Jako & Karin Hugo have visited almost 8,000 schools in Africa and ministered to more than three million students. Their simple message of salvation has resulted in an enormous harvest of souls. They believe that children are the greatest mission field in the world.
Connect with Jako & Karin Hugo: https://www.facebook.com/jako.hugo
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Jako & Karin Hugo have visited almost 8,000 schools in Africa and ministered to more than 3 million students. Their simple message of salvation has resulted in an enormous harvest of souls. They believe that children are the greatest mission field in the world.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:19):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of The Lord shall be saved. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist. Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast on Daniel King. And I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. We have very special guests who have an innovative way for reaching children, brother Jocko, and Karen Hugo. Thank you for being with me today. Thank you, sir. So tell me about how you’re reaching children for Jesus.
Jako Hugo (01:19):
Wow. Where do I start? So about 14 years ago, we started vesting schools in Africa and we realized how open the schools are. I went to a crusade and I told her to visit some schools up the road. And maybe you can explain that better. And I came back six weeks later and she was at many schools and we were surprised how open the schools are to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so we found various ways to actually access the schools. Initially we visited three schools a day and then we found that it’s actually very easy. So eventually we ended up visiting seven schools a day in our OB, and we could not believe how easy it is and I’ll open the schools are to the gospel. And so we just went from school to school week in, week out. And yeah, that is it. I don’t know what else you wanted me to say.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
And so now how many schools have you visited over the past the years that you’ve been doing this?
Jako Hugo (02:18):
I believe it’s not just short of 8,000, definitely. Well, over 7,000, we kind of stopped counting about two years ago when we started helping CFN with schools. But while I was 7,000 schools and we literally see millions of children need coming into the kingdom of God. So we’re very accurate that
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:30):
Let’s talk about why it’s so important to reach the children. Sometimes people think we’re going to reach the adults and the only the salvation that they really count as the adults, they don’t count all the little children that are running around. But why do you think it’s important to reach children with a gospel
Jako Hugo (02:47):
First? I think that’s really where the market is. Like the, you know, they, we talk about the 10 40 window they’ve lived when it comes to salvation. They talk about the four 14. We know is really between the age of four and 14, 70% of the people in the world gives a life to Jesus. So that’s really where we should be aiming our crusades. And so often I believe it’s important when a child, of course, it’s easier for the child to make a decision for Jesus Christ because they believe just easier child childlike, faith. The Bible talks about it so powerful. And so, but if we can get the child to Jesus at a younger age, we can actually bend that tree and they can follow God and become and live a much better life glorifying to him. Then when maybe when you want to catch them later and try to turn the tree when it’s stronger. So I believe the sooner you get the child to fall in love with Jesus and know Jesus and walk and talk with Jesus, you could change his entire life the way he look at himself, the way he lives.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:40):
And I’ve been watching how you’ve been training these evangelism bootcamp students here at Christ for all nations, taking them into these African nations and taking them from school to school and the same results that you’ve seen. You’ve been seeing these young students have as they go into the schools. Tell me what D why do you think it’s so important for these students to have this experience of, of sharing the gospel with each other?
Jako Hugo (04:11):
You know, a number of years ago, we were starting to pray that people, more people will come to come and share the gospel, the children, because it’s really, it is so, so easy and schools are so, so open. And so God really opened the door through CFM, and I believe the harvest is plentiful. And the more harvest is we can send out to the others the better, because I don’t think we can read them all. It’s just because every five, six years the school is completely new. And, and so the more people we can train up who can train more people who can multiply themselves. I think the chance of reaching the office in Africa and the world becomes better and bigger.
Karin Hugo (04:44):
And this is also something that’s easy to do for anybody that starts out a ministry. If you start in schools, it’s not expensive, it is easy, doable with somebody somebody that you partner up with. And also, if this is maybe a platform where you can start, you streamline your messages, you get confidence and you train yourself on how to do this well to go and take it at a higher level.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:12):
So let’s pretend that we are visiting a school right now, and you’re standing in front of the children. What do you say to lead them down the pathway to salvation kind of pretend like right here, we have a bunch of kids and you are ministering to them. What do you say?
