From Dust and Despair to Serving God with Joy – A Guest Testimony

A Guest Testimony from Oguta George

Brother Oguta contacted me recently upon discovering some of my writings on this website. Our stories touched each other greatly. He was kind enough to share his experiences as a boy and now serving God, serving many believers and nonbelievers throughout his region in Kenya. I love hearing how God watches over and helps the humble who are willing to look to Him first. In this story, we see how God can raise us up to do great things for His glory!

Oguta’s Story

I have a strong testimony of how God has moved me from the lowest of places into His grace. He has moved my family from dust to a better place.

Let me give you a little of my background. I am Kenyan. My hometown is called Rongo, in a small village called Kangoje.
In the entire village, we were the poorest.

Nobody ever expected that any good thing would one day come out of our home. In our family, people did not know Jesus Christ. We were living a life full of sins, a life full of prostitution, and drinking of alcohol and abuse of drugs.

Even though we were in fellowship with a local church, we did not know God. But I did not know that God had good plans for our family and me too.

There was a day my family were fighting. It was my mother and father. It so happened there was a man of God who was passing by our home to go somewhere. He stopped and separated my mother and father as they were fighting and prayed for them instantly.

Soon after, this man, being a pastor, came to visit my family again to confirm if they were sorry for their actions and desiring to change their hearts. He prayed for them again and my dad gave permission to him to establish a church in our home. That is how a new church was planted in our village, through our home.

Among my siblings, I was the most stupid person in our family. My father never loved me because I was born out of wedlock. So I was growing up not loved at all. This was a terrible burden that hurt me deeply, and I had to carry that with me every day. My father was sure that I would not make it in life, but my inspired mother kept encouraging me just to be faithful to my dad, so that he would be blessed.

Much later, praise God, I learned that secretly, my father’s heart was changing, and he would tell his friends that, “My son, Oguta, he is the light in our family.” But he never told me this.

In 1997, I accepted Jesus Christ in my life and said, “I know I am not loved, but there is somebody, my Creator, who loves me.” This knowledge came from God to my soul. The light in me that day, and the far greater light given me today, has come from above. Through God’s Holy Spirit, my Father and Creator told me that He loved me and would help me be what He designed for me. May our holy God be praised!

Starting that year, I decided to focus on Jesus Christ as the only Person all my hope was with. I knew things would be different than the dust of my family’s past.

Even in school, I was not bright, and this annoyed my father even more. But God said, “Believe in Me,” and I believed. He taught me that to serve Him in any way is a holy way, and God will consecrate it all to my good and His glory.
Because I believed in Him and the ministry, I started as a cleaner. I did not care that it was a humble and simple thing. I would wake up every morning just to clean the church and the compound. My pastor did see my faithfulness and my trust in God. And I felt God’s blessing, saying to my heart, “You are doing right, Oguta. This is a good thing you do for my people. You do what you can, and I will multiply your efforts. As with the boy who had only a few loaves and fishes, I am the Master and Creator of all things and I do multiply little things to do great things that feed many. And surely, I will do it. I love the humble in heart who fear Me and who love to honor Me. You are a beloved son to Me. Keep walking in My light.”

From cleaning the church compound, God graduated me to be a messenger to my pastor. I served in that position well; I would carry his bag for him everywhere he was going.

For this work, I received no money. This was serving the Lord and I did it for Him.

After the messenger calling, God called me to be a Sunday school teacher, I served in this position well and diligently. This was a great delight to me. To think that my mentor and pastor and God Himself entrusted me to teach His children and serve as a channel of His light for them, this was a great joy to me that I cannot express even today.

From this position, God called me to be a translator for the sermons. Being a translator is much like being a preacher because the translator labors in the Spirit to communicate the same godly thoughts as the preacher.
During this time, I also registered to study in a Bible school, and praising God, I was made to finish my certificate in theology. After being a translator, God called me as an associate pastor, in which I served well to the year 2002.

One day there was a terrible incident in our church. Even though I thank God for the blessing of this pastor who helped change my family and our village, I did not know that our denomination did frown mightily on speaking in tongues in church. On this day, an elderly woman was worked upon by God’s Spirit and did speak in tongues, and the visiting leader of the church became very angry and caused her to be thrown out of the church. This did shock us all greatly, as we knew the woman who was crying out in the sincerity of her heart. Many quit church altogether.

By this time, my father had begun to be kinder and to support me. I asked my father what we could do. God’s Spirit worked upon us to revive the Church from two members to 40 members.

By God’s grace, this Church has grown from one to 25 little branches in Kenya. This is a great and miraculous thing that God did for the blessing of His children all through our region!

We minister to elderly people who cannot walk; we set up house churches that cater to their spiritual needs. We have a children’s ministry; we support them to go to school and also help with medication. We have prison ministry that once in a while we take the gospel message to the inmates; we go to where they are. We also have pastor’s ministry that deals with supporting pastor’s wives. We have one of the best youth ministries, which helps bring youth who are not in Christ to know Christ, and advise them to stay away from drugs, and offer skills training so that they be independent and even take them to college.

Even today, our members and I serve God alone, and not for money. We are not paid for our service to Him and each other.

I write to you, Brother Christian, because I was greatly touched by your testimony that I read on the internet. We know that growing a testimony and desiring to repent start by hearing the word of God. I hope that my sharing these words with you can touch many lives as they hear my living testimony that God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ live! They want us to believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and trust in Him alone. My life is an example of coming from the most hopeless situation and being lifted into God’s light by simply trusting Him first and taking small steps to serve Him. I know God loves every person on this earth, no matter what they have done. May my humble words touch you who are reading this: Decide today by saying, “I believe and trust in You, Jesus Christ, and I place my life in Your care. I will live for You. Forgive me. Help me. Guide me right.” Then seek out a church that teaches the pure and authentic gospel of Jesus Christ and unite yourself to them so you can be fed by God’s word and begin to serve others.

My Added Thoughts (from R. Christian Bohlen)

I am not a famous person. I too am a simple person who could have easily ended up in prison for the lifestyle I was beginning to pursue as a young man (see My Story: God Never Gave Up On Me). But God reached down and touched me and, thanking God even now, I was humble enough to see His hand and accept it. I eventually chose to believe in Him with all my heart, and that has lifted me to a life where I feel His peace, and in small ways, I am blessing others with the light of God.

I too serve God alone, and not for money. In my church service, none of us are paid. My books that I write have touched many thousands, but they have not been profitable. They have cost more to produce and advertise than they generate in sales revenue. But my wife supports me in this and it is for God and His people that we do it.

No matter how small or unimportant you feel, remember: If you matter to anybody, you are somebody. If you see one person who is glad you are there, you are somebody, and to that person, you are God’s light and hands for that moment.

There is no joy like following Jesus Christ and becoming his apprentice. To this, I humbly and sincerely testify in His holy name, amen.

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