I am Rogers Kayongo, the lead pastor of Back to Jesus Church and the team leader of the Dream Reality Center Foundation, based in Kampala, Uganda, East Africa. I am married to Jemmimah Muwamguzi, and we have three wonderful children together.

Our vision is to reach souls and positively influence our community. Our mission is to preach Christ to all mankind, with the ultimate goal of restoring, healing, and protecting lives.

With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we have successfully established churches in three different communities and have witnessed transformative changes in the lives of many people. However, one community in particular caught our attention because of the difficult circumstances its residents were facing. Parents were struggling with extreme poverty, made worse by the lack of clean water and medical facilities. Even when medical care was available, it was often inaccessible because of the long distances and lack of transportation.

The community also had very limited access to education. Being predominantly Muslim, many people viewed salvation as a sin, which made it difficult for us to introduce the Gospel.

Instead of beginning by simply preaching, we chose to demonstrate the love of Christ through practical acts of service. We provided clothing, medication, food, and support to orphans who were desperately in need of care. We began with seven orphans, and by the grace of God, we have grown to support 32 children.

Over time, the community began to accept us. Even some of the toughest individuals began to trust us and believe in the work we were doing. Eventually, members of the community donated land for the construction of a humble school. Today, that school is growing and has more than 130 students.

We trust in the Lord, the Provider and Author of every God-given vision, to help us replicate this success in the other two communities.

When I heard about your missionaries and that you train pastors and leaders, I saw it as an opportunity to seek advice and learn from those who have been doing this work for many years. The Bible says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” I believe there is much I can learn from others who have walked this path before me.

I also wrote a book called Father-Son Talk after learning and witnessing the effects of fatherlessness and the gaps that often exist between younger and older generations. Much of what I have learned while serving children through the Dream Reality Center Foundation has helped me understand that orphanhood is not only the absence of physical parents; it can also be psychological and emotional.

My own life is a testimony of this reality.

I have parents, but my story is one that I believe God has used to build the ministry I am doing today.

To make a long story short, my mother was a student when she visited her older sister's home during the holidays. Unfortunately, she was raped by her sister's husband, and she became pregnant with me. Because of the culture and circumstances surrounding the pregnancy, the family decided that she should abort me. She tried several times, but by the mercy of God, the attempts were unsuccessful.

However, the drugs she took during those attempts affected both of my feet, and I was born with a disability. When my mother realized that I was disabled, she hated me even more. The family decided to keep me hidden because my existence was considered a constant reminder of shame and reproach, and they feared that my presence would raise questions that could affect my mother's sister's marriage.

So I was taken deep into the village and kept there as a secret. I was not told who my parents were.

I used to call every woman “Mom” and every man “Dad.” Yet, deep inside, I knew that something was missing. When I looked at other children with their biological parents, I felt a deep pain and confusion. It tortured me emotionally.

Then missionaries came to the place where I was living. I believe I was around seven years old at the time. They preached Jesus to me, and Jesus performed the first miracle in my life. My encounter with Christ brought a total change.

Why am I sharing this?

After I was saved, my mother finally opened up to me and revealed that she was my biological mother. She took me into her new marriage, and her husband accepted me and adopted me as his son. For me, that was the second miracle.

One day, my stepfather told my mother to take me to the hospital so that I could get a wheelchair or walking sticks to help me move around. When we went to the hospital, Jesus performed what I consider the third miracle.

There, I met a man from the United States who had come to volunteer. He was a specialist who operated on children with disabilities. When he saw me, he told my mother that he would perform the operation at no cost.

He gave us an appointment, returned as promised, performed the operation, and today I stand as a living testimony of that miracle.

Unfortunately, my hero, Professor Belitcher, was shot and killed at the very hospital about three months after I was discharged. I never knew why he was killed. May his soul rest in peace.

How I wish he were still here. I would have visited him and told him, “See how God is using the man you saved.”

But he is no longer here. So the only way I can continue the legacy of love shown to me by my stepfather and Professor Belitcher is by extending that same love to others.

I believe I would not be the person I am today if those two men had not reached out their hands to help me. I always carry that thought with me: perhaps there is another Rogers among the orphans and needy people whom God brings into my life.

I have many testimonies of children whose hands I have held and who, through God's grace and the support they received, have gone on to succeed in life.

You know, gaining wealth can make a person feel great, but serving a purpose brings something deeper—satisfaction, joy, and peace of mind.

This is who I am and why I do what I do.

You can reach us on [email protected]

Website: http://www.backtojesuschurches.org

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Welcome to 12-Minute Convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Pastor Rogers.

It's a good pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in Uganda.

Well, it's a pleasure to connect with you.

