Moody graduate, Richmond Wandera, returns to Uganda to equip pastors.

“This is an urgent need. This is a crisis. This is the body of Christ, and we must stand with each other,” says Richmond Wandera MDiv ’11, CEO and founder of Pastors Discipleship Network. “Although there are over twenty-four million Christians in sub-Saharan Africa, eighty percent of pastors do not have any theological training.”

Without ministry skills and resources, pastors are in danger of distorting the gospel, abusing the ministry, causing conflict, and lacking accountability, he says. “There is something worse than not going to church. It is going to church and hearing heresy and false gospel.”

Through Pastors Discipleship Network, Richmond is making a difference by training and equipping more than 4,000 pastors in Uganda, South Sudan, the People’s Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.

A Difficult Start

When Richmond was a child, his father was murdered, leaving Richmond to care for his six younger siblings in the Naguru slum of Kampala, Uganda. “My father died physically, and in some ways we lost our mother as well. We realized she couldn’t provide food for us . . . and so as kids we had to survive,” he recalls. Richmond spent a lot of time on the streets, stealing and scrounging for food. “What began as a visit to the street became a lifestyle.”

When he was eight years old, everything changed for him. He enrolled in a Compassion International child development center at New Life Baptist Church, where he became a Christian and received education, consistent food, and medical care.

At 17, Richmond began serving at the very church that offered him hope through Compassion International, first as a youth pastor and later as an associate and senior pastor. With only an accounting degree, he realized he needed more training. “I was serving in a very dark, hopeless community, and the theological issues and questions that were thrown at me I could not deal with.” One day, as he was conducting a prayer vigil, a woman demanded that Richmond tell her what her three-year old child had done to God to deserve to die. Although his church looked at him with anticipation for an answer, Richmond froze. “I was so ill-prepared in that situation. When I walked away from that place, I called my senior pastor and told him I almost wanted to throw in the towel,” he says.

Ministry Launched at Moody

Richmond was desperate to find training. Steve Wilson of Compassion International told Richmond about Moody and helped him receive a Wess Stafford–Moody Scholarship, named after Compassion’s founder Wess Stafford ’70 and paid for by Moody Radio listeners. With enough financial resources to travel to Chicago, Richmond enrolled in Moody Theological Seminary’s Master of Divinity program.

“Moody became a family to me,” he says. “You are not on your own when you’re at Moody.” He recalls a professor gifting him with a winter coat when he found himself ill-equipped to withstand his first Chicago winter.

While praying for Africa and Asia with his fellow students at Moody, the idea for Pastors Discipleship Network developed. “It was then that I knew in my heart that I wanted to take my training and make it available for my fellow pastors in Africa,” he says. “When you train a pastor, you train a church. When you train a church, you train a community. When you train a community, you impact a nation.”

While he was still a seminary student, Richmond returned to Uganda where pastors from 500 churches gathered to hear him speak about what God was teaching him through Moody. Richmond cultivated a passion for training Christian leaders in his home country, but he needed support. He was joined by classmates Andreea (Plamada) Herholz MA ’12, Emily Hartman MA ’10, Emily Wakabi ’11, Michael Wangler MA ’11, and Nathan Sullivan ’14, along with Moody faculty members Julius Wong Loi Sing, John Fuder, Andy Pflederer ’87, and Russ Davis. “I am so thankful that I had faculty and students join me to train pastors in Uganda,” he says. “It was an incredible time.”

Although Richmond had a platform to speak to hundreds of Ugandan pastors, teaching resources were desperately needed. The majority of pastors receiving his training did not own a complete copy of the Bible. Richmond asked his fellow Moody students for assistance, and together they donated 115 study Bibles to Pastors Discipleship Network for training the pastors.

Today Richmond uses a six-step training program to teach pastors to be theologians, preachers, counselors, servant leaders, disciples, and entrepreneurs. In addition to yearly conferences, Pastors Discipleship Network has an active ministry to pastor’s wives and an alumni library with theological resources. Richmond also speaks internationally for Compassion International.

Looking back, Richmond never imagined he would receive the education to train pastors today. “God, who saved me, called me. And He opened doors that I would never have opened to get this high-quality, world-class training,” he says.

“I came to Moody without root but by the time I left, I was rooted in the Word. Moody provided quality academic training that positioned me well to encounter complex cultural and doctrinal issues in our ever-evolving culture.”

Haley Versluys graduated in December 2016 from Moody Bible Institute, where she worked in the Alumni office as an editorial assistant.