An entrepreneur will risk everything in pursuit of a goal. In Isaac Anguyo, Uganda has one entrepreneur who is risking all to invest in God’s kingdom through the development initiative 'Here is Life'.

Uganda has not been short of trouble over the past 40 years. During this period, up to half a million people have been killed in state-sponsored violence. The rule of brutal despot, Idi Amin, still lives on in the annals of the twentieth century’s darkest periods.  Today, the killing continues through the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army and the scourge of Aids marches through the whole of Africa. 

But the Church has grown and continues to grow.  Although as many as two-thirds of the population see themselves as Christians, this statistic is not true of all areas.  The Yumbe region of Uganda is one such area and the location of a Christian project, Here is Life, founded by its director, Isaac Anguyo. We spoke to him, to hear his testimony, learn of the growth of this ministry, and gather his thoughts on the part that can be played by Western congregations in the development of the African church.

As a Muslim, if I hadn’t gone to a Christian school it would have been very difficult for me to have heard about Jesus as the Saviour of the world”.

In 1986, Anguyo attended the Billy Graham conference in Amsterdam, with one question above all others: How can I reach Muslims for Christ in Yumbe? – a district in the north of the country with a long history of violence and armed conflict. Isaac himself had been born into a Muslim family and an idea was forming in his mind as to how to reach the Aringa Muslims (the Aringa are Yumbe’s predominant people group). “This idea came from the background of knowing Jesus through attending a Christian school. If I hadn’t gone there it would have been very difficult for me to have heard about Jesus as the Saviour of the world.” In Amsterdam, he took part in workshops on reaching Muslims and then set off home with a calling to share the gospel with the Aringa.

DEVELOPMENT

The Aringa Development Association, a precursor to Here is Life, was founded weeks later, and it was the manifestation of Isaac’s vision. “We needed some programme to bring Muslims and Christians together.” Indeed, even the chairman of ADA was a Muslim. Sadly, within a year, the Muslims formed their own development programme.

LIFE

But Isaac remained unperturbed and Here is Life was formed in 1988. The name sought to point to Jesus without causing unnecessary suspicion by using his name. “Jesus says in John 14:6 that he is the life, and in John 10:10 that he has come to give us life.”

 From the outset, a great emphasis was placed on leadership training and discipleship in the Aringa church. “Our aim was to get through to Muslims by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with those who had not heard it. Ideally, this would be done by the local church, but the evangelical church in Yumbe is weak spiritually and physically.

PERSECUTION

“So the task of Here is Life has been to empower this weak church. How can the church in Uganda declare the gospel in the face of persecution if it doesn’t come with the face of peace? Likewise, how can the persecuted church be encouraged to love the Muslim in spite of many Muslims’ open hostility towards Christians?”

An area desperately in need of this empowerment is teaching. “I was talking to a group of Christians in a workshop some time ago and I asked them who could say John 3:16 for me,” Isaac recalls. “There were over 40 in that group, and yet only one person stood up to say this verse from memory. They did not know the basis of their salvation!” Unfortunately, fear of hostility in the surrounding area ensures that good Bible teaching is hard to come by.

If a Christian businessman is willing to invest, then I have land for his capital. Unfortunately, only non-Christians are investing in Uganda at the moment.

Such conditions, then, have called for greater dependence on a local solution. “In 1999 we called together local youth and asked them why the church was not growing. And they said that it was due to a lack of leadership, skills, a desire to share, evangelism, a biblical foundation, unity, and a desire to live together.

“‘What can we do?’ they asked. ‘Will you start a school for us?’ That was the last thing I needed to hear. A school requires capital, teachers and houses. But we agreed to pray, so throughout 2000 we prayed and in 2001 Tear Fund sent us our first grant”. The resulting school was named Evangelical School of Technology in Aringa (ESTA) and its focus has since been on developing skills, evangelism, leadership training and helping people to live together in co-operation.

ESTA is, however, only one recent addition to a project which has contributed significantly to its surrounding area. The library opened by Here is Life has become a key centre of learning in the community. “Our staff have written several books, including the first book for learning to read in Aringa. District officials have asked us to supply these books to all the schools in the region.”

Other arms of the project include a health centre – whose HIV programme has been voted the best in the region – a radio station, and various income-generating programmes including mills, and most recently the aloe vera plantation (see box).

