justBible Ministries equips pastors across East Africa to teach Scripture — and meets the physical needs in front of them. Symposiums, Bibles, workbooks, wells, classrooms, and homes. One work, not two.
Our Mission
To provide comprehensive and accurate Biblical teaching that glorifies the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit Matthew 28:18-19 where disciples learn to love the Lord God Luke 10:27Matthew 22:37 and follow Him Matthew 16:24John 12:26.
To engage in evangelistic witnessing that communicates Jesus Christ as the Son of God Acts 1:8 who is the savior of the world John 3:16.
To emulate God's love to the broken, hurting, and lost Matthew 22:39Galatians 2:10James 1:271 John 4:7, 21.
Who we are
justBible Ministries is a 501(c)(3) missions organization that trains pastors across East Africa to teach Scripture, and meets the physical needs in front of those same churches. Founded in 2011 by Mark Cooper, it is one work — not a teaching ministry on one side and an aid ministry on the other.
A symposium is three days through one book of the Bible, verse by verse. Pastors leave with a printed workbook in their own language and, if they came without one, a Bible. Selected pastors are trained in the study method and then hold Partner Symposiums of their own, in languages the US team does not speak.
So far the work has reached 11 countries and 5 languages, held 10 International Symposiums and 50 Partner Symposiums, and given 1,550 Bibles and 6,250 workbooks. The same partners have asked for wells, classrooms, toilets, and homes: five wells, four education facilities, four toilet blocks, two houses, and one kitchen. What is built belongs to the local ministry that asked for it.
By the numbers
Followship — how a pastor is trained
A symposium is three days through one book of the Bible, verse by verse. But the goal was never a single gathering — it's a pipeline that ends with East Africa teaching itself.
01 — Teach
Rural pastors and teachers travel for miles to be taught a whole book of Scripture in its entirety. Every one leaves with a printed workbook in their own language — and a Bible, if they came without one.
10 international symposiums · 10 books taught · 5 languages
02 — Equip
Selected pastors are trained in the contextual study method behind the workbooks — how to study a passage for themselves and teach it accurately — in workshops held across Uganda and Kenya.
3 training workshops · Uganda & Kenya
03 — Send
Trained pastors now hold symposiums of their own — Pastor Maurice out of Nairobi, Pastor David from Seeta Nazigo — month after month, village by village, in languages we don't speak.
50 partner symposiums · across East Africa, village by village
04 — Multiply
A live stream now carries the training across borders that are hard to cross — Mark and Pastor Maurice teaching the study method to the next group of pastors at once, wherever they are.
Streamed 2025 · the book of Malachi, live from Nairobi
Inside a symposium
The shape is deliberately plain. Nothing here depends on equipment, electricity, or anyone flying in next year.
Arrive
Pastors travel in from surrounding villages — many on foot or by motorcycle over rough dirt roads — and sleep at the host center for the duration. Meals and lodging are part of what a gift covers, because otherwise most could not come at all.
Open
The teaching starts at chapter one, verse one, and works through the whole book. Sessions run through the day with the workbook open alongside the Bible, so every point can be traced back to the text rather than taken on trust.
Work
Attendees work passages in their own workbooks and discuss them together. The method matters as much as the content — the aim is a pastor who can open a book we never taught and handle it faithfully.
Send
They leave with the workbook, often a Bible, and the study method — and the ones ready to teach are commissioned to hold gatherings of their own. That is the moment the work stops depending on us.
What every pastor takes home
6,250 workbooks and 1,550 Bibles have been given so far — because a pastor mentoring forty others cannot do it from memory.
A printed study workbook for the book just taught, in the pastor's own language, to keep working through long after the symposium ends — and to teach from.
Many arrive without one. Pastor David was mentoring forty other pastors who had no Bibles of their own, riding a motorcycle out to them each week with what he had studied — that is the gap these gatherings were built to close.
The contextual study technique behind the workbooks — so the next book, and the one after that, can be taught without waiting for us to arrive.