Jako Hugo (05:30):
Okay. So maybe I just give you a bit of an outline. We introduce ourselves it’s always good to show honor to the teacher and the teachers that’s actually giving you the opportunity. Then we open up the prayer and Mitel to spread, to come to open up their hearts and their minds that they fully understand what God wants to say. And then we tell the story. There are many children’s stories. We connect scripture to the story, maybe a number of scriptures that you feel God has placed on your heart, because that’s really opening up them. And I’ll just print this there. And we add an attribute, the story, and then we listed the name of Jesus over and over and over. And as we do that dollar spread com and then we give them opportunity to respond. And it’s amazing other response. And then we pray a basic prayer of salvation, really basic, the message must be basic and simple for them to understand.
Jako Hugo (06:14):
And then we explain salvation and then we give them a chance. And then we also share a short scripture on the holy spirit and give them chance to receive the holy spirit. Now I can, you want me to do a spin, a story?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:25):
Give me a story.
Jako Hugo (06:26):
Okay. One day long, long ago in a country, far, far away, there was a young man that lived with his family. It’s so happened that his country came into war. The father said to the older brothers, they should go and fight in the war. After sometime. Now we say to the younger brother that remained behind you should take some food to your older brothers. They must be hungry. Now, today, back there, big Baca food, lots of rice meat, banana. The boy walked for a long time. When he got to his brothers, they just sitting around like us.
Jako Hugo (07:01):
He said, brothers, why are you sitting? Why are you not liking the enemy? Oh little brother. We have a big problem. The enemies that are be giant, nobody wants to fight the giant. They say, if we defeat the giant, we can take the land. But his day defeat our soldier. They was taking our land. Nobody wants to fight. But this young man that brought the food, he felt like God is with him. He told his brothers, the brothers told the king. The king said, now, if this young man feels like God is with him, he can fight the giant. The boy went, he picked up five rocks. You walked up to the giant, the giant looked down and said, Hey, you’re a little boy. What are you doing here? Now? You’re just no body. The young man said to the giant, Mr. Giant, today, I will defeat you because the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is with me.
Jako Hugo (07:55):
The giant is the laughing. He took one rock, put it inside Eastern shot. He went sure Erie needs the rock. The rock flew, hit the giant in front of his head. The giant went down and the boy killed that giant. That day love his own squat. Now, what is the name of the giant Goliath and the name of the boy, David [inaudible] the children know the names of the day, you know? And it’s very, they recognized I’ve not been to one school where they didn’t recognize story. The great thing here is now you’ve told an actual Rideau in a story that they solved. Now, they know they got you. And you know, you go then, and from there to get to salvation, it doesn’t take long because how do you take that into salvation? So I would, for instance, say, you know, the same way that God helped David to the fecal life, he wants to help you too.
Jako Hugo (08:43):
But why do you call it up? David, David and God put close friends. You walked and talk of God all the time. So how do you and I become close friends of God. The Bible says for us to start this rich relationship with God, we need to be born again to be saved by God to go to heaven. So how do we get born? Again? The Bible says there are two things we need to do. Number one, you need to believe in Jesus Christ, that Jesus, the son of God, he died on the cross for you and me, that Jesus rose from the gate, from the dead, that Jesus is alive today. And he wants to live in your heart. You ask, if you believe that all hands go up, Sidney, the Bible says you need to repent of your sin. What does that mean?
Jako Hugo (09:19):
You need to ask God to forgive you are the things that you’ve done that was wrong. Like lying to the teacher or cheating in an exam or stealing or minimal, or maybe not forgiving your brother, your sister, and then forgiveness. You can go much deeper if you want to, if you have the time. But you know, the Bible says that Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart, right? You’re right now, he wants to forgive you. She wants to give you a brand new start today and hope for the future. Are you ready to open the door of your heart to Jesus?
Jako Hugo (09:48):
Secondly, the Bible says that everyone say everyone everywhere or calls upon the name of Jesus shall be saved. Are you ready to call upon the name of Jesus? Let’s all close our eyes. And then you get him down to respond. And then you do like a basic, simple prayer. I like to pray a basic, simple Wonka prayer. And you must show you prayed in short phrases. So it’s easy for them to repeat. Yeah. And so we have many different stories that we used, and it’s really amazing how the children respond. But I do like David and Goliath, just because it’s not on your story, also a real, and you really pull them in and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:19):
They, as they figure it out, then they start to think, oh, I know what to do.
Jako Hugo (10:24):
Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s also easy to keep their attention because all the time they’re thinking, is it, or is it not this? What is he talking about? So you’re keeping their attention all the time, because just not a story where they wondering and off all the time, they’re starting to realize why you’re talking about,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:36):
Talk about why you use stories to capture attention. I think sometimes people go in and just immediately jump into the gospel message and it becomes just straight preaching where they’re shaking their finger at people. And then it’s very easy to lose children. But why are stories so effective in capturing?
