will carry home in my heart.

Our Raising Hands Ministries team had the privilege of worshipping with Home Fellowship Church in the village of Wailaka, Jinja District, Uganda. The prayers were rooted in faith, the worship was vibrant, and the presence of God’s Spirit was evident throughout the morning.

I preached from a familiar verse… John 3:16. Familiar words, but a message we must never stop hearing:

The cause: “God so loved.”
The cost: “He gave His one and only Son.”
The condition: “Whoever believes in Him.”
The consequences: “Should not perish but have everlasting life.”

God loved. God gave. We believe. We receive life through His Son.

At the close of the message, a middle-aged man responded to the gospel invitation. This was his first visit to Home Fellowship Church and his first time sitting under the teaching of God’s Word. He publicly confessed faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, placing his trust fully in Christ’s finished work on the cross.

He came as a visitor. He left as our brother in Christ.

Following the service, the church served a delicious meal. Each family had contributed toward its provision. As we shared food and fellowship, we received a gift of love from the whole church family.

The day held a special tenderness for me. Home Fellowship Church is jointly pastored by Mugalwe Solomon and Katagwa Samuel Stanley… two former students at Global Theological Seminary. They have now completed their bachelor’s degrees, but they will forever be my sons.

To sit among the people they shepherd, worship alongside them, and see them faithfully serving Christ stirred my heart deeply. We teach and pray, trusting God with what follows. Yesterday, I had the privilege of seeing some of that fruit firsthand.

Thank you, Solomon and Samuel. And thank you to the entire Home Fellowship family for your generous hospitality, your love, and a Lord’s Day well done.

Above all, thank You, Lord, for one more soul brought into Your family.

Forever ON ASSIGNMENT.

10/03/2026

A pastor spends much of his life pouring into others. But who pours into him?

That question is on our hearts here in Kitukiro, Buyende District, Uganda, where our Raising Hands Ministries team is gathered for another three-day Discipleship Boot Camp. We are grateful to Pastor Musimami Peter and Kitukiro Baptist Church for welcoming us.

We are spending these days opening God’s Word together… studying salvation, eternal security, baptism, the Holy Spirit, and other truths essential to the life of the church.

Already, RHMI team member, Jesse, has led two ladies to faith in Jesus Christ following the day’s teaching. Excitement is everywhere.

But there is another need these gatherings meet that we don’t speak about often enough.

In these remote communities, opportunities for biblical instruction are scarce. Opportunities for pastors to enjoy fellowship, worship together, and receive encouragement can be scarce as well. A man may faithfully serve his congregation while having few people with whom he can share the burdens of that calling.

For three days, pastors from some twenty churches, who usually stand before others, get to sit and receive. The one who leads worship gets to worship alongside fellow shepherds. There is room to ask a question, talk through a struggle, and discover that another pastor understands.

There is something precious about hearing a brother say, “I face that too.”

We want these leaders to return home with a clearer understanding of Scripture… and with renewed strength to keep serving the people God has entrusted to them.

This gathering also brought a special encouragement to our hearts: Mukisa Simon and Genius Welison are among the participants. Simon and Welison graduated from RHMI Bible Institute in 2022, when our training site was in the village of Bugabwe, Iganga District. Today, they both pastor a church in this region.

Now here they are again, continuing to learn.

Seeing Simon and Welison reminds us that the work continues long after the training cycle ends. Those we equip go home, open their Bibles, and teach others. They serve families and shepherd churches in places we cannot remain.

Every day we ask God to work through the power of His Word and the moving of His Spirit to change the spiritual roadmap of rural Uganda. We pray for truth to take root, for pastors to grow stronger, and for churches to become more faithful in following Jesus.

Here in Kitukiro with well over two hundred people in attendance, we were reminded again: the calling is real, and the need is urgent.

Please pray for these three days. Pray for those teaching and those receiving. And pray for the pastor who arrived carrying a burden he has not yet found the words to share.

Forever ON ASSIGNMENT.

09/26/2026

There is something special about sitting in a room with pastors and church leaders who have come together for one simple purpose… to open the Word of God and learn. That has been one of the great joys for me this week.

