“I challenge you to abandon the quick money of prostitution,” Marion said, addressing the women from the streets. “Christ can give you everything you need.”

The Nakulabye area of Kampala is estimated to have at least 500 working prostitutes, some are as young as 14 years old. Others are married women who trek in from rural areas to make money for their families.

Today, our team worked with a local church who have an ongoing outreach to these vulnerable group of women. Fifty women were brought in from the streets to hear Marion, a former prostitute, share how she was able to find hope and a new life in Jesus.

Rejected by her stepmother at the age of 17, Marion moved in with a friend and began working at a local bar to put herself through school. She soon found that her income wasn’t enough and was encouraged to begin prostitution by her friend. “After working as a prostitute for a year I married a truck driver,” Marion said. “I thought all my troubles were over. I started having children right away and during my third pregnancy, my husband began to beat me and eventually brought home a second wife! I was heartbroken.” When

Marion’s third child was two months old, her husband threw all her belongings in a bag and drove her and their children to the bar where they had met. He threw 30 shillings (about $9) at her and drove away. “I was so scared,” Marion said. “I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I decided that going back into prostitution was my only choice, so I left my children with friends and family and began working again.” Following that decision, she was constantly beaten up or robbed. Eventually, she was found by a family friend who brought her to the rehabilitation center. It wasn’t long before Marion had committed her life to Christ and begun the process of starting over.

“I challenge you to abandon the quick money of prostitution,” Marion said, addressing the women from the streets. “Christ can give you everything you need.”

Following Marion’s talk, all the women stood up to accept Christ into their lives with hope for a better future. Please pray for these women who face a difficult road ahead as they begin to change their entire lives.

Please also continue to pray for the mission which continues to happen across the city with many people coming to Christ.

“Please pray for this new AE church partner, and for the encouragement of the pastor and his kids as they adjust to this challenging new environment, bringing the word of God to a desperately poor area.”

At the entrance of the Buskenyi slum in Western Kampala stands Nakulabye West church of Uganda. The side walls of the church actually form one side of the slum gateway, and the back of the church overlooks the slum proper.  Members of this congregation took part in the clean-up a few days ago, and CEO AE Australia Ben Campbell took the opportunity to visit the church itself.

There he was welcomed by pastor’s kids (PKs) Simeon (21) and Damalie (25) who have moved in with their Pastor dad 9 months ago.  Both are serving at the church during their studies through music, and Damalie is completing a course in fashion design.  They have moved with their father at least seven times since birth.

Their new church is constantly dusty and there is scarcely any privacy for these young people, although they did say they were well accepted by the community surrounding them.  “The attitude of the community is good to us”, Damalie said, “however, there is a lot of noise and it is difficult to get used to. People in the slums are working 24/7, and there is a lot of drunkenness and yelling.”  Also their only toilet facilities is a public toilet, and has to be kept locked during the week. Damalie said that adjusting to the new environment was very difficult, particularly after enjoying cleaner air and Sunday school teaching at her former church.

Church attendees often come in for individual prayer requests, and turn up to services drunk. “They are still easy to talk to, even when intoxicated” Damalie advises. “Even in the midst of hardship and sin, they will come.”

Both PKs and their dad were very appreciative of the work of AE in helping to clean up their area and asked for a blessing on them before the team moved on.  In his closing words, Simeon wanted to share with global supporters a verse from Luke 2:25, about his righteous namesake Simeon and his joy in seeing eternal salvation available to all who believe.

Please pray for this new AE church partner, and for the encouragement of the pastor and his kids as they adjust to this challenging new environment, bringing the word of God to a desperately poor area.  So many youth needing hope are in the area, as many of the elderly move to villages to maintain a quieter more traditional lifestyle.  Please pray that we may be able to provide direction through Christ to these young people, and that the Lord might have mercy on their community.

“Any success, any resources we have here are all because of the faithful from around the world praying for us. We can’t ever take that for granted,”

City outreach and stratified evangelism began this morning with our team being invited to speak to the police officers in the Old Kampala Police Headquarters. The mission team arrived as the officers were completing their morning march.

Pastor Stephen, who traveled from Kenya to join the mission, spoke to the officers about how Jesus is the High Commander. “When you are given an order, you obey it,” he said. “You do what is commanded and ask questions later. If we can only be loyal to Christ like that! What is God telling you to do today?” he asked. “Surrender your heart to the High Commander today and let Him control your life.

Pastor Daniel closed the powerful outreach in prayer and made a call for salvation. As a result, 31 police officers gave their lives to Christ including the police commander, Mr. Ameru P.  After the meeting, the mission volunteers were given clearance to go preach inside the police headquarters. While inside, 35 suspects/inmates made confessions of faith! Praise God! In total 110 people were reached with the Gospel and of those, 66 received Christ as their Savior.

Following the outreach, officer Charles B. approached the team to thank them. He is the self-proclaimed Chaplin of the Old Kampala Police and was thrilled that such an impact had been made for Christ among his comrades. “You have done a great work here today,” he said. “We see so many terrible things but I know that if the people of this district knew Christ, they wouldn’t do the things they do. Your work will help stop crime so please keep going and tell everyone the Word of God!”

Pastor Daniel credited the successful outreach to the power of prayer. “There are strategies involved with any evangelistic outreach,” he said, “but the most important strategy is prayer. We’ve been praying for this mission for a long time because we believe that prayer prepares the hearts of the lost to receive the Gospel. Doors open into prisons, schools, hospitals and police stations like this one because of prayer.”

