Terebinth Ministries

December 2020

Merry Christmas from Terebinth Ministries!

 

We want to thank all of you, our supporters, and donors, who have made this year possible for Terebinth to get through Covid successfully. This year has taken a toll on all countries and nations. However, this year Covid has opened doors for Terebinth Ministries to reach people and spread the Gospel in a way that we might not have planned for otherwise. Even in the midst of chaos, God is definitely working. This year has been a whirlwind of new opportunities for our ministry to grow and dip our toes into new waters.

 

Terebinth School of Discipleship

Video Sessions, Curriculum, and Lesson Plans: This year, Terebinth School of Discipleship expanded in the way we teach in a classroom setting. With the restrictions against meeting in large groups, we started recording our teachings, which allowed the school to resume in a small group fashion. The videos were so effective we decided to take on the initiative to make a 6-hour video teaching for whatever week we are teaching in the Bible. These videos will give us more flexibility to train up many more pastors in the future. They will also assist our staff by helping them with students who miss a week of class and easily catching them up so they don’t fall behind. We are also working diligently in writing the curriculum for each book of the Bible, along with lesson plans. Between videos and a complete set of curriculum/lesson plans, our school in the future will be able to expand to other locations, be consistent and be well organized. Even with the lockdown, we were able to creatively teach seven books of the Bible during this calendar year. There is some catching up to do so the students can graduate on time in July of 2021, but we are confident we can get this done.

Radio Ministry: Furthermore, since we couldn’t meet as a class, we decided to take our designated school budget and apply it to teaching over the airwaves. Between live recordings and re-runs, we could be heard on the radio 52 times a month preaching the Gospel and bringing hope to people who were struggling with the lockdown. The response was fantastic! Actually, it was received so well we decided to keep doing the radio program as part of our mission as we move into the future.

BAM Enterprises

Providing Food: When the lockdown occurred, most Ugandan people found themselves in precarious situations. Food prices shot up drastically and there are no government programs to assist those hurting, no unemployment benefits, etc. We reached out to churches in the States, along with one in Australia and two in England, to help us feed people, and the response was more than they ever dreamed. In three months, we were able to hand out substantial food packages to 7,000 families (35,000 individuals) in need. Our farm produced and packaged the food, and our churches handed them out, along with praying for and encouraging each person in the Gospel. It was a herculean team effort for our small farm to pull this off as they were working 14 to 16 hours a day to get the food milled, packaged, and delivered.

Widows Ministry

Expansion of Ministry: Our widows’ ministry program has been an absolute joy this year. We were fortunate to see it expand from 50 to 150 widows. Through the widows’ ministry, we are not only seeing the widows and their children being impacted, but their neighbors and communities are hearing about Jesus as the churches reach out into the community. The beauty of this ministry is TSD trained pastors oversee the outreach to the widows. Teaching them in the classroom is excellent, but working alongside them in the community is everything we hoped for when we started Terebinth Ministries. It took time to get to this point, and it’s wonderful to see where the Lord has brought us to this point.

Dream Center Medical Clinic

New Management: Lastly, a significant transition in our ministry occurred this year. As you know, Dream Center Medical Clinic is a big part of our ministry. It allows us to reach deep into the community and help many people we otherwise wouldn’t come into contact with. Medical is such a wonderful bridge to helping people and sharing the Gospel. We have long had a difficult time making the clinic sustainable due to the cost of drugs compared to what the people in the community could afford to pay for the treatment. It always left us in a whole each month. We decided to partner as a team with a Christian medical organization in Gulu to take over and run the management and operations of the clinic. They not only have the expertise to run a clinic, but they have long-established programs to minimize costs, which allows the clinic to be financially sustainable as well as affordable. Terebinth still owns and maintains the clinic and we will continue to do ministry with the patients as they come for treatment. However, the day-to-day operations are run by what we now consider teammates from another medical ministry. This new partnership and direction of the clinic is already a win, win for Terebinth and the community.

Once again, thank you for your partnership with Terebinth, and we hope you are encouraged by what we were able to accomplish together.

 

Blessings,

Terebinth Ministries

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