From witchcraft to Bible distribution

by Larry Jerden, freelance photojournalist

Ronald Kizito of Fort Portal came from a family that believed in witchcraft to become an enthusiastic Bible distributor and evangelist. Uganda. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (UGA02DJ-156.JPG)

ENTEBBE, Uganda — When Ronald Kizito became a Christian he paid a heavy price – his family, heavily involved in witchcraft, threw him out and he was forced to drop out of senior school.

“My family was furious,” remembers Mr Kizito. “They said, ‘Go now! Because you have become a Christian, we cannot let you stay in our house!’ My uncle, who was the richest member of our family, was paying my school fees. He stopped paying so I could not continue.”

No surprise

This reaction came as no surprise to Mr Kizito, who had himself been unwilling to hear about the Christian faith when a missionary first tried telling him about the Bible.

“I met this missionary in 1996 but I didn’t want to hear what he was saying,” he says. “But he kept teaching me and finally, a year later, I accepted the Word of God and was baptised.”

Feeling isolated after his family rejected him, Mr Kizito threw himself into studying the Bible, looking for answers to the many questions he had about life. It became his source of inspiration and encouragement and he felt called to share this with others, particularly his own people in western Uganda.

Today he is fulfilling that call and is a church planter with the New Testament Church of Christ in Fort Portal in western Uganda. He is also actively involved in Scripture distribution, obtaining Scriptures from the Bible Society of Uganda, which, he says, offers the best prices, allowing him to reach more people.

“Earlier this year a lady in the USA contributed about US$1,000 for Bible distribution,” he recalls. “I went to the Bible Society and bought all the Bibles that money could buy! When you go ‘up country’, a Bible in a book market costs about US$8 but when you come to the Bible Society, they give a certain percentage reduction for each Bible, plus a discount for large orders. So we can buy more Bibles with the money we have.”

Cults

For Mr Kizito, reaching as many people as possible with God’s Word is of vital importance in his home area where, he says, various cults are emerging.

“These new cults are not Bible-based,” he points out. “Our church, the Anglican Church and some other Bible-based churches are trying to come together to spearhead the work of God using the Bible. But the cults are a problem.”

With this in mind, Mr Kizito took the Bibles he had purchased from the Bible