The Raising Hands Ministries team has been teaching at New Life Church in Nakaloke-Namwigalo, Mbale District, Uganda. As I have watched these men and women listen, ask questions, turn through the pages of their Bibles, and wrestle together with what Scripture teaches, I have been reminded again why we come.

These are not merely lessons to be taught and forgotten.

What is being learned in this room will travel home with these leaders. It will find its way into pulpits, Bible study classes, conversations with young believers, and churches throughout this area. When you invest biblical truth in a pastor or church leader, you are investing in all the people they will teach.

We are deeply grateful to Pastor Richard Kabeli and the leadership of New Life Church for graciously hosting this Discipleship Boot Camp. Area pastors and church leaders have gathered with the New Life leadership for several days of opening the Bible, asking questions, sometimes challenging long-held ideas, and searching the Scriptures together.

And that matters more than we sometimes realize.

We have spent considerable time studying some of the great doctrines of the Bible—salvation, eternal security, baptism, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and other foundational truths of the Christian faith.

Why spend precious days talking about doctrine? Because what a church believes eventually determines how that church lives.

When there is confusion about salvation, there will be confusion in evangelism.

When there is confusion about eternal security, believers may live in fear rather than in the assurance of what Christ has accomplished.

When there is confusion about baptism, tradition can easily take the place of biblical conviction.

When there is confusion about the Holy Spirit, experience can become the authority rather than Scripture.

When there is confusion about prayer, people can begin treating prayer as a formula instead of fellowship with the living God.

But something powerful happens when pastors sit together with open Bibles and say, in effect, “Let us see what the Word of God actually says.”

Think about what that can mean for a community.

Pastors who may come from different backgrounds begin preaching the same Gospel. Churches that once emphasized different traditions begin standing together on biblical truth.
Believers receive clearer answers. New Christians are discipled on a stronger foundation. False teaching has less room to grow. And instead of churches competing with one another, they can begin recognizing that we are laborers in the same harvest field.

That is why RHMI continues going to places like Nakaloke-Namwigalo.

We are not trying to make churches look alike. We are not trying to create another
denomination. We are not asking pastors to become like us.

We are asking all of us… including ourselves… to become increasingly submitted to the Word of God.

There is a tremendous difference between churches being united around personalities and churches being united around truth.

Personalities change.

Traditions differ.

Experiences vary.

But the Word of God remains.

My prayer is that when these pastors and church leaders leave this Boot Camp, they will take more than notebooks filled with information back to their congregations. I pray they return with deeper convictions rooted not simply in what someone told them, but in what they have seen for themselves in Scripture.

And then they will teach others… and those believers will teach others… that is discipleship… that is multiplication.

That is why we keep going.

Equipping leaders. Strengthening churches. Transforming communities.

Forever ON ASSIGNMENT!

09/22/2026

In this video, Pastor Steve Ernest and Pastor Alex Muzira, the Director of Teaching and Training at RHMI, talk about the opportunity to bring Bible training to pastors and church leaders in Uganda. They share experiences and testimonies about the impact of this much-needed Bible training, as well as the commitment of pastors and church leaders to the RHMI Bible training program.

In this video, Pastor Steve Ernest and Pastor Alex Muzira talk abou...

09/22/2026

About two weeks ago, pastors and church leaders gathered for their third-term studies at the RHMI Bible Institute in Nakigunju, Bugiri, Uganda.

Here is a video highlight of what took place during their time of studying and growing in the Scriptures.

09/21/2026

DISCIPLING DISCIPLE-MAKERS…

I look at this picture and I am grateful.

These are some of the men I had the privilege of serving alongside during our days of ministry in the Nwoya District of northern Uganda.

Highly gifted men. Faithful men. Men who love the Word of God.

Their passion for God’s Word was evident in every lesson they taught, every question they answered, every conversation they had with a pastor or church leader. We taught together. Prayed together. Ate together. Traveled together. And watched God work together.

But there is something about this picture that means even more to me… though I wish the camera man to have been included.
God has graced my life with the opportunity to disciple disciple-makers.

I am increasingly convinced that this is one of the most important things I can do with whatever years God gives me.

Jesus did not simply gather crowds. He invested His life in people who would carry the Gospel after He was gone. Paul told Timothy:

“The things which you have heard from me… entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).

There it is.

Paul.
Timothy.
Faithful men.
Others also.

