Missionary profile – Patrick

By Mercy Kambura

Patrick, Founder and Administrating Director, Salt and Light Initiatives in Uganda

After I became a Christian, I would read and hear the Word of God, and be filled with a heavy burden in my heart thinking about the people who needed to know this Good News. I also noticed that both in and outside the church, a Bible was like a precious jewel – hard to find. Many people around me were not able to afford one.

Driven by this burden, I founded a small Bible outreach mission called Salt and Light Initiatives Bible Outreach Mission. I shared my faith with new friends in and outside Uganda, and I started collecting Bibles and sharing them with those in need.

I grew up the eldest child in a family of seven children. We lost our mother before I was 18. This loss affected our family and shaped our course of future life. I didn’t know about Jesus Christ and made many mistakes as a teenager, one of which led me to become a teen father.

I married at the age of 23 to my wife, Grace, and we had 8 children. I led a life of recklessness, resentfulness, unforgiveness, and drunkenness. Then we lost two of our children. (I now have six children – five boys and one girl.)

I came to meet Christ in 2017, after losing everything. I had no faith, no hope, and no love, even for those close to me. I attended a Christian meeting and the preacher said that when a person receives Christ, their life will become new; the past is gone. I wanted this – a difference in my life and in my family. When the altar call came, I went to the altar with my wife and children.

After that, love for my wife and my children filled me. I also loved others and held no grudges. I became the church secretary and because of my education and knowledge, I guided many church meetings and organized several church projects.

That is when I started the Salt and Light Initiatives Mission. In time, I desired to do more than Bible distribution. I wanted to teach and evangelize. I invited others to join me. Thomas helped pass out gospel literature while Lawrence helped reach different communities and churches in Uganda.

We have worked with Perfecting the Saints ministry in Tororo, World Wide Vision of God’s Ministries church in Soroti, and Bethesda Pentecostal Ministries in Abim.

I urge the Church to make Bible teaching central in its activities, not human philosophy. I exhort church leadership to support global missions. Churches that do not recognize Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of all will not likely engage in missions. Instead, they will be fighting missionaries.

#Pray:

For Salt and Light Initiatives to work with more churches.
For the ministry to plant more churches and strengthen new ones.
For the provision of a motorcycle and a van to ease our transportation needs.
For more people to join our ministry; the harvest is ready, but the workers are few.