My Pursuit of a College Degree Led Me to CLI and CLI

Hi, my name is Lawrence Nkandu of Lusaka, Zambia, and I would like to get a Christian Read how free ministry training at Christian Leaders Institute has been crucial for this man’s ministry dream and his pursuit of a college degree.college degree from Christian Leaders Institute. I was born in the early 70s. Two years after my birth, my parents divorced. Later, my mother remarried, and so I grew up with a stepfather who had children from a previous marriage. I was not the favorite of the house and felt somewhat neglected. I was like an outsider to the family.

My stepdad wanted nothing to do with my schooling. Therefore, the burden of my education fell on my poor mother. She was not employed but was diligent enough to raise money for my school fees, books, and uniforms. After much struggle, I managed to complete my grade 12. Despite getting good grades at my final exams, I could not go to college for a college degree. Instead, I opted to get a job to relieve my mother of the enormous burden of college fees.

Spiritual Journey

I was born again in 1988 after some Bible school students witnessed to me. It was for the first time I heard the gospel message. My heart filled with such joy that I knew I had finally found what I was missing. I had attended Sunday mass at a nearby Catholic Church but left with an emptiness inside me. So, I kept wondering whether that was all there was to religion?

Then, that Saturday afternoon came when those three college students explained the Word of God more thoroughly to me. I was so happy inside. They invited me to attend church the following day at the Pentecostal Assemblies of God Church. It was my first time to enter a Pentecostal church. After the service, I knew I had found a home, and I never wanted to leave. I felt the presence of God there. Afterward, I vowed to remain a Christian for the rest of my life.

My Call to Serve the Lord

I fell in love with God and wanted was to be in His presence all the time and serve Him. After approaching and talking to my pastor, he confirmed my calling to serve the Lord. So after completing my secondary education, I wanted to go to Bible college to get a Christian college degree, but the availability of funds was a challenge.

Hence, I opted for employment. Every morning, going to work was a struggle. Inside me, there was no interest in this job I was doing. So after about a year, I had enough and quit. I pushed myself into Bible school. I sold my cell phone plus the little cash I had saved paid for my first semester at school.

In my second year, I dropped out due to a shortage of funds and decided to launch into ministry. I started and planted a church for the first time in 1997. Later, I tried again to pursue my theological studies. However, the usual hindrance of money was there, so I gave up on college and concentrated on doing the work of God. To date, I’m still pastoring, though, with very little training. The Holy Spirit has been faithful in His work.

Finding CLI and My Pursuit of a College Degree at CLI

I stumbled upon the Christian Leaders Institute as I was browsing the internet about nine days ago. Before this, I had never heard of or even thought that anyone could be so generous as to offer high-quality spiritual education for FREE! I immediately enrolled to give it a try. Wow!!!! It’s so unbelievable and so good. I intend to go through all the classes that CLI is offering and one day lay my hands on the Bachelor of Divinity Degree from Christian Leaders Institute.

Christian, Minister, Woman, Wife, and Mother. The core of these monikers always remains with me, clear and precise in my mind. My identity on a DNA level, so to speak. My name is Azelda Joubert, and I am getting a low-cost college degree at the Christian Leaders Institute . I am a born again Christian, ordained minister, and live with my husband and three children in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs in South Africa.

In many ways, and by many definitions of the word, I have lived a “charmed” life. I grew up in poverty but was noticed as early as in grade school for my sharp mind, creativity, eloquence, and drive. This remained a defining characteristic of my school years. I was recognized for many achievements, most considered extraordinary due to or despite my family’s financial hardship, spiritual bankruptcy, and moral ambiguity.

Burned Potatoes

A woman I loved very dearly and, to this day, she influences me though only in memory. She once told me that we choose how we define the things that happen to us and through us in life. She told me the following:

For some people, a pot of burned potatoes is just that, burned potatoes. To be laughed at and to try again. They see no hardship or tragedy, just the reality of a failed pot of mashed potatoes. They try again and move on.

For others, a pot of burned potatoes is a tragedy that has the potential to derail their world with regret, reproach, and recriminations. These are the people who allow life to overtake them with the inertia of insignificant details, often stuck with a pot of potatoes beyond use.

The third group sees every tragedy in life as burnt potatoes, never understanding consequence, accountability, or impact. They treat their own participation in or cause heartache and tragedy as nothing more than others would a pot of burned potatoes.

Her adamant demand of me? See your life for what it is, learn your lessons, grow when you can, and always remember to check the potatoes!

Why do I tell this story? Because the next part of my story is hard to tell. I do not share my early childhood’s hurt as it has no value beyond the lessons it taught and the empathy I am gifted with.

Derailed

In my early teenage years, my faith in God, tiny as it was at the time, was harmed by the callous unthinking words of a minister. I had no grounding in faith or biblical literacy to refute his statement. So, I decided to turn my back on the Christian faith. I could not serve or believe in a God capable of cruelty. So, I carried someone else’s pot of burned potatoes as my personal tragedy for more than a decade.

