“Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” (Galatians 2:10 ESV)
The Batwa people, often called pygmies, have lived in the forested highlands of southwestern Uganda since before any written record. But in recent decades, government policy forced them from the forests that had sustained their way of life, leaving them without land, without livelihood, and without a clear place in society. They are severely marginalized and oppressed by surrounding farming communities. Other communities often keep their distance from the Batwa. Many will not eat with them or welcome them into their homes. Even many who claim to support the Batwa people treat them more as a tourist experience than as God’s image bearers with dignity and worth.
This kind of exclusion runs deep. It cannot be undone by distributions and service projects. Something more fundamental has to change.
Pastor George leading a Do Session
For several years, WordPartners has been training pastors in Uganda to preach God’s Word with God’s heart. This means they have learned that God does not give us his Word merely to inform us. The pastors have embraced the precious truth that the transformational intent of God’s Word is empowered by the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection. He is at work through all of Scripture to renew our minds and to remake us into the image of his Son. When a pastor and his church are shaped by that kind of message, it changes not just how they read the Bible, but how the church sees and loves the people around them.
In Kisoro, that transformation has extended to the Batwa.
George Mbonyi, a pastor at Kisoro Baptist Church and part of WordPartners’ training network in the region, is one of those pastors. He and those he has equipped have given themselves to the Batwa in ways that have surprised the community around them. They have come not simply with goods to hand out. They have come with the gospel and love of Jesus Christ.
Pastor George shared the story of this remarkably fruitful work.
If you want to do ministry with neglected people, discriminated people, first of all, you have to give yourself to them. You show the relationship. You don’t see them from afar. They become part of your life. When you develop a stronger relationship, and they see that you are giving yourself to them, then the material things come after. That’s the most important thing that helps you to present the gospel.
Other ministries or NGOs [non-governmental organizations, non-profits] come to do that. They throw things to [the Batwa] and they don’t give themselves to them. They don’t want to allow them in their houses. They don’t want to eat with them. They don’t want to stay in their houses. So they throw things to them, meaning that the people are neglected. They are not giving themselves. They are like tourists seeing the people as attractions.
This is how we reached the Batwa people. We gave ourselves to them and accepted them in the church. Now they mix with other people in community and in worship. If we are sitting in the Bible study, they sit in the middle of us no matter how dirty they are. When you have big activities like ceremonies, you let them participate in those activities. You don’t say, “This is a pygmy, these are outcasts.”
Gathered with Ugandan pastors for training
Then you tell them, I’m doing this because of what Christ has done in my life. If you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, he will transform you because the cross is not just for certain groups of people. The way God sees every person, rich or poor, is the same. It doesn’t matter where you come from. We tell them Jesus Christ loved them the same way Jesus Christ loved me.
When you give yourself to them, they give you what they have. If there is a wedding, we see them really active in it contributing what they have. We discourage begging and help them work for themselves. We develop them so they won’t wait until someone will bring food, but they have their food in their garden. It is very simple for the community to serve [the Batwa], but we try to say, “Can you serve us?” Now they are the first to be served at the Lord’s Table, and are also involved in serving others.
The challenge is that they don’t have their own property. They have been chased away from the forest with nowhere to go. When they have believed in Jesus and come into the church, we try to get them a piece of land. We build the house. We give them a water tank. Why do we give them water tanks instead of just giving them water? So the other communities can come to ask them for water. We don’t just keep sending them water. We give a tank so that they start sharing water with others.
Because most of them don’t know how to read and write, we use audio. We come to their homes and do memory verses with them. We also ask them questions of how to share the gospel with others. It requires patience; you don’t rush. You have to have the heart of love to know that you are giving yourself to them. If you are not able to give yourself and invest your life into them, you can’t reach them.
Because of the transformative power of God’s Word, the Batwa who once sat on the edges of every gathering now sit in the middle of Kisoro Baptist Church. They are the first to be served at the Lord’s Table, and they serve others in return. This is not the fruit of a program. It is the fruit of God’s Word, planted in the hearts of men who were first transformed by it themselves. Through workshops, patient training, and pastors equipped to preach with God’s heart, WordPartners is helping the knowledge of his glory reach Uganda’s most marginalized communities.
What you see in Kisoro is just one part of what God is doing through WordPartners in his mission to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory (Isaiah 11:9). Around the world, pastors in our workshops are learning to preach God’s Word with God’s heart and to equip others to do the same. We invite you to join this global mission. Will you stand with us? Don’t wait. Give today to make an eternal impact.