Four generations in one verse. That is why discipleship matters.

The goal is not merely to preach another sermon, conduct another conference, or complete another ministry program. Those things have their place. But if everything stops when we leave, we have missed something.

We must leave behind people who know the Word, live the Word, teach the Word, and then invest that Word into somebody else. That is multiplication.

And standing beside these men, I am reminded that I do not have to be everywhere. I simply need to faithfully invest in people who will go where I cannot go.

Some will pastor churches. Some will teach other pastors. Some will sit beneath a tree in a remote village with a handful of believers. Some will counsel a struggling husband, encourage a discouraged pastor, teach a young believer, or explain the Gospel to someone who has never truly understood it.

And then, prayerfully, those people will do the same for somebody else.

Disciple the disciple-makers.

That is not merely an Raising Hands Ministries strategy. That is the pattern Jesus gave us.

To these men who stood beside me in Nwoya: thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness, your humility, your hunger for Scripture, and your willingness to spend yourselves for the sake of others.

It was my privilege to serve beside you. Now we keep going.

One disciple.
Making another disciple.
Who makes another.

Until the Gospel reaches places we may never personally see.

FOREVER ON ASSIGNMENT.

09/19/2026

OLWIYO, UGANDA — THREE DAYS AROUND THE WORD

Since Wednesday, the Raising Hands Ministries team has been in the remote village of Olwiyo, Nwoya District, Uganda.

We came for a Discipleship Boot Camp. But what happened here was more than a training event.

For three days, 158–170 pastors and church leaders gathered each day at Victory Christian Church, hosted by Pastor Jino Kuluse. They came representing some 50 different churches.

Think about that for a moment… fifty churches.

Fifty congregations that these men and women will return to. Fifty places where the things learned here can be taught again… lived out again… and passed on to somebody else.

That is why we come.

Together we opened the Word of God and dealt with the practical realities of Christian life and ministry:

Leadership development.
How to disciple a disciple maker.
How to deal with recurring sin.
Church membership.
Giving.
Money and possessions.

We studied together. We worshiped together. We prayed together. We asked questions—sometimes difficult ones.

And somewhere along the way, some beliefs that had been held for years were confronted by the truth of Scripture. That matters.

We did not come to Olwiyo asking people simply to exchange one man’s opinion for another. We came believing that when the Word of God is opened and faithfully taught, truth has a way of correcting us… all of us.

Some unfounded beliefs gave way. Long-held biblical convictions were strengthened.

We were convicted… we were challenged…. we were stretched. And now we are being sent out again in the name and power of Jesus.

But Saturday afternoon brought a moment I will not soon forget. An invitation was extended. Fifteen adults responded.

Eleven professed faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Four others came forward to rededicate their lives to Christ.

Eleven people who walked into this Boot Camp one way and left confessing Jesus Christ.

That alone would have been enough to make every mile traveled, every long day, every difficulty and every dollar invested worthwhile.

But there was still one thing left to do.

After three days of teaching about discipleship… leadership… obedience… stewardship… sin… and the church, we did not finish by celebrating ourselves.

We gathered at His Table. Pastors. Church leaders. Teachers. New believers. Brothers and sisters in Christ.

We took the bread… we took the cup. And together, we remembered Him.

His body broken… His blood shed… His grace sufficient… His salvation freely given.

And perhaps that was the most fitting ending possible. Because ultimately, Raising Hands Ministries did not come to Olwiyo to point people toward RHMI.

We came to point people toward Jesus. Now these leaders will leave Olwiyo and return to their churches, villages, families and communities.

Our prayer is simple:

“Lord, take what You began here and multiply it. From one disciple to another. From one pastor to another. From one church to another. From Olwiyo… wherever You choose to send it…

Equipping Leaders…

Strengthening Churches…

Transforming Communities.”

Forever on assignment!

09/17/2026

Jesus loves the people of Amuru, and we are honored to be at the forefront of sharing His love with them.

09/16/2026

Raising Hands Ministries went to the Amuru District today carrying two things: bags of flour, and the Word of Life. By the time we left, we weren't sure which one the people needed more… but we're convinced now that both were an answer to prayer.