Such independent thinking, Isaac believes, is essential to Africa’s spiritual and physical growth. If truth be told, the West’s input, though of great benefit in many areas, has also helped to foster an unsatisfactory mentality of dependence. “In the 1960s, so many countries were gaining their independence from the colonial powers and, likewise, so many African churches and their archbishops wanted independence. It was a kind of African utopia. But, today, the opposite has happened. Africans are looking to the West for everything.”

PARTNERSHIP

Enhancement through partnership is the only way forward, argues Isaac. For too long now, he feels, has the relationship between Africa and the West been one of over-dependence, a potentially fatal error in Muslim-dominated Yumbe. “Before Here is Life, you had a small group of people who were considered second-class citizens, who were called infidels if they even raised their voices in public. But since we started, we have been organising workshops, seminars and conferences in partnership with missionaries.

Given my Muslim background, I really appreciate what the churches in the Western world have done to bring the gospel to Africa.

“We held two conferences organised by Open Doors, which brought many children and young people to the Lord. This was very moving. And we had another conference organised by an American group. 200 local women came to it and they left on fire for the Lord. We can show our better-dressed, richer Muslim neighbours, through partnership, that we matter and we are worthwhile to God”.

Partnership is having an impact among the Aringa people for Christ. Here is Life’s sexual abstinence programmes appear to be helping to lower local Aids rates. Men and women are going home to their families with a well-earned wage to show for a hard day’s work. And, most importantly, lives are being transformed.

CONVERSIONS

One such case is that of Moffat. “He believed that witchcraft could help his wife conceive. Through our work in 1990, he left all and came to us. Today he is a keen member in our ministry and church and Here is Life’s programme supervisor.”

Some have had to cling to their faith in the face of death threats from their own families. “We had a Muslim girl called Aliea come to us. She believed in Jesus and was persecuted by her parents. One time, her father took out his axe and threatened to split her head in two, but we were able to take care of her.” Isaac knows the same mixture of joy and pain in his own life, his conversion coming at the cost of rejection by his own relatives. Truly, to follow Jesus in this context is to leave one’s family behind, just as he commanded the first disciples.

THE CHURCH IN THE WEST

What, then, would Isaac say to the Western church if he had our ear for a few minutes? How can we be more sensitive to the needs of Yumbe’s afflicted Christian minority?

“Firstly, given my Muslim background, I really appreciate what the churches in the Western world have done to bring the gospel to Africa. I remember reading about David Livingstone and how he was ready to die, and how Aim missionaries had to prepare their own coffin and go with it. That was a big, big sacrifice. But that was the desire to reach the unreached.

“I would also like the West to consider our focus on leadership training and to assist us in that. I am happy that many of our people receive Bible training in Europe and America, but I know that the comfortable lifestlye over there makes fitting in back here a big problem, and we need leaders trained in Africa.”

LISTENING

Unsurprisingly, though, Isaac is most obviously vocal about greater partnership with the West. “Take our aloe vera plantation. If a Christian businessman in the UK is willing to invest, then I have the land for his capital. Unfortunately, only Arabs, Asians and non-Christians are investing in Uganda at the moment.

“For too long, now, we have had a talking relationship with the West, and it has done us no good. Why, for example, should the UN continue to send us food when we still war with one another? How can we move on together when both parties are talking at each other? Let the church in the West listen as well as talk to us. We must also learn to do the same in Africa”.

For module

Isaac was born into a Muslim family in 1947. When he was twelve he went to a Christian school, where for the first time he heard stories of Jesus. “I began to see that Jesus was not just a prophet or a miracle worker, which even the Qur’an records, but that he was the Son of God and he could give life. I wanted that life”. After seven years of considering these things, he became a Christian in 1966. This was not a decision to be taken lightly and as a consequence his family has rejected him.

In 1967, he joined a Church and Mission-sponsored teachers’ college where he formed a Christian Union group and met with missionaries, all the while growing in his faith. In 1973 he married Sally, who is the daughter of a God-fearing pastor and friend, who, in Isaac’s words, “has become a father to me”.

From 1986 to 1990, Isaac studied at Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya, while he began to plant the foundations for Here is Life back home.

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