Meet Samuel & Philips, 2 PTC students graduating in September

Sharing the gospel is a fundamental calling for every believer. Jesus instructs his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. In addition to this command, Paul also instructs Timothy to take what he has heard and share it with reliable people who will be qualified to teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). Pastor Moses Maliamungu put these commands into action by encouraging others to receive Biblical training through the Living Stones Pastor Training Center (PTC). Anyole Samuel and Chanpara Philips are just two of the many students who decided to study in the PTC because the Lord used Pastor Moses.

Samuel, 29, is Kakwa by tribe living in Koboko, Uganda. In this region, Samuel says the gospel is not clear. This is why he came to the PTC at Abaana’s Hope three years ago. He was born in a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after his family fled Uganda. He grew up there until the Ugandan government declared it was safe to return home since Joseph Kony and the LRA were withdrawing from the country. Kony and his rebel army traveled through DRC before settling in Central African Republic. In both of these countries, Kony and his rebels continued the same tactics they used in Uganda – ransacking villages for food, abducting children, and killing innocent people. Samuel and his family didn’t encounter the LRA, but there were other rebel groups in the area that attacked the refugee camps.

“Our family only was affected with some rebel groups called guerrillas. When we were in the camp, we had to leave the camp and run,” Samuel said.

Today, there is still war and rebel activity in different parts of the DRC, mainly in regions of the large African country that are rich with minerals. In regions where there are no minerals to fight over, Samuel said there is peace and people move freely. 

Education in the DCR was extremely limited, so Samuel’s parents wanted him and his ten siblings to study in Uganda. He was able to attend school up to the high school level of senior 6. Samuel can speak seven languages including Kakwa, Alur, Lugbara, English, Swahili, and Arabic. He learned some of these languages in school and others he learned because it’s what the people in his community spoke. After completing senior 6, he began teaching English to others.

“I first heard the gospel when I was 15. That is the time when I was able to realize that I’m a sinner. I need to repent of my sins and follow Christ,” he said.

Samuel, his ten siblings, and his parents are all born again believers in Jesus. His father is a pastor of a church called Bethsaida in Koboko. Samuel serves as a youth leader there and helps with administration. He remembers the Lord calling him to ministry in 2014.

By 2019, Pastor Moses Maliamungu told Samuel and his father about the Pastor Training Center at Abaana’s Hope. Moses is the pastor of Grace Community Church in Koboko and is currently a lead trainer for the PTC. Samuel was already looking for an opportunity to learn more about God, so he believed this was an answer to his prayer. After the interview process, Samuel was admitted into the PTC where he’s been able to study the Word of God with others from across Africa and from the United States.

“It’s encouraging. These guys are coming from different places, and meeting them here, I feel like the Body of Christ. We are many and we feel encouraged,” Samuel said. “It’s like sharpening one another because what I don’t know, someone knows. Sometimes, especially in the class, when they ask a question, if I don’t know the answer, my friend may know and reply, so it makes the class active.”

Please pray for Samuel as he completes the training and graduates in September. Pray that the Lord will open doors for Samuel to reach the unreached with the gospel of Jesus, and for Samuel to hear and obey the Lord’s directions. 

“The PTC has been good to me. I have clarity about the gospel and how to handle the gospel,” he said. “I’m looking at putting into action now what I’ve learned. I love to move to the dark spots of Africa where the gospel has not yet reached, and if the church will be planted there, that is on my heart. Congo is one of the African countries that is very large, so I’m seeing a lot of dark spots that needs to be planted.”

Philips is Alur by tribe from the Pakwach District of Uganda, which is near the west Nile region. He is the youngest of seven children in his family. His father passed away when he was young, so he and his siblings were raised by a single mother. She earned money through agricultural jobs, working with pigs and farming. 

At the age of 13, Philips joined his older brothers, fishing on the Nile River to help earn money for the family. He and his brothers fished during the day and during the night in local boats made out of wood. He described nighttime fishing as the most challenging and dangerous because of hippopotamuses and crocodiles. 

Philips started school with a class that met under a tree. They didn’t have books or paper, so they used the dirt to practice writing. By the time Philips was in primary 2 (second grade in the U.S.), he was able to attend school in a grass hut structure, and by primary 3, he was able to write on paper and in books. He continued school up to college level until his financial sponsor passed away.

While Philips was still a teenager, his mother put her faith in Jesus Christ and brought him with her to one of the crusades where he heard the gospel of Jesus for the first time. 

“I was asking, ‘What does it mean?’ She began explaining to me, and I came to understand who Christ is through her. I also professed faith in Christ. That was in 2007,” he said.

Evangelists from the crusade went door to door in the community, and when they came to his home, they found his sister suffering from paralysis in her legs. For nearly 10 years, his sister struggled with the pain. Doctors told her there was nothing they could do because there was no wound.

“The evangelists first prayed for my sister. That was the first time I saw God working through men to heal people. My sister got healed that very day after almost 10 years of suffering,” Philips said. “After coming into faith with Christ Jesus, that was the very day we started fellowship in our home. That was the very day I started leading Sunday school children in singing and reading the Bible. That very day was the day I felt God calling for me to pastor His sheep.”

Philips got involved teaching Sunday school, playing the drums in worship service, helping the pastor read the Bible, and occasionally preaching to the youth. Later, he traveled to Jinja to work and fish with his brothers. One day, a South Korean Christian evangelist found Philips and asked him to join her door-to-door ministry to spread the gospel. Philips helped translate for people who spoke Alur, Swahili, and Lusoga. They engaged families and witch doctors with the gospel of Jesus. At times they were welcomed to share and other times they were chased away.

When Philips returned home to Pakwach, he got involved with a local church. 

“It was now of recent that I told the pastor that I feel the call to go and make disciples,” Philips said. His pastor encouraged him to go where God was leading him. “I went to a farming community, a very wild area far from Pakwach town, and that’s where I am making discipleship up to this time.”

Philips first heard about the PTC after befriending Pastor Moses Maliamungu. When Moses traveled to his community, Philips became Moses’ translator. He translated from English into the local language of Alur, and Moses encouraged Philips to apply to become a student of the PTC.

“I said, I am looking for a way to be equipped. I’m not equipped enough. We are surrounded here by traditionalist who knows the Word of God though they don’t believe in it. In Pakwach, you have even witch doctors who knows the Bible very well. Then we have also some theologians who are highly learnt claiming to be teaching the truth as well. Now it will be very difficult for me if I’m not well equipped to know if these theologians are teaching the truth or not. If you don’t know the truth, you cannot discern, differentiate between truth and lie. You need to know the truth,” he said.

After the interview process, Philips was accepted into the training program and will graduate in September.

“I have experienced a very big change in the way of interacting with people, mixed culture and diverse reasonings, and the way of applying God's Words through our lives,” Philips said.

Please pray for the Lord to give Philips strength and wisdom. Pray for the Lord to open opportunities for him to share the gospel with his community and for him to apply what he’s learned through the PTC to discern between truth and false teachings.