The drought has not been gentle here. We sat with a group of widows and single mothers at Bira Deliverance Church… women who are raising children alone, farming land that hasn't given them a harvest in months, wondering how they'll feed the little ones tonight, let alone tomorrow. Their eyes told the story before a single word was spoken.

From there we went door to door… into the homes of the elderly and the disabled, the ones who cannot walk to a distribution line, cannot dig for water, cannot fend for themselves in a famine that shows no mercy to weak hands and failing legs. In one small, dim room, we knelt beside a precious elderly widow, wrapped in blankets against the cold, her hands folded in prayer before we ever said a word. We placed a bag of flour in front of her — not charity thrown from a distance, but a gift carried in, person to person, the way Jesus Himself would have carried it.

But we did not come only to fill stomachs. We came because bread runs out, and the human heart needs more than bread.

Pastor Steve opened God's Word to 1 Kings 17… the story of another widow, in another famine, with only a handful of flour left in her jar. She was gathering sticks to cook one last meal for her son before they died. And God did not look away from her. He kept her jar from running dry, day after day, for as long as the famine lasted.

That same God has not looked away from the people of Amuru.

We closed with John 3:16 — "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

We did not soften what it means to perish. There is a hunger far more severe than an empty granary, and a famine that no harvest can ever end… the eternal separation from God that awaits every soul who never places their trust in Jesus Christ. We could not, in good conscience, hand someone bread for today and stay silent about Jesus the Bread of Life that lasts forever.

And heaven rejoiced today: TWO PRECIOUS SOULS confessed faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

Two names, written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Two empty jars met by the God who does not run dry. Two people who walked into that day hungry in every way a person can be hungry — and walked out fed, and found.

This is why we go. This is why we carry both the flour and the Word, hand in hand, into the hardest places. Because until all have heard, and until all have bread, we will keep showing up… door by door, widow by widow, soul by soul.

Please pray with us for the widows, the elderly, and the disabled of Amuru District still waiting for both kinds of hunger to be met. And if God stirs your heart to help us reach the next village, the next home, the next empty jar… we would be honored to have you stand with us.

FOREVER ON ASSIGNMENT.

09/11/2026

Tonight, the classroom at the RHMI Bible Institute in the rural village of Nakigunju is quiet. The pastors have gone home.

For the past 10 days, an average of 87 pastors and church leaders have gathered here for some pretty intense study of the Word of God.

These are not ten easy days. We teach biblical doctrine. We walk through the content of Bible books. We teach hermeneutics—how to properly interpret the Scriptures. We work on preaching and how to move from understanding a passage to faithfully proclaiming it. There is also leadership development. Church administration. Practical ministry. Questions. Lots of questions.

And sometimes we have to slow down and deal with beliefs that have been taught and repeated for years but simply cannot stand up under the Word of God. That is what RHMI Bible Institute is about.

We are not trying to make pastors sound educated. We are trying to help them become faithful handlers of the Word of God.

And something happened this morning that touched me…. Classes were scheduled to begin at 7:30 AM. By 7:00 AM they were already in their places.

Nobody had to chase them down. Nobody had to convince them that another lesson mattered. After ten days of study, the hunger was still there.

Our final day concluded as it has throughout this term—with chapel and our expositional journey through the life of Joseph.

But today the Lord had something more for us. Six adults trusted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord for the first time. And four others recommitted their lives to Jesus.

RHMI staff members have been doing this long enough to know that we can prepare lessons, teach doctrine, explain Scripture and preach with everything within us…but only the Spirit of God can change a heart. And today He reminded us of that again.

Now tonight… they are gone. Back to their villages. Back to their churches. Back to their wives and children.

Some will return to places most people reading this will never see. Some will preach in buildings that would hardly be recognized as churches in other parts of the world. Many will serve with very little money and very few resources.

But Sunday is coming. And Sunday after Sunday, somewhere in rural Uganda, one of these men and women is going to stand before a congregation with a Bible in hand and say: “This is what the Word of God says.”

To every RHMI friend and donor who prayed, gave and helped make these ten days possible… you were part of what happened in Nakigunju.

Yes, the classroom is empty tonight… and that is exactly what we were working toward.

They have gone. They have been sent.

And Raising Hands Ministries will keep going too. FOREVER ON ASSIGNMENT.