I turned to a modern form of paganism, Wicca, as a solitary Wiccan practitioner. I soon caught the attention of a coven and moved through the ranks rapidly to the office of a high priestess. Again, I believed my life to be quite literally “charmed.” It was a time in which I gradually became intimately familiar with the darkness, the trappings of sin, and the fear that resides in the abject absence of God in one’s life.

The details serve no purpose in my testimony other than to demonstrate the enormity of God’s Grace. Often, one act of defiance or sin leads you down a path that grows in darkness and regrets. It seems almost impossible to turn around and seek the light your soul so desperately needs. My new “charmed life” had me proclaiming my spiritual tragedy as nothing but burned potatoes masquerading as the uninformed opinion of others.

Changed

In 2003, I was pregnant with my daughter. By this time, the religious practices of my pagan faith had me fearful and stressed. Therefore, I believed the only way this precious baby would be safe was for me to denounce all belief and to go through life alone. Ironically, I was too afraid to stay home alone on Sunday mornings. So, I tagged along with my parents as they attended a local church. It was in this church that the Love of Christ confronted me! It came through scripture and testimony, and mostly, an outpouring of love by Christ’s body. By the time my daughter was born in early 2004, I was a believer though not yet saved.

The church I attended participated in an Easter Camp that year. It was during this camp, in a humble prayer room without much in the way of comforts or furnishings, I came to know Christ – not only as God but as my Savior. I surrendered my life with all its ugliness and beauty, all the sin and goodness, to the One who died for my sin, conquered death, and reigns with the Father for all eternity.

My Calling

With this salvation, this miracle of forgiveness, I also received my calling: Preach the Word!
2 Timothy 4:1-5:  I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

In 2005, I enrolled at Theological College and started the most remarkable journey of my life. I met my husband, a Godly man with a solid Christian faith. I married him, had two more children (boys), and completed my National Diploma in Theology. Then, I did my practical training in a local church with an excellent mentor.  In January 2011, I received my ordination.

Remembering that I have a calling, I continued my corporate management career. I still served where I could, learning and growing in Christ. I served as a youth pastor, assistant pastor, private school principal, and guest teacher for undergrad students during my bi-vocational ministry years and am grateful for each experience.

Purpose Through a Promise In 2009

The Greatest Commandment for us was Deuteronomy 6:1-12.  Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and your gates.” (Deut. 6:4-9)

We have taught our children the ways of God, loved God above all else, and witnessed this in our everyday life through words and actions and behavior. In our 15 years of marriage, we have faced many storms and mountains. It has been an amazing journey of growth, discovery, and divine provision from God to fulfill his remarkable promise to us. We have made some mistakes along the way, but always the grace of God has been sufficient for us. We endure, grow closer to each other and God, raise a family, and serve where we can. Today by Grace, I see burned potatoes simply as burnt potatoes.

Study at CLI and a Low-Cost College Degree at CLI

Three years ago, when full-time ministry seemed far out of my reach, and financial demands kept both my husband and me working full time far from home, I was diagnosed with FMS. It forced me to become a stay-at-home mother for the first time in our married life. We decided to find the God-centric purpose of this also. I started home-schooling our children. We went from a double income family to a single income family almost overnight. This change had real implications. Now I had the time, but not the means, to complete my studies, realize my calling, and complete the task so keenly placed on my heart. Once more, without a low-cost college degree option, my study was on hold. My dream of impacting the spiritual health and growth of the body of Christ, in truth, had to wait for another season.

Three years of prayers and faith have now placed this dream within reach. I have the possibility to complete my studies through the generous and inclusive opportunity of the Christian Leaders Institute. A low-cost college degree at the Christian Leaders Institute is perfect. I will not only grow in readiness and preparedness but also fulfill my calling.

Doctrinally sound apologetic teaching is the church’s armor against heresy, apostasy, and false teachers. My life and my salvation stand as proof that the word of God does not return upon itself empty. My calling demands that I reproduce and teach this to a world lost and broken.

“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:47

 

 

nterested in a low-cost college degree? Check out the Christian Leaders Institute.

My name is Mark Lawrenson and I’m from a small rural town in Eastern Ontario, Canada. I am a current student at CLI  taking free theology classes and this is my story.

Background and Childhood

I was born into a wonderful Christian family. I the eldest of three, along with my siblings were raised up in the ways of God. Both my father and grandfather had full-time careers as ordained ministers, working as Pastor’s of churches they had planted. My father felt a calling to the mission field and with the help of his biggest supporter (my mom) packed up our family and moved to Jamaica. This was in 1965.

At the time, as a young child, I had no idea how this move to a foreign country (which at times seemed hostile towards us) would have such a profound affect on my life as a whole. I accepted the reasons my parents gave me for the move, and although I never told them, I did have a bit of resentment for awhile in having to leave our home, friends, cousins and other family behind. I, however, quickly adapted and became a part of what they were trying to do in furthering the gospel to this nation.