Please tell us how long you've been in ministry.

Yes, good afternoon, good evening, good night to some of you, because I understand that you're watching from different countries.

Of course, we have different time zones.

Rogers Kayongo is my name, and I'm married to Jemima.

So, I'm a Ugandan, and by the grace of God, I lead a ministry called Back to Jesus Church.

Yes, I'm glad to be here, and allow me to take this opportunity to thank my fellow minister and a soldier in the Army of the Lord, who has an amazing and unique ministry that is doing across the globe.

So, my brother, let us appreciate my brother, Angel Jones, for his wonderful and amazing, unique ministry he's doing across the globe.

May the Lord reach you, man of God.

Thank you for that.

So, tell me, when did ministry come into your life?

How long did you start?

I was a survivor of attempted abortion.

My mother was schooling, and she happened to go to her big sister's home for holidays, and my mother was raped by her big sister's husband.

So, they conceived me, and back in our culture, that was weird and blasphemy.

It was kind of a weird thing.

So, they never wanted to allow it to, like, they never wanted to give birth to me.

So, they had to do, my mother was forced to do whatever she could, so that they can abort me out.

So, in which they did, they paid, they paid, they gave her money to go and find, you know, specialists, someone who can abort.

Abort.

So, she tried several times, like, she went there a few times to abort me.

But just like Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 1, verses 5, that before I formed thee in your mother's womb, I knew thee.

So, by the mercies of God, God saved me.

The abortion was not successful.

But as a result of the drugs my mother took and, you know, all that, they affected my both feet, and I was born lame.

So, I guess my mother, you know, hated me the more because they used to remind her when she gave birth to a lame baby, they could mock her, telling her that the reason that's why you are able to give a lame baby simply because of the act you did to your sister's marriage.

So, me being with my mother was a constant reminding of her mistake and shame.

So, my mother had to get rid of me.

So, she found somewhere to dump me.

So, she took me 300 miles away from town, deep down, deep there.

That's where they kept me, and they kept it a secret.

They never wanted to tell who my parents were.

Yeah, so, I meet Jesus when I was seven years.

The guy comes, was preaching by the name of Grant.

Then he preached to me and said, my brother, you may be lame on the outside, but inside you, you are created and formed in the image of God.

So, I was so happy, and the fact that he had called me my brother because I never had that elsewhere.

So, that's how I fell in love with Christ, and the Christ I fell in love with touched somebody who wanted to take me to the hospital and get me a wheelchair.

Fortunately, when I reached there, where they took me to get a wheelchair, a man by the name of Professor Bedichia had come from the United States of America, who had come purposely to volunteer as a specialist in fixing, you know, people with children with disabilities.

So, while I was sitting there, you know, in a crowd of children with disabilities, this guy comes in, bumps in, and walks straight to me and asks my mother what we were doing.

My mother tells him that we had come for a wheelchair, you know, or something to support me so that I can be able to move.

And the guy was like, no, I'm not going to give you a wheelchair.

I am going to operate your son at no cost.

So, the guy operated me.

Unfortunately, Professor Bedichia was shot dead three months after my operation.

And he is still resting in peace.

So, that's how I got to know the Lord.

And that was the first miracle the Lord performed in my life, that I was able to walk again.

And as I speak, I've been using these feet to walk all over this world, preaching the gospel.

And by the grace of God, God has enabled me to be a father.

I started two orphans and the Dream Center charity, and the Dream Reality Center Foundation.

They're amazing children.

And the one they used to, you call a curse, then I'm called a blessing.

Yes, because God had mercy on me.

So, that's a little bit about me.

So, when did you reconnect with your mother?

When she put you far away, miles away, and hid you, was she still having a communication with you?

Did she separate herself from you?

My mother comes in and picks me.

Then she brings me to her new home, where she had just gotten married to a new husband.

Who told you the story of the details of your mother?

And of course, my heart goes out for her being raped, but who told you that story?

My mother told me.

So, the pain was responsible for who you served, because you could resonate with what it meant to be rejected.

You're then now helping other children who are rejected.

So, when did you make the switch to decide that you were going to serve orphans?

It was around 2013.

There is that fear that would come every time you see someone in the need.

Vulnerable kids, every time I bump into a vulnerable kid, I would feel, I wish I had enough.

I wish I had money.

I wish I had this.

I wish I had the other.

And I remember I used to go to schools and negotiate with those schools, plead with them and ask them if they can give me a bursary.

So, that is how I started.

It started with going to schools and plead with the teachers, the headmasters, the owners of the school to give me bursaries.

And through that campaign of going to different schools to ask for bursaries, I was able to educate seven of them.

And today they are big girls.