“Our prayer underpins the cooperation we are seeing between churches. It is not such an easy thing to get churches to work together! We can’t take this blessing for granted. It is the power of God,” he continued.

“People aren’t being saved during this mission because of fancy preaching. We’ve recruited members of churches some of whom have never led someone to Christ. Others have been trained in evangelism for a few moments, yet they are turning hearts to Him! It’s all because God has prepared the hearts of the hearers through our prayers.”

“Any success, any resources we have here are all because of the faithful from around the world praying for us. We can’t ever take that for granted,” he concluded.

Please continue to pray for our team as outreaches take place all over the city for the rest of the week.

“AE has played a pivotal role in uniting churches in Kampala. No one church can reach this big region alone and AE has given us the unique opportunity to do it together,” he said. “In fact, this is the first time that all of the churches are coming together in the Rubaga district.”

When AE Uganda began preparing for this mission over a year ago, they found that there were deep divisions in the local churches and some refused to work together at all. Before we could do effective outreach to the city, we first had to help heal the divisions within the churches.

Rev. Raphael Kjjubi is a core partner with AE in Kampala. He leads King Jesus Church in the Rubaga division. He spoke to us enthusiastically about the mission.

“AE has played a pivotal role in uniting churches in Kampala. No one church can reach this big region alone and AE has given us the unique opportunity to do it together,” he said. “In fact, this is the first time that all of the churches are coming together in the Rubaga district.”

Rev. Kjjubi shared that local churches have felt discouraged by the spread of Islam in their community. Newly established and well-funded Islamic educations centers target marginalized communities and provide free education which revolves around Islamic studies. “This is why it’s so fundamentally important to evangelize urban areas. The churches need to awaken to the Great Commission and learn to be intentional about sharing the Gospel,” he said.

Raphael opened his church for pre-mission training and over 40 churches were trained in evangelism. He told us, “AE’s model works so well because it provides free training and support to churches before the mission. My church and many others have been empowered by this training and it’s provided long-lasting benefits for all of us. We’ve been provided with a strong theological base, local leaders have been encouraged and people have been challenged to reach out to their communities. God Bless AE! Thank you for coming to our community!” he said.

“Even though our supporters may be on the other side of the world, they are with us in spirit right now, sharing your pain and hoping to make a difference for you in the name of Jesus”

Hundreds of mission volunteers arrived at the Buskenyi Slum in western Kampala to clean the streets as an act of love and service to the community. The streets and gutters were piled high with rubbish and filth, but our team faithfully cleaned and witnessed to the community about Christ’s love.

The locals were so taken aback by what they witnessed, they could think of nothing else to do than to join them. It wasn’t long before our volunteers were working hand in hand with locals to clean up the dirtiest parts of their community.

It was here that Ben Campbell, CEO of AE Australia met Dickson. A man in his early twenties, frustrated and unemployed with a degree in social sciences. Ben noticed Dickson having an animated conversation with a young mother named Ruth who had joined the cleaning effort. Dickson was angry. “Why haven’t you cleaned the whole slum?” Dickson asked, his tongue loose from alcohol. “Do you know that if I came here and tried to clean on my own, people would beat me up?!” His anger hid a begrudging admiration for the mission team who had done something that he desperately longed to do; make a difference in his community.

Dickson invited Ben and Paul CEO of AE Uganda back to his home. He and Ruth are neighbours and do their best to look out for each other. As they walked down eroded and rocky pathways through the slum, they passed many small village shops and homes with people cooking and cleaning clothes in buckets. Young children stared and followed the group, giggling, their clothes torn and their smiles shining through dusty faces.  Young men, drunk early in the day, called out, momentarily distracted by the visitors walking into their midst.

“You see how we live?” Dickson said, at pains to point out the shortfalls of their home. “I hate this place. I feel like I die inside when I wake up to this dump every morning.”

Soon they arrived at Ruth’s home. A 2×3 metre room at the end of a narrow alley. She shares one single mattress with her three children aged 10, 8 and 4. All her belongings were jammed behind a curtain and on her wall were posters praising God. “I love God,” she said in broken English. Her children gathered, eager to meet and welcome the new guests.

“You see how she lives?” Dickson said, still frustrated. “I do what I can to earn money to help her feed her children. But I desperately want this place to be better. If I die and have made a difference here, I will be fulfilled.” he said.

As Ben and Paul continued to speak with him, they discovered that Dickson attends a church but feels that his faith is empty. Seeing his pain, Paul encouraged him to open his heart to Christ. “God has given you an ability to see the needs of your community. Look for the bigger picture of how God can change your life and use you to affect your community.”

“I believe that the church is the only thing that can make a difference in our community,” Dickson said. “The government can’t help us, but the church surely can. Thank you for coming today, you’ve given me hope.”

Ben also took a moment to pray for Ruth and her children. He encouraged her on behalf of AE’s partners across the globe. “Even though our supporters may be on the other side of the world, they are with us in spirit right now, sharing your pain and hoping to make a difference for you in the name of Jesus,” he said.

Please pray for Dickson and Ruth that God would open the way for new opportunities and courageous hearts as they face difficult circumstances. Pray that the local church would gather around them for support. Pray that Dickson’s frustration would be turned into vision and action for his community.