My parents had enrolled me at a young age (prior to going to Jamaica) into music lessons, first piano and then I moved into guitar. I practiced diligently and a year or two after we arrived in Jamaica my dad felt I was proficient enough and asked me to start participating in the church services with my musical talents. I enjoyed this so much that the sting of resentment quickly faded. I gained new friends, became an integral part of my father’s ministry which in turn gave me the realization of God’s grace and the gift of his salvation through His son Jesus Christ. I was 13 years old at the time, and was baptized in the river that ran beside the church along with some other converts in early 1967.

I stayed in Jamaica with my parents until 1969 at which time they felt it necessary to send me back to Canada for schooling. I would live with an Aunt and Uncle in Montreal and attend school along with their 6 children. It was another dramatic change in my life, and while at the time I found it exciting, there were a lot more distractions and I started to experience “spiritual warfare” in my life.

Also, being a teenager, such an impressionable time in one’s life, I was introduced to a whole host of “other” things that I had been shielded from at home with my parents in Jamaica. I never really got into any trouble, although I did run away once, trying to get to my grandparent’s place in Toronto. When I finished the school year everybody thought it best if I return to my parents in Jamaica. I was 16 years of age at this time.

Returning to Jamaica was like going back home…but it was short lived, the following year my parents felt a calling to minister in Mexico. We would move to McAllen, Texas where we would live as a family, go to school and church, allowing for my parents to cross the border into Mexico to minister frequently. I graduated from high school there in 1972, and that summer we returned to Canada to visit family who we hadn’t seen for some time. While there, I had an uncle who had a construction company who I started working for. This was my introduction to what my career would eventually become, and at the same time I met a girl at the local church I was attending, who I would marry 2 years later.

Life Challenges

My immediate family, parents and siblings, all assumed that like my father and grandfather, I would continue their work in the ministry. I had always felt that way too, but it was not to be. I did return to Texas for a year, where once again I got a job in construction. I returned to Canada in late 1973 and started my apprenticeship for carpentry. I got married in 1974 and had my 1st daughter in 1976. It was around this time that my “walk with God” started a slow downhill decline.

My wife, who also came from a good Christian family and was grounded in God’s word, felt that “we as a couple” would be called into the ministry also. She had attended Bible College in Saskatchewan for a year prior to us getting married, and agreed to go on a mission trip with me (which was also going to be our honeymoon) delivering Bible’s to Cuba. I look back on this experience now and “WOW”, probably not the wisest thing to do on your honeymoon. But we accomplished what we set out to do, with the Lord’s help, and had some very “hair raising stories” to talk about when we returned to Canada.

Over a period of time, after the return from Cuba, our lives began to go through a tumultuous time. We got caught up in life, working, starting and raising a family, so busy all the time. We started skipping church attendance. The walk and relationship we had with God, and each other started to fail…and the spiritual dream we had always thought would be a part of our future went by the wayside too. Our marriage failed ultimately and we divorced in 1981, after 7 years of marriage.

Calling to Ministry

The next 37 years of my life are a bit of a blur. Another failed relationship after 20 years of marriage with 2 more children. In 2008, I married for the 3rd time…to a wonderful Christian lady named Mary, who I lost to metastasized breast cancer in September of 2018. In my grief I determined to raise money for cancer, started a website (www.remembermary.com) and rode my bicycle around all the Great Lakes in Ontario and then to Florida. A total of 5,800 kms (3,600 miles).

While on my cycling journey I had a lot of time to think about my life. I came to the realization that life is about choices. If we truly seek God and establish a walk with him he will give us guidance and he will show us the choice we must make. If we choose not to walk with God (as I did), I consider that a poor choice. I never stopped believing what I was taught from a young age, and I am eternally grateful to God for giving me the parents I have, who instilled in me the basic values which I was able to pass on to my children.

I have been very blessed in life even with all the hardships I had to endure because of my poor choices. I am even more grateful to God for sending his only son, Jesus Christ into this world, to live as a man and to die on a cross to save us from our sins. I am so grateful for the grace he has bestowed on mankind, that even though we may turn away from him, he will always take us back.

While on that cycling journey, I re-established that walk and relationship with God. My spiritual dream is to continue this walk him and seek his guidance for my ministry. He is developing a plan, which at sometime in the future I will share, and I hope will take fruition in a few years.

In the meantime, I want to thank Christian Leaders Institute for what they are doing. I am learning so much and I plan on getting my degree in Theology. Because they are offering these free theology classes to me, I will endeavor to support them as a Vision Partner so that they can continue to provide this for those who can’t afford it. I believe God’s Word should be available to everyone at no cost.

Thank-you,

Mark Lawrenson

 

 

Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the Christian Leaders Institute.