“AE has played a pivotal role in uniting churches in Kampala. No one church can reach this big region alone and AE has given us the unique opportunity to do it together,” he said. “In fact, this is the first time that all of the churches are coming together in the Rubaga district.”

When AE Uganda began preparing for this mission over a year ago, they found that there were deep divisions in the local churches and some refused to work together at all. Before we could do effective outreach to the city, we first had to help heal the divisions within the churches.

Rev. Raphael Kjjubi is a core partner with AE in Kampala. He leads King Jesus Church in the Rubaga division. He spoke to us enthusiastically about the mission.

“AE has played a pivotal role in uniting churches in Kampala. No one church can reach this big region alone and AE has given us the unique opportunity to do it together,” he said. “In fact, this is the first time that all of the churches are coming together in the Rubaga district.”

Rev. Kjjubi shared that local churches have felt discouraged by the spread of Islam in their community. Newly established and well-funded Islamic educations centers target marginalized communities and provide free education which revolves around Islamic studies. “This is why it’s so fundamentally important to evangelize urban areas. The churches need to awaken to the Great Commission and learn to be intentional about sharing the Gospel,” he said.

Raphael opened his church for pre-mission training and over 40 churches were trained in evangelism. He told us, “AE’s model works so well because it provides free training and support to churches before the mission. My church and many others have been empowered by this training and it’s provided long-lasting benefits for all of us. We’ve been provided with a strong theological base, local leaders have been encouraged and people have been challenged to reach out to their communities. God Bless AE! Thank you for coming to our community!” he said.