Questions about the training
Pastors, church leaders and teachers from the villages and towns around the host center — most of whom have had no formal theological training and could never afford it. Attendance is free to them; gifts cover the workbooks, meals and lodging that make it possible to come.
Because the aim is depth and a repeatable method, not coverage. Working through a single book verse by verse shows a pastor how to handle a text in its context — which is transferable to every other book — in a way that a survey of highlights never does. Ten books have been taught this way so far.
Teaching is in English with translation as needed, and the workbooks are printed in the pastors' own languages — five so far. The Partner Symposiums go further: trained pastors teach in languages we do not speak at all.
A Partner Symposium is a gathering run entirely by a pastor justBible Ministries trained, in his own region, without US staff in the room. The ministry supplies workbooks and support; he does the teaching — often in a language the US team does not speak.
That is the point of the pipeline. An International Symposium is three days through one book of the Bible, verse by verse. Selected pastors then sit Bible Study Techniques workshops — three have been held in Uganda and Kenya — and are commissioned to teach. Pastor Maurice holds gatherings out of Christian Restoration Church in Nairobi; Pastor David Musoke holds them from Seeta Nazigo. From those two hubs the work has crossed into villages the US team never visits.
There have been 50 Partner Symposiums. They are why the teaching now reaches 11 countries. Attendance is free to the pastors; gifts cover the workbooks, and the meals and lodging that make it possible to come.
Yes. Teams travel with the ministry for the International Symposium, and applications for the 2027 Uganda symposium are open now. You do not need to be a teacher — much of the work is logistics, encouragement, and being present with people.
Our Partners
Across Uganda and Kenya, justBible Ministries walks with local leaders for the long haul — building where we teach, and teaching while we build. Tap any timeline to travel a partnership's history, year by year.
Seeta Nazigo, Uganda · since 2012
Zion is three works on one hilltop: a church, a school, and a community center for the village around it — in use every day of the week, not only on Sundays.
We came alongside in 2012, when construction had stalled. By late 2013 the roof was on and the building could finally hold all three.
Today Zion hosts the annual Pastor Symposium — grown from 200 village pastors studying Joshua to 650 believers from eight nations — and the building keeps rising alongside the teaching: windows, a well, plastered walls, a floor, and guest housing for visiting teachers.
Next: the International Symposium comes home to Zion in 2027.
We build because — and while — we teach.
Timeline2012 → 2025
Nairobi, Kenya · since 2019
Christian Restoration Church is Pastor Maurice's congregation in Nairobi — and the ministry's second sending hub. Partner Symposiums fan out from it across Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, and regional discipleship centers have taken root behind them.
We came alongside in 2019 with a single Symposium on 1 John. By 2022 it had become a four-person teaching tour across Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania — 800+ people hearing that same book, and 550 workbooks in their hands.
In April 2026 Restoration hosted the first International Symposium ever held outside Uganda: 500+ believers from ten nations, four spoken languages plus sign, taught the book of James — alongside a children's Symposium of 250.
Next: Partner Symposiums keep going out from Nairobi.
Timeline2019 → 2026
Kikyusa / Luweero, Uganda · since 2016
Volunteer Heart Community for Girl Child-Concern takes in vulnerable girls and trains them in a trade — building construction among them — while teaching the families around them through parenting conferences in the villages near Kampala.
It began in one cramped rented room, the whole ministry squeezed into a space that was never its own. We came alongside in 2016 to get them off rented land: an Administration Building raised year by year — foundation, walls, roof, doors, and power brought to the property.
They still sleep more than twenty to a room — bunks and mosquito nets packed wall to wall. A girls' dormitory is rising on their own ground so they don't have to: foundation in 2023, walls and roof in 2024, electrical and plumbing in 2025.
Next: tile, paint and glass — and up to 40 girls with a safe place to stay while they train.
Timeline2016 → 2026
Nagojje, near Lugazi, Uganda · since 2016
Seya Light is a village school, and a church on the same ground. It teaches the children of Nagojje who have no other school within reach.
