Now, Chatara is the village where Billy started the ministry of spreading the gospel of Christ. This is a village with great needs. Out of a population of 57,000 about 300 people go to church. That is a very small percentage that emphasizes that people have not really heard about the gospel in that village. HIV/AIDS is prevalent, claiming people by the hundreds. The percentage of those infected by HIV/AIDS is about 35%. That means that in every 100 people, 35 are infected. Families have been disintegrated as husbands and wives die living behind small children. And when families are broken like this, the church suffers too. One of the families that have been hit like this had been hosting the church to hold fellowships in their home. They both died and left two small children and the relatives came and closed the house. Then the fellowship had to move!

The people of Rakai suffer from disillusionment and feelings of hopelessness to a point of desperation. This is manifest by the way they are quick to believe anything you tell them. For example, there is a man called Mukwonza who has come to the area claiming to be Jesus. He is a very wealthy man suspected to have links in America. So he goes around convincing everyone that he is Jesus come in the flesh. And he has a large following. It’s a cultic movement and it’s sad that lot’s of people are blindly following him. I don’t know how he is using the Bible but he is proclaiming that he is Christ the Lord. And people follow him coz they are so hopeless. They are hungry for something, anything. They have no hope for anything but surprisingly when it comes to the economic environment and the agricultural environment, it’s excellent. All green, raining all the time, bananas everywhere, plenty of food, yet people have no jobs. There’s only depression, despondency, discouragement, and that is what has escalated the rate of HIV/AIDS.

Rwanda…
We went to Rwanda, we visited Kigali and we also went over to Ruwengeri. That’s on the slopes of Ruwenzori Mountains. We were forty kilometers from the border, Ngoma; again, the story is the same. They told us stories of poverty, that they have nothing, yet when I would look out the area is green. You can plant anything, anywhere and it will grow. From rice to fruits to vegetables, you name it, it will grow. It’s the same story all over of the African spirit of dependency. Those who had come to the leaders conference were asking us to sponsor them to travel back home. We had about 123 leaders who had come and others also who joined us for a weeks training and it was the same thing, asking for handouts. Every place we were going to they were asking for handouts and you look around and see land and opportunities for development, for self-sustenance and more. You see opportunities for business and you think, “Boy, if the Kenyans would come to this place! Things would change.” So for me it was challenging yet very exciting to see people who are on site and what they are able to do.

Bishop Abel Ngachangari is a Rwandan man, a Tutsi who survived the Rwandan genocide. That’s another story! God told him three years before the genocide that it was going to happen. He went to the president of Rwanda, he was called Abarianyanya, he told him what was going to happen and advised him to tell the Tutsi’s to come back or else there was going to be bloodshed and they were going to take over the country. He was jailed for sometime by the president. And when the president called for a psychiatric to come and check his mind he declared him sane and the president released him and offered him some money. Abel refused to take the money and simply went away. Then God told him to move away from Rwanda. He moved from Rwanda and during the genocide he was in Mwanza in a Bible School. God then called him to go and help the refugees in Kagera and other refugee camps. That’s where African Christian Missions International (ACMI) connected with him.

We met him in one of the largest refugee camps. And he was able to preach, God helped him and he preached a lot in the camps. When peace returned to Rwanda, he went back and he started churches. I think he has a little over forty some churches which are on-going. A few others have closed down and he needs training for his leaders. I was blessed to hear and see the story of this man and what he has gone through. He has escaped death not once. Even when he went back to Rwanda after peace returned, he really faced a task from the enemy. But God has protected him and he is now asking us to help him bring up that work in Rwanda. So it was all exciting for me. We want to help him start a young adults training program in Ruwengeri where he lives. We would also like to send some missionaries in Rwanda not to stay just for a while but for a long term mission. Training will also help them get out of the dependency spirit. Whenever I tell people about what I do on the side apart from preach, that is farming, it really inspires others to wake up and do something. It’s a really bad attitude that a lot of Africans have even Christians; the spirit of dependency. Yet God told us to work, to till the ground. I know that genocide has contributed to the situation but I really think that Christianity has to be re-written in an African context. You know the missionaries came here and preached, thank God for that. And they all had white collar jobs. So a lot of African’s think that if you are a Christian, a missionary, that’s all. We need to go back to our roots and till our land while preaching the gospel and not just sit around waiting for that white collar job.

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