How one man’s obedience to share Jesus with a witch doctor started a movement
By Wilson Namuwoza
All Nations Kampala hub leader
In 2014, I was working as a bank manager as well as working as a pastor in a traditional church. One night I was praying for fellow pastors because I was not satisfied with how the work of God was going, and God told me to leave the bank without telling me where to go. It was a big struggle, but after a while I had to quit the banking job.
When I got the opportunity to attend CPx in Cape Town, I took it with two hands, but ironically, I could not afford to travel with my wife and four boys. So, I went to Cape Town for about six months without my family. It was during CPx that I heard a voice say, “God is calling you.” I joined All Nations, and then returned to my family.
When I came back to Uganda, I thought that God wanted me to change my own church. I even invited people from Cape Town to come and train the church, but incidentally, no one in that church obeyed to make disciples. I tried to divide them into small groups, but I was frustrated because not one single member obeyed. That’s when God showed me the analogy of the new wine in the old wine skin in Luke 5: 36-39. God wanted to preserve both the old and new but each working uniquely to boost the Kingdom. So, I had to quit my church again without knowing where I was going and what I was going to do.
At this point, I was very confused, and I started prayer walking. One day as I was prayer walking in the nearby community, I heard a voice saying, “go there.” I stopped to see who was talking to me but in the dusty road, there was no one. I was completely alone. I started debating within myself whether I was going crazy. When I looked on my left hand side, there was a grass thatched shrine hut. I strongly felt that God wanted me to go there but feared what people will think of me. Later I decided to go there, and I met people who had removed their shoes and left them outside the door of the hut. I entered into the Shrine very scared. The people were all seated on the floor, and at the front was Mr. Mugerwa, the witch doctor (Sangoma). I also sat down near the door with the reasoning that if something happens, I will just take off.
The witch doctor was chanting and shaking, and this made me even more scared. He was putting on a bark cloth and beads, and in his hands he had gourds that he was shaking. Two men later brought a goat for sacrifice and he slaughtered it and put the blood in his hands and spilled it on us. All the people later left the Shrine to go and roast the goat. But I stayed seated in the same position because I didn’t know why the voice had told me to come in this place. It was fascinating that the witch doctor also stayed seated down. He looked at me, and I also looked at him, until he asked, “How may I help you, sir?” That’s when I realized that maybe God wanted me to talk to this guy about Jesus.
So, I told him that God had sent me to him. He asked, “In this place?” I replied, “Yes, sir.” He then shouted out,“Toepista….. Teopista….” I got more scared because I thought he was calling a demon or snake. But then his wife, Teopista, came walking through the door and asked, “What is it, husband?” He told her, “Sit down and listen to the words of this man.” So, it dawned on me that Jesus wanted me to talk to the witch doctor and his wife from the shrine. I told them both that Jesus loves them, and there is no one who loves them like Jesus loves them. I continued that I was walking on the road and heard a voice telling me to come in this place. So I told them that I had come to the shrine to tell them that Jesus loves them. I asked them if they would like to start following Jesus, and they said, “How can we refuse? No one has ever come here to tell us about Jesus.” So I asked them to kneel down, and I made them make a commitment in prayer to follow Jesus. I was about to ask them to bring their witchcraft so that I could burn it as I had learned in the traditional church but something within me said, “Did you send yourself here?” So, I did not talk about their witchcraft. Since I had left the traditional Ch-rch, I had nowhere to take them. So, I asked them if I could come to the shrine and share Jesus, and they replied, “Of course, yes.” They suggested that we should meet every Wednesday when everybody comes to the shrine.
So we met every Wednesday in the shrine. Next, Mr. Mugerwa (the witch doctor) called all his children, “Nampera, Josephine…come, sit down and listen to the words of this man.” I also talked to the grown children, and their parents accepted and made decisions to follow Jesus. The children also accepted and chose to follow Jesus, too. That’s when we started using the Discovery Bible Study tool. I kept going back every Wednesday. My main worry was that the people were still practicing witchcraft and could not stop, as I wanted. One Wednesday I felt very discouraged since the witchcraft was too much. I was about to give up and told God that I was tired and could not continue anymore. So when I went there, after our DBS, Mr. Mugerwa told me that they would be praying from there, but they don’t have Bibles. He thought that praying was about having a Bible. I ran into town to get two Bibles – one for the parents and the other for their children. I then prayed with them and left.
I came in a bit late the next Wednesday, but when I arrived in the shrine, I could not believe my eyes. Mr. Mugerwa was seated in front in his usual place, his wife Teopista next to him, his children, and 27 people who had been coming for witchcraft, were not doing witchcraft but were reading the Bible. They were reading from Matthew 7:1-2. I went in and sat where I sat on my very first visit to the shrine because I didn’t want to interrupt them. Long story short, this became my first church, which I named Shrine Church. The practice of witchcraft in the shrine stopped without me stopping it. It dawned on me that if I had burnt the witchcraft and shrine on my early visits, I would not have gotten all these people because they would have just run away. I learned many things along the way which I did not learn in the CPx class.
From the shrine, I was led to the ghettos, then to the prostitutes, then to the refugees, then to the Nubians because they were all represented here in the shrine. Since 2014, we have over 2,068 ch-rch groups up to the 11th generation. The 11 leaders that I discipled in the first generation oversee the 27 leaders in the second generation, who in turn oversee the 59 leaders in the third generation (who in turn oversee the 107 leaders in the fourth generation) and so on. We are now reaching ladies who go to work as maids in Muslim homes in the Middle East, and they have started groups there. Through the refugees, we are also reaching out to Darfur in Sudan, an area that is about 99.8% Muslim. We are sending Alice to an unreached and unengaged people group called the Menings, who live down in the jungle. The movement is growing by leaps and bounds, and the glory goes to Jesus.
My main aim is not to change people from their bad acts. My reasoning is that there are many people who do not do bad acts, but they don’t know Jesus, and thus they cannot get to the Kingdom, though they are good. But when I introduce Jesus to them, He Himself takes away their bad habits. From this simple action alone, I have seen drug addicts leave the drugs, prostitutes leave prostitution, and those addicted to alcohol leave it, and so on. I focus on loving and serving my leaders as they become more productive disciples. My personal five-year goal is to raise another group of eight movement leaders like myself, and I am moving toward that target. Brandon has helped a lot in the training of these leaders. He has visited us a lot, as have other AN people. I am focused on making disciples and birthing more movements.
Wilson and his family