Douglas Juma, a Baptist pastor, went to plant a church in Horohoro, Tanga, Tanzania under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is a small village that is saturated by Muslims and where witchcraft is predominant. Douglas’ zeal to reach the Muslim people was so strong in his heart that he did not mind the challenges or difficulties he would be facing in that area.

Douglas had a very tough beginning when he started pastoring his church. He did not see any growth and his church became stagnant. After some time, Douglas met Ibrahim Kapaya, a Multiplication Network Ministries (MNM) coordinator who told him about MNM’s ministry and how its program could help his church become a healthy church.

Douglas was excited to learn about the MNM program and to see how its vision aligned with the vision God had laid upon his heart. He joined a church planter class and began to receive the training.

“The program has brought tremendous changes to the church,” says Douglas. His church has grown so much in a very short period of time. Every church member is now committed and determined to bring people to Christ.

“People are giving their lives to Jesus on a regular basis. I must confess that it’s something we did not experience before in our church. We had been doing something quite different and did not focus on teaching the church members the importance of witnessing to others about Christ. Now that everyone has understood the importance of witnessing, the church is growing at a very fast pace,” says Douglas.

Douglas’ main focus is to have a healthy church and he is determined to keep on teaching his church members the importance of evangelism and all that he has learned from MNM.

“People will never get to know Christ if we actually do not tell them about Him. I think the primary goal of the church is to tell the world about Christ. And this is why I find evangelism to be very important because we cannot experience any growth if we do not tell others about Christ,” says Douglas. This is his passion – making more disciples who will, in turn, make others to be disciples of Jesus Christ.