Pastor Mwindula Mbewe at the PTC in 2024

One of the biggest problems facing the continent of Africa is the lack of gospel clarity. Corrupt pastors and self-proclaimed prophets have been using the name of Christ for selfish gain. The prevalence of false teaching combined with the imminence of unreached people groups makes northern Uganda and South Sudan one of the most spiritually disadvantaged regions in the world.

Four Corners Ministries felt the call of God to respond to this spiritual disaster through pastor training and church planting. In 2019, FCM began the Pastor Training Center at Abaana’s Hope, and by 2022, the PTC held the first graduation ceremony for 36 men representing 6 different tribes.

Around this same time, God was also working in the life of Mwindula Mbewe, pastor of Hillview Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia. He planted this church in 2019 and graduated from African Christian University with a Masters in Pastoral Theology in 2022.

Before the first PTC graduation ceremony at Abaana’s Hope, Reuben Moyana, a former FCM board member, reached out to Mwindula’s father, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, and invited him to give the convocation. Because he wasn’t available, he gave Reuben his son’s contact information.

“He called me, and I was very happy to come and do the convocation. That was my first visit and exposure to the work,” Mwindula said. “It was just amazing to me to see all the work that they had done. I was blown away to see the school, the clinic, the college, the church, and the work the missionaries are doing. I had no idea that people were doing those kinds of things.”

For the convocation, Mwindula preached from the book of Jeremiah and talked about the two types of prophets – the false prophets who tell the people what they want to hear and the prophets who stick to the truth no matter what it costs.

“One of the good ones, we don’t know anything about him. The only time in the Bible he’s mentioned is in that passage. I told the guys that we all want to get a platform. We all want to get to do convocations, but we have to be faithful though our names may never be heard because our reward is in heaven,” Mwindula said.

He spoke about Jeremiah’s challenging ministry. God said from the beginning that no one would listen to Jeremiah, yet he still went out to preach. Mwindula encouraged the students to be faithful to the call regardless of the fruit or the discouragement and leave the results to the Lord.  

After the graduation ceremony, Mwindula was inspired to do more for the Lord at home in Zambia and at Abaana’s Hope. In August and September 2024, he returned to Abaana’s Hope to teach a PTC cohort. He taught on the topics of worship and prayer. After the first session, he met a Ugandan student, Kenneth Godfrey Mazima, who said he’d first discovered the PTC program at Abaana’s Hope by watching the live stream of the graduation ceremony two years ago. Kenneth said he felt like the message during the convocation was meant for him and was talking about him. He chose to enroll in the PTC program to gain gospel clarity and sound doctrine as he leads Faithful Word Reformed Church in Gulu.

“I was amazed at their eagerness and hunger to learn. They asked questions that showed that they were really listening. They were so engaged,” Mwindula said about the PTC students. “They asked good questions. Something I was saying to my church when I got back is that we kind of take it for granted, what we know, and we can’t assume everybody knows what we know. That everybody is grounded.

“I've been reading about it a lot, how Africa needs men to be trained. To be honest, that Uganda lecture trip is when I really saw and understood that need. There are men who are Christians who are leading, they are pastors, they are elders, leaders in churches, but they lack knowledge. They tend to just speak from tradition, speak from what they've always done, and speak from what they say God has told them. They're not grounded in the Word, and they don’t have a system of theology to guide them.”

This gave Mwindula an insight into what he needs to be doing and sparked a desire to train men in Zambia as well.

“In Africa, we've got a whole lot of zeal and not a whole lot of knowledge. There’s not a lot of resources that we can tap into, no books. We have our Bibles, but it's so easy to get theology wrong. You need to know how to extract right theology from your Bibles,” he said. “Already from our tradition we believe in a bigger something out there, whether its ancestors or gods, so it’s not a huge leap. People are already interested when you want to talk to them about it, and that's why Christianity was so quickly embraced. It fit in our psych and tradition already.”

Mwindula has seen the desire and willingness the people in Africa have to learn, to listen, and to be taught, but unfortunately, this has given room for the prosperity gospel to take root. The message of the true gospel has fallen behind and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.

“That has challenged me the most. That those of us who have the truth have kind of sat on it and not been serious about getting out there, networking with other pastors, teaching them, and providing them books and opportunities to learn,” he said.

Several cults have also been making progress in Zambia and many other parts of Africa. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and other cults have large, growing churches everywhere.

“It’s that thing again of us who have the truth not being aggressive and getting out there, and now, the false teachings have done a lot of damage,” he said. “If we don’t step up and strike while the iron is hot, these other false gospels will.”

Mwindula believes that the PTC at Abaana’s Hope is a start in the right direction to ease this problem and push back against the spread of false teachings. He was encouraged to see the students not just ask theoretical questions, but ask practical questions from their own experiences, seeking to learn how to deal with different situations, issues, and traditions.

“We need trained men to plant churches. We can plant as many churches as we have qualified men for,” he said.

Mwindula is working to provide theological training for men in Zambia. He and his team at Hillview Baptist Church offer internship positions that act as a steppingstone. The goal is to train men who can be sent out to make more disciples and establish churches. There are currently three men participating in the internship through his church. Hillview has two church plants running and two others that are in the works in Zambia. He also plans to build an online ministry to reach a broader audience with the truth of the gospel. 

Please continue to pray for the PTC program and students. Pray for the 81 students who are currently studying and learning and for the graduates who are using what they learned to spread the gospel to every tribe. Please also pray for Mwindula as he leads his church, plants more churches, and trains more men.