We came alongside in 2016, beginning support for the teachers. In 2018, area poverty emptied the tuition that paid them, and the school came very close to shutting down — that support kept the doors open for 250 children who had no other school within reach. Its director, Pastor Josiah Ndifuna, carried Symposium teaching out to ten surrounding villages, and kept teaching through the cancer he was fighting.
Pastor Josiah went home to the Lord in 2020. His wife Annet has kept both the school and the church running in his place, and the well dug in 2025 now serves them and the village around them.
Next: new classrooms for the older students who have grown up inside its walls.
Timeline2016 → 2026
Mukono, Uganda · since 2014
Grace Junior School teaches the children of Mukono, from preschool up.
We came alongside in 2014 — classroom gifts, teacher support, and emergency food relief through the hardest months of the pandemic.
Today the hall that once needed glass and plaster holds preschoolers and assembly days, and the community water well we dug serves the neighborhood around it.
Year by year the partnership keeps showing up.
Timeline2014 → 2024
Live from the field
This is the physical half of the one work — real construction, funded gift by gift. Pick a project and give: the live Zeffy giving form opens right here on the page.
01Seya Light School · UgandaLive
Next milestone — architectural designs
$1,900 of $1,900
02Volunteer Heart · Kikyusa, UgandaLive
Next milestone — plaster, tile & paint
$0 of $2,000
03Zion Community Center · Seeta NazigoLive
Next milestone — floor tiling
$2,450 of $10,300
Our mission is to glorify the Lord through sound Biblical teaching and supporting those in need, relying entirely on donations while ensuring all contributions are used as designated.
How a project happens
We do not arrive with a plan for somebody else's community. Every project on this page started as a request from a pastor or director we already knew.
Asked
A pastor, school director or ministry leader we have worked alongside for years tells us what is actually in the way — a school about to close, a dormitory with no roof, a village walking miles for water.
Seen
The request comes with photographs, measurements and costs, and the whole board goes through them together before anything is committed — a gift is never sent toward a description alone. We see much of it in person on a trip, though not always before the work starts; the long relationships behind these partnerships are what let us weigh a request we cannot stand in front of.
Funded
Work is broken into milestones — foundation, walls, roof, finishing — and each is funded before it starts. That is why these pages talk about a next milestone rather than a total.
Kept
What we build belongs to the local ministry that asked for it and keeps operating it. We stay in the relationship, and the next milestone usually comes from the same conversation.
Questions about the building
Because it is one work, not two. James — the book taught at the 2026 Kenya symposium — has hard things to say about telling someone to go in peace while doing nothing about their need. The pastors we teach serve communities without clean water or a safe classroom, and meeting that need is part of the same obedience.
Yes. Each live project above opens its own Zeffy giving form right on the page, so your gift goes to that build. If you would rather we decide, the general fund puts it wherever the need is most pressing right now.
Nothing. Zeffy is a zero-fee platform for nonprofits, so 100% of your gift reaches the field. Zeffy asks donors for an optional contribution of their own at checkout — that is what funds the platform, and you can set it to zero.
The local ministry or school that asked for them. We are not building an outpost of ourselves — the dormitory belongs to Volunteer Heart, the classrooms to Seya Light, and they operate them.
The finished work above is photographed year by year, and each partner's page carries a dated timeline of what was built when. The reports cover the same ground in writing — read the 2025 Annual Report or the March 2026 Partner Symposiums Report.
What's next
In 2027 the International Symposium returns to Zion in Seeta Nazigo, where it began — and applications to come with us are open now. You do not have to be a teacher to go; you have to be willing.
The next International Symposium is being prepared for Uganda in 2027, back at Zion Community Center where the first one was held. Applications to come along are open now — come teach, come build, or come and carry water.
August 2026 Rwanda (Kigali), September 2026 Burundi (Bujumbura), October 2026 Zimbabwe, and November 2026 Zambia.
Give straight toward the next gathering — the workbooks, Bibles, meals, and travel that put a book of the Bible into a pastor's hands.
Partner with us
One work, not two — the same gift teaches a pastor and digs the well behind his church.
See where it goes
The work, in photographs
Every photograph started as a gift. Open as many as you like — or keep scrolling.
