When John, one of our workers in East Africa, travelled to the Karamoja region last week, he went with the purpose to place Karamojong Bibles into the hands of the former “Warriors” who have recently come to Christ and distribute much needed maize flour to the widows.
As he gathered with them in their ‘manyata’ village, a young man stood up to share his story. His voice was humble, but carried the weight of a transformed life.
“I am a young man who grew up in the bush. I never imagined I would ever come back to the village to hear about God. I used to treat people very badly and destroy their property. That was my life. But then I met Christ. God saw us—many of us young men—coming to Him at the same time. And when we believed, we began to gather with our wider community for church.
God has changed me. I left behind the things we used to do in the bush. I even enrolled in a technical school and learnt carpentry. Now I am teaching carpentry skills to other men. We are seeing so much transformation in our community because of Jesus. Coming to Christ has made us turn away from the destructive things we once lived for. We are now servants of God.”
Hearing this testimony is powerful when you understand the world these men come from. Among the Karamojong:
• Men often roam long distances in search of pasture and water for their cattle, leaving women behind in the fenced-in manyatas—villages of hundreds of people. Cattle are everything: honour, wealth, and status are measured almost entirely by livestock.
• However young men without cattle frequently turn to violent cattle raiding, made deadlier over the years by modern firearms. Many families are left with widows because of the raids.
• Only a small (less than 2%) evangelical Christian minority exists with over 1 million Karamajong being considered a ‘minimally reached’ people group by the Joshua Project.
So when former warriors—once feared for their raids—lift up their hands holding Bibles in their own language and call themselves ‘servants of God’, it is nothing short of a miracle of the Kingdom.
John says that as these former warriors read the Scriptures in Karamojong, “you can see the light in their eyes.”
Many are beginning to share what they are learning with other young men across the region. The Gospel is not only changing their hearts—it is multiplying and reshaping their entire community.