Yeah, so, but at the back of my mind, I had the dream that maybe one day I would have my own school, you know, have these houses built where I can accommodate them.

Because through experience, I went through, you know, being an orphan is not a state of losing or losing both your parents, but it can also be psychological.

Because me, for example, I wasn't an orphan physically that I lost my parents.

They were existing, but I was an orphan psychologically.

Because I remember guests would come to that place where they had dumped me and the people, the guardians that I was staying with, they couldn't allow me to, you know, to come at the front.

Why?

Because they knew coming at the front would raise more questions.

People would ask, would want to know who I am, who are my parents and what have you.

So they never wanted me to come at the front because my coming would raise more questions about me and, you know, telling who I was, who begot me, who are my parents, or where, you know, it was something that was kept a secret.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

You replay the podcast episode and you would have heard the story of a young boy who was thrown to the back of a village, right?

Hidden from people, not able to walk.

And then miracle after miracle, today is now serving not just other children, but adults as well, right?

A congregation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you listening to this conversation?

Yes.

Number one, what I would love to share tonight is, you know, I was reading about the story, the story of Mephibos.

Mephibos was Jonathan's son.

And remember, David being Jonathan's friend, David had made a promise to Jonathan.

He said, if all goes well, if I become a king, I'll do, I'll make sure that I, I'll be merciful to you.

Now, Jonathan is dead.

Saul is dead and everyone is dead.

David wants to fulfill his promise.

And David asks his servants, is there anyone?

Because the Bible says in 2 Samuel 9 verses 1, and David said, is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?

The Bible says that they said, yes, there is.

And guess who was?

The one that was left was Lame.

They said, yes, there is, but he is, is Lame.

In other words, they were like saying, he is not worthy to be showed kindness.

They said, yes, there is, but he is Lame.

In other words, they never thought that David would show kindness to Lame because they considered him to be a waste.

But David was like, okay, go and bring him.

And they brought Jonathan.

So my message is, Jonathan, yeah, they brought Mephiboshes.

My message is, I'm imagining Mephiboshes coming as Lame as he is, as disqualified as he was.

And now he's here sitting on the king's table.

I call it a merciful table.

Do you know that when someone could come in and found David dining with the Mephiboshes and was asked, who was there when you went and saw the king dining?

You would say, yes, David the king was with a gentleman.

Little did they know that this gentleman, underneath the gentleman, underneath the table, underneath the table, there were inabilities.

So it is the merciful table that covers the inabilities of us.

So underneath the table, there was these Sibbo legs that could not walk, but they were covered under the table.

So whenever Mephiboshes sat on the table, these disabilities, his infirmities, his incapable, his weaknesses were hid under the table.

So you wouldn't tell that he has a weakness because the merciful table had covered all the messes.

So this is what I want to tell whoever is listening.

There is that merciful table that Jesus calls everybody.

And before you know it, your weaknesses are covered under the table.

That's why when people look at us, when people see us, they don't see underneath us.

They don't see the inabilities, the disabilities, the weaknesses.

It is only Jesus that knows I have called Mephiboshes as weak as he is, but I don't care as long as he's on my table.

I don't care about the underneath as long as he's here with me.

So slowly by slowly, you know, God has called us because the Bible says that God does not call the qualified, but he qualifies those ones that he calls.

So as weak as I was, because I had a bad story.

I had a bad story.

Who is he?

Who is his father?

His father raped the sister to the other, you know, that story, that is a bad story.

But you can imagine that God calls me on the merciful table and now I'm on my mistakes and all my messes and all my, all, all those evils, bad, bad stories about me.

They were hidden under the merciful table and you cannot see them anywhere any longer simply because the merciful table has covered everything about every dirty thing about me.

So only what you see, you seeing a pastor, you seeing a father to orphans, you seeing a preacher, you're not seeing, you know, all those messes because it is this table that Jesus calls us onto and it covers our disabilities.

So I want to talk to my sister out there who may be, you may have, you know, maybe you, you got pregnant, maybe you, you know, unwanted pregnancy, maybe they raped you.

Maybe you are a drug addict.

I don't care what you're doing, but our wish, would you please accept the invitation of the King?

Because the Bible says, and the Kings, David invited Mephiboshes to come and sit with him on this table.

So it is not all about what happened to you and what you cannot do, your disabilities, but it is about accepting the invitation and you come at the table.

When you come at that table, people will not be able to see the underneath of your story.

I love that.

Pastor Kayongo, this is a great honor.

I appreciate you.

I appreciate the ministry that you have decided to listen to the leading of God to embark on leading.

May God continue to bless you and keep you in peace.

In Jesus's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for being on What is Inspired by 12 Minute Conference.