Obed Edom Bagyenyi is a pastor, software engineer, live sound engineer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is the founder of three connected organizations:

∙ Odd Shoes (oddshoes.dev) is an agency that sends faith-driven creative talent (musicians, sound engineers, software engineers and pastors) into Europe, the US, and Australia as missionaries. It directs 50% of its profits to Kingdom work. Since 2021, its recruitment pipelines have placed 150+ engineers into companies across Germany, Poland, France, and Belgium.

∙ Blue Ox Kampus (blueoxkampus.com) is a mission-funded creative hub in Mbarara, Uganda. It raises, equips and sends faith-driven African creatives to places where the gospel is least accessible. More than 300 builders have trained there.

∙ Amapiano Church (202One) is a church he is planting in Blantyre on one conviction: the church exists to send people out.

He also helps European and Western churches organize missions in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, serving as their eyes and ears on the ground. He writes regularly to founders navigating faith and business.

Links to share: oddshoes.dev and http://blueoxkampus.com

Hi, I'm Angel.

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God chose for us 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, Obed.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in Uganda.

Uganda is a small country in the eastern part of Africa, in East Africa.

So that's where I am connecting from.

But normally, I live in, I'm usually between two countries, South Korea and Poland in Europe.

I do have a home in Europe, but I work also with the government of Uganda as a diplomat, and I'm attached to the South Korean embassy now.

Like I was just recently transferred from Europe to South Korea.

But I'm in Uganda now because I'm preparing for my wedding, which is on the 28th of this month.

I don't know if you're about to make it from Trinidad and Tobago to Uganda.

That's amazing.

Wow.

Do you know that when you speak, I'm not sure if you've heard this before, but there's a joy that emanates from your voice, simply from you speaking.

Oh, thank you.

Do many people tell you that?

Not much, not much, but people always say that I'm a joy carrier, but I sort of like, you know, fill the room with joy.

But I'm also excited, you know, I'm really excited to be on this call.

So I'm sorry I can't hide my excitement.

No, I don't think you should be sorry.

I don't think you should apologize.

I think the world needs joy.

The world needs more joy.

So what's the root of your joy?

The Holy Spirit, man.

The Holy Spirit does a great deal of work in me, but the greatest part of it is being able to do what I am called to do.

Yeah.

Like when you find your purpose and now you sort of like center everything around that, I find it so fulfilling, you know, working with the right people, working in the people you've been called to serve in, like just in the right time, doing the right things in the right time and with the right people.

Yeah.

But I just find that's the source of my strength and joy is the Holy Spirit.

I love him.

I love communion with God.

How did you meet Jesus?

Very interesting story.

I was from prison, yeah, as a young man at campus.

This was in 2012, yeah, 2012.

That's when I met the Lord.

And I had just been released from, well, I wouldn't call it prison, I think cell.

I was detained.

I used to do business back when I started doing business at a very early age.

So I used to sell mobile phones, like used mobile phones.

And it so happened that one of those days I sold a phone to a client who, to a son whose father was a soldier and the phone had been stolen.

It was an iPhone.

And then he was trapped and he was jailed and he was here to lead them back to me.

I know.

And they took me in for like three good days.

I have a very tough father.

So I wouldn't tell him that I'm in jail.

So my friend, there's a friend of mine I remember, he's called Jonathan.

He used to like tell me about church and stuff like that, but I was really never interested.

But during that time, he's the only person I could call and talk to.

So when he came, you know, we spoke.

He was able to help me out, get out.

Of course, he ended up telling my parents anyway, and they got to know, but I got out.

And from that time, you know, I just, that was the third time I'd been in jail.

And I just realized that my life needed a change.

So he started inviting me for fellowships more often.

And I started going to the church.

At that time, I used to go to, what do they call it?

A Protestant church that he used to go to.

So I started going with him for the fellowships.

And oh man, I loved that place.

That church is a place that I have never been in a place that showed me as much love as those guys did.

They took me in with all my flaws and loved me.

And from that time, I just fell in love with Christ, fell in love with church, and all my life since then, just got centered around church until now.

Yeah, but as a young man at campus in second year, when I gave my life to Christ, and then the journey started.

How old were you in 2012?

2012, I was, I think I was like 20 or 19, I think 20.

Yeah, but I'd done a lot of crazy things by that time.

But yeah, this was around 20.

And yeah, I got into fellowships since then.

I sort of got interest.

I love things with computers.

I got into projecting, then sound.

Then eventually I started learning how to play instruments.

And then I've been a worship leader ever since.

From around 2015, that's when I really started doing much more worship ministry.

And I've just been around that up to now.

Were you singing as a young man?

I wasn't doing much singing, but I was mainly directing, like directing more on the worship side of things, instruments, what needs to be done, organizing worship concerts.

Then we also started something called, in 2016, my band started something, we would call them Worship Evenings.

And they spread across the country, like right now, where the podcast has started, and they just spread like a fire across the country, the Worship Evening movement.

Every church started paying them until now.

Mainly I'm more in the musical direction of things.

Sound, instruments, and just putting everything together, organizing missions to schools, different places.

That's what I, that's what my life has been around mostly.

When did you meet your fiance?

Last year, I had a wedding that didn't work out, like it failed.

