Uganda (MNN) — Christians face increasing pressure in Uganda. More about that here.
“Predominantly, Uganda is Christian. But there are [areas] where it’s almost 80 percent Muslims, and it has been increasingly difficult to take the Gospel there,” TeachBeyond’s Morris Kabuye says.
Butambula Learning Center is situated in a community where nearly 60% of children do not attend school.
(Photo, caption courtesy of TeachBeyond)
Muslim extremists bombed a church’s Good Friday night service in western Uganda. Church security caught one of the attackers, who said he carried out a jihad activity during Ramadan to earn a reward from Allah.
In other parts of the country, “pastors have been hacked down or burnt with acid or beaten up because they set up a church or spoke to somebody about Christ,” Kabuye says.
TeachBeyond responds to this persecution with the love of Christ. They’re building a new trade school to help teen moms gain life skills and Gospel hope.
Along with literacy, “we want to teach them business skills through work for life,” Kabuye says.
Believers want to reach teen moms because, in Ugandan Muslim communities, 13- and 14-year-old girls only have one purpose. “There is a sense [in Muslim communities] that they need to grow the religion,” Kabuye says.
“They encourage young girls to get married and drop out of school [to] enlarge the religion [through childbearing].”
Through TeachBeyond’s two-year vocational training program, teenagers will learn how to read, write, do math, and follow Jesus. Support the Butambula Christian Academy here.
“We want them to know and understand and believe in Jesus Christ. But God doesn’t want us to let these people have the Gospel and leave them there. We want to have a holistic, transformed person,” Kabuye says.
Header image courtesy of The Voice of the Martyrs USA.
