DELIVERANCE CHURCH UGANDA

My name is Pastor Godfrey Magezi and I hail from Mparo, Kabale. I am married to Margaret and we have seven children and four grand children. I was born in 1954, my parents were only medium income earners and so I did not manage to attain a high level of education. After passing my PLE with a good first grade, I could not go on due to lack of fees. Instead I enrolled in a college of commerce and studied Typing and spent 13 years after that working as a secretary in various schools. I later went to Tooro and worked at the Tea Company and then came back to Kabale town and worked with a building company and then with the Kabale District Administration as a casual labourer. I also worked at the County and the Sub County before dropping out to become a full time pastor.

I got saved on 15th November 1985 I had been sick at that time and I had visited various traditional healers as well as medical doctors but with little progress; it was witchcraft and I was deteriorating.  I joined the ministry and started taking readings in my local church, then called Mparo Pentecostal Church. We however were independent and not affiliated to the Kampala Pentecostal Church network or Pentecostal Assemblies of God as none of these existed by then. In February 1987 the church pastor went to Kampala to study at Glad Tidings Bible College, Makerere. I then took over as pastor and started doing evangelism and outreach in the villages. After our church service, we would carry our drums on our heads and trek the villages preaching the gospel. We did not have even a bicycle. We started out in an area called Kashumuruzi in Kitanga, Rukiga County. The people were receptive, and when we had five converts, we started a fellowship immediately which was held every Wednesday. These people used to move about seven kilometers to Mparo for Sunday services. After the numbers increased we started a church there.

In Kihorezo, about ten miles from Mparo, we rented a house for use but after some time we were ousted and the house demolished.  But like the bible says, weeping may endure for a night but joy surely comes in the morning. God in His mercy enabled us to get a plot of land, and we were able to put up a structure. That was when the heavens opened! It was like the wall of Jericho had come down before our eyes! People came from everywhere, and soon we had 200 people in attendance. At this point, we planted the church in Ngoma and the evangelistic explosion continued and when they had a congregation of 200 there as well, we planted the third church in Nyamitangaro, where James is now pastor. The church in Ngoma have gone ahead to start another church in Ngomba now.

So after establishing the work in Kihorezo, I moved on to Muhanga trading centre, which is 34 miles before Kabale town. The challenge here was the fact that the people here were relatively wealthy, and they treated the gospel with contempt. The people from the villages around however did receive the Word of God and they always came for prayers, brought the sick and shared what they learned with their neighbours. As I speak, the church in Muhanga can now boast of a congregation of 100, and we have been able as well to buy land and construct a church building there, to the glory of God. The grace for evangelism and church planting has really been abundant here, and I say this because the church in Muhanga has gone ahead to plant another in Bukinda.