It was canceled, like one week to the wedding.

That was last year, July, July 17th.

I had dated this person for about seven years.

This is a girl that I dated for seven years, but later I left when I was living in Europe.

So I came back, last year I was supposed to have a wedding, and then it, anyway, it turned out that, I got to know later that that girl was already betrothed to some other person around there.

So she left Uganda and went to Rwanda and never came back, like she never returned.

And then we just, then she canceled, she canceled from there.

She canceled from there.

And as, from July, it was a hard time for me, depression.

It was such a shameful experience for me.

One of the, I think, I think the most shameful experience my life was that.

And then, you know, of course I'd spent lots of money, almost like 30,000, you know, weddings here in Africa, very expensive.

I'm not sure if you know that.

It's a very expensive thing to get married here, bro.

Very expensive.

So yeah, I lost a lot of money.

It was a shameful experience for me, my parents, you know, it was really bad.

But, you know, I persisted and went into prayer, kept giving thanks.

I knew that the Lord sure had something coming for me, irrespective of what had happened.

And this year in February, I met my wife, the one I'm getting married to.

And it's so funny how we got started.

We just, I, she was going somewhere and I was also going somewhere, but in the same direction, but we're taking the same bike.

So we had a conversation on the bike we were moving on.

We use bikes a lot here for transport here in Uganda.

They are quicker and faster and they're like everywhere.

Yeah.

Just like in India.

Yes.

So that's where we said our conversation and I picked up a number and, you know, the rest has been history.

And later I got, I got to know later that I should actually have planted two churches and with the ministry she was ministering in, and she's also a worshiper.

She sings and, you know, we just did it like really met in February this year.

And then we've just been working the agenda of, you know, lots of communication meeting and all that.

And we just decided to just, you know, do it, get married.

I really like her.

She compliments me every other aspect of my life.

So yeah.

How easy is it for you to make friends?

It's really easy for me.

I'm an open book and I know how to love.

It's very easy to make friends.

And I really love people irrespective of how disappointing we people can really get, but I just accept that that's part of humanity and we just have to learn people with their flaws.

So I love people and I can't hide it.

So it's very easy for me to make friends.

I don't struggle making friends.

Who did you get that from?

I think my mom.

My mom is a lay reader.

She's a reverend in the Anglican church.

And yeah, she's so much loved by people.

People find themselves attracted to her.

I think I get that from her because she's just, she doesn't even talk a lot like I do, but she always has people around her.

And my mom was the first reverend to be, to be what's the right statement is what they use there, like appointed without an education.

Like she didn't do theology, but she was appointed as a reverend because of how much people loved her and for how long she had served in church.

So yeah, I think I really get that from her.

What I've gotten from this conversation so far is Obed is someone that had an experience where he changed who, the direction he was going in.

And then as a result, you, well, did you have a ton of people following and joining you before you went to jail the third time?

Like, was it similar in terms of the amount of people that are around you now and the amount of people that were around you then?

I think the numbers might be the same.

The difference is what kinds of people now follow me versus the ones that followed me back then.

Yeah.

Yes.

Because right now I'm doing much more impactful stuff.

So I'm followed by quite a number of people that love what I do and that benefit from, you know, that, you know, pick us early for my story.

And so it was back then it was, was still young and, you know, it's all about excitement.

You're trying to make ends meet.

So it's a big difference.

The quality or the type of people that follow me back then and now, but I've always had people around me because even in school, school I was a leader.

I was a football captain for a team.

I was also the under 16, under 16 national football captain for my country.

And then, you know, I was extremely brilliant in school.

So I was like everywhere I had to avoid this.

Pastor Obed, this has been an honor.

I've enjoyed this conversation tremendously.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

Thank you so much to our dear listeners out there that have listened to us.

And I just want to encourage you that no matter how things might look in your life, there's no life that is better than life lived in Jesus.

It's the best thing that your life could ever give you.

You know, most of us usually look at life and we think that it ends here, but Jesus picks you up from here.

He's a guy that's going to help you here on earth.

And he's also going to take care of everything else you, beyond earth.

My signature is always try Jesus.

I'm encouraging everyone listening to us to try Jesus.

Try Jesus, guys.

He's going to do everything that you ever thought is impossible.

He's a guy that's going to love you no matter what.

No terms, no conditions, but he's just going to love you.

So if you're somebody out there that is looking for love, that is, you know, stuck in different types of things, this is the right person to try.

Try him.

Create some time for him and, you know, start building that relationship with Jesus.

In short, that's what I would say.

And of course, I want them to know that I love them.

You know, I love you guys.

I love you guys.

I hope to meet you guys.

I also hope to meet you, Benjo.

You should come to Trinidad sometime.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

I'm excited to meet with you.

I am excited to meet with you.

Yeah.

You should do your honeymoon in Trinidad.

Yeah, definitely.

Yes.

Had I known a bit earlier?

Had we got in touch a bit earlier?

Maybe, maybe.

I'd be like, okay, I'm coming to a place where I know someone.

Yes.

When I do that.

I'm excited to meet you in the future, but more so I'm excited for your marriage and your communion.

May this love become one and be blessed as you run forward.

I really appreciate what you stand for and what you've made decision choices for in your life, Obed.

So I want to say this has been a pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 minute convos.