By Nevaless Masika, Kasese, Uganda (February 2016)- “On January 15th, we traveled to the Kasanga area to reach out of school youth. The team reached the venue and was welcomed by community leaders. The youth had gathered and were waiting to hear from the UCE team. Upon arrival, the team invoked the Holy Spirit’s guidance so that the message falls on fertile soils and will bear fruits. Thorough explanation of the UCE the Mission and Vision was done.
The team began by calling for open discussions. We asked them questions about why they left school, challenges, and many other things. The youth were very open and shared with us. One of them said she began to have sex at a young age because of peer group influence. She said that it was her friends’ style of living, and she followed it. Eventually, she said she lost all of her focus and left school. However, what moved us is that after the session, she vowed that she was a new creation, she made a commitment to chastity (abstain until a faithful marriage), and promised to change her peer group.
Another girl aged 15 said she was brought up by a single mother and that her mother is financially crippled. So whenever her daughter asked her for items like body lotion, sanitary pads, clothes, and school fees she tells her she has nothing. For this girl, she said she became a prostitute to pay for things. This young girl drew much inspiration from Scovia.
So here, we have a lot of work to do, but God is with us always. We must first begin with the message of Christ. So, team members shared their testimonies. We then began to incorporate the topic of abstinence, to show that a person can have a higher quality of life. Now, we talked about the benefits of abstaining: such as becoming educated so that a person can have a better job, staying away from HIV and other STDs, and true love, among many others. So, we also talked much about the benefits of education. Scovia (UCE volunteer) shared her testimony of being a prostitute and dropping out of school, until God changed her and she chose chastity. Then we talked about chastity, and all of its many benefits. We highlighted forgiveness, and starting a new life. We also talked about how to start a small project to generate some income so a person does not sell their body.
We talked with the girls about different ways they generate money (e.g. making beads from papers then selling, raising chickens, and many other things) rather than going for boys and men which can be disastrous. In fact, the Holy Spirit inspired many and they left convinced and pledged to change their lifestyles. Overall, we managed to fish 98 youths out of the water, who boldly came out and committed to chastity, out of 123. (The team will follow up with them to help them enroll in school, and make their income generating projects).
Next we traveled to Mahango. Mahango is a very mountainous area in Kasese, going there is not easy, there is no access roads, and no vehicle can reach the area apart from motorcycles. When going there you must change your clothes because so much dust covers you as you ride on the motorcycles. We reached there on January 22, 2016.
Due to the terrain of the area, these people are mostly forgotten. The people do not access to any developmental programs like health services. In this area, there are cultural practices like: polygamy, and inheritance of windows and widowers is very common (if a person dies the brother/sister takes the person left behind to be their spouse. As you can imagine, this quickly spreads HIV). If a widow or widower does not accept to be inherited, they can even be excommunicated by the family.
Also, some still think HIV/AIDS is a curse, not a disease. Early marriage is the order of the day. The people believe there are more women than men, so they need to marry as many women as they can. Marriage starts as early 10 years old for both girls and boys.
So again we had a difficult environment, but we tried as much we could to make them understand that HIV/AIDS is a disease, and not a curse. Here again, we must first evangelize, and explain why a person should only stick to one spouse. We must bring the Christian witness along with the medical facts.
After answering questions, and covering all of the usual topics, we gave them a chance to commit to chastity. Many of the people asked us to give them time to think about it (for those who are already in a polygamous marriage, the team counsels them to choose one wife to be intimate with, and to support the others. This is one of the ‘original’ Ugandan teachings when they had their revival in the 1990s. Polygamy is no longer common in Uganda, but the team is reaching an area that is essentially unreached). We accepted that they should have time to think about it, and promised to reach them again in February 2016. However, 20 of them already had enough time thinking, and we fished them out for the Lord. They came boldly forward in front of all of their peers, and accepted to abstain and uphold it until the right time with the right partners.
Scovia shares her story 
Heading into the mountains 
Reaching out to unreached people 
“Fished out for the Lord!”