Go Beyond

I met Kurt Dillinger just weeks after I arrived at Kingsland in 2005. I was eager to lead Kingsland to engage with the world’s remaining unreached people groups, mostly in the 10/40 Window. And then I received an invitation to meet Kurt, the founder of Life International — a ministry committed to upholding the value of all human life worldwide.

I reluctantly agreed to meet Kurt for breakfast, as a courtesy to a friend. Sitting across the breakfast table from me, Kurt challenged me to think of the pre-born as the world’s largest and most hidden and vulnerable people group. His words pierced my heart. I had never regarded the pre-born as a people group.

I left my meeting with Kurt deeply convicted that our missions ministry needed to adopt the pre-born as one of our people groups. So, that is what we did. In addition to people groups less than 3% evangelized that we adopted, we added the pre-born. We would stand as champions for life on the mission field created by abortion worldwide.

In a follow-up conversation with Kurt, we agreed to help Life International launch the first pregnancy help center in Uganda, a place where abortions are readily available. We named the center The Comforter’s Center — a Christ-centered ministry committed to the promotion and preservation of life.

The Comforter’s Center started in rented facilities in 2006 and began to receive clients. At exactly the wrong time in 2008 — at the start of the great recession that rocked the financial climate in America — the owner of our rented facility in Uganda informed us that it was time to move out because he was going to sell the facility to an abortion provider.

We reached out to the owner and asked him to give us first right of refusal. Remarkably, he agreed and gave us two weeks to come up with the money. We immediately asked each family at Kingsland to give a gift of $100. The next week, we received all the money we needed and purchased the property.

Since 2008, the center has counseled thousands of women to choose life for their babies. One of the greatest joys of my life has been to travel to Uganda to meet mothers holding babies that otherwise would have been aborted.

Last week, Pastor Ryan and I traveled to Uganda to meet with the staff of The Comforter’s Center and also to spend time with our partner Pastor Robert Nabulere and the schools under his leadership that we have helped to underwrite.

After years of hearing about The Comforter’s Center, it was a joy to introduce Pastor Ryan to the team at the center. While there, we had the opportunity to meet with more than twenty mothers who had chosen life for their babies because of the counseling they received at The Comforter’s Center. These mothers and babies are the fruit of our investment in the sanctity of human life.

Ryan and I also had the opportunity to visit the four-story grade school currently under construction in the Kawempe slums not far from Pastor Robert’s church. In 2019, our Vacation Bible School raised almost $33,000 to begin the construction of this school. Since then, our missions ministry has invested generously toward the completion of this project.

We spent the balance of our time investing in the staff of the center along with key leaders and church planters that serve under the leadership of Pastor Robert. Ryan presented our Empowered Homes strategy and invited these leaders to join us on the journey of seeing 1,000,007 homes transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We often remind the people of Kingsland that every dollar they invest goes on an amazing journey. Uganda is just one of the places where the generosity and kindness of the Kingsland family is making a difference. It was a blessing for us to see the fruit of those dollars in Uganda.