Jako Hugo (10:56):
I think you actually pull the children. I, you, this is saying you first started when the children yourself, and then went up to Jesus. You’ll put your, pull them in. But they remember the stories, you know, we’ve seen the children years later when we see them, they don’t remember our names, which retaliate. I like, they will remember sometimes the song that we played them one by Jesus. You’re the only one I can look for. And I remember the story, but it’s important to me also to remember the principle behind the story. Yeah. But it’s amazing how they remember the story. And I remember that story and I wanted to connect that story to the day of salvation. So that’s the day I said yes to Jesus is when I heard that story about Devin Goliath and the same way they got up there with these now helping me.
Karin Hugo (11:31):
I think it’s also to explain in their everyday life, the Bible to make it a life, how Jesus wants to be their friend, how Jesus can help them, how Jesus can save them. But how is it applicable to the daily life? Like he can be your friend. He can help you to, to slay a giant like, like David slayed, Goliath, but you can slave giant of stealing and lying and cheating because God will help you. So it just make the biblical application into a practical everyday application. Yeah.
Jako Hugo (12:09):
And in high schools, of course we have different stories. Again, I like to tell the room, the 10 rooms, for instance, in high schools, and you can lift up many others and like pornography and all these things that they could struggle with. So it just depends different schools will do different things, but it’s amazing how God is moving. You often see the children crying, you see teachers crying, you see teachers responding is really, really
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:29):
Amazing. And then you also pray for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Jako Hugo (12:31):
Yes. So we do basic scriptures about the spread, receiving the power in schools. We, it’s not the good thing to maybe use the word baptism because we’ve had this way. They say, you know, don’t come and baptize my children into your faith. But we talk about the power of God. We ensure we can disbelief.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:47):
Otherwise spirit wants to live with you. Exactly. Actually
Jako Hugo (12:50):
Wants to comfort you. And yeah.
Karin Hugo (12:53):
Yeah. I usually explain to them, you know, the choice that you’ve just made is not an choice that might be easy to live out every day, but the choice is however, for the rest of your life and we cannot do it alone. And so therefore Jesus knew this. So he promised to save us the holy spirit to come and to help us to give us the power, to overcome, to give us a power, to be witnessing, to be both. And therefore, when you have the holy spirit, you can do all of this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:21):
Wow. That’s so beautiful. And I think it’s so amazing that you’ve visited almost 8,000 schools. Praise God, praise ministered to over 4 million children. You know, how many ministers never in their lives minister to that, God’s opened the door for you. And you’ve seen so many children give their lives to Jesus. What does that feel like when you, you pray a prayer of salvation with so many children repeat that?
Jako Hugo (13:51):
That is amazing. And so I make the mistake. Sometimes I open my eyes myself and I look at the two and I look how sincere I serious. They are. That really touched my heart. In fact, I think the same happened with these adventures that we train now. They also opened their eyes in the middle of the prayer. And that’s really, when it catch it, catch your heart that you see are serious. They are how seriously they pray, how would they believe is really amazing, but this is highly addictive. I want to encourage you if you do this once, it will be hard not to do it again and again and again and again. Yeah, it is amazing. The children can crawl into a heart faster than I can explain is really amazing. Very highly addictive.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:31):
Amen. Well, I love what you do. And I’m so excited about the harvest of souls that God has given you. Thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast. And I pray that your example will inspire many thousands more to go into schools around the world, to lead the children to Jesus. Jesus said, let the little children come up to me and you are fulfilling that scripture and you are going and giving the children an opportunity to come to Jesus. And it’s so beautiful.
Jako Hugo (15:02):
Thank you so much. We are under that. You ask us to be part of this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:09):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today, our ministry is supported by people like you, who help us go to the nations to preach the gospel. Our goal is every soul. It only costs us an average of about $1 for every person. We’re able to tell about Jesus. And so could you do me a favor, go to my website, king ministries.com and become a partner with us for as little as $1 a month. You can start to partner with king ministries and help us lead at least one person to Jesus every single month. Imagine for $1, you can start a party in heaven every single month. So right now, go to king ministries.com and partner with us and help us to preach the gospel to those who need to hear the gospel. The most, the least reach people in the world. Also, I’d like to ask you to go to apple podcasts and give the evangelism podcast a five star review. Your positive review will help other people find this podcast who are excited about evangelism. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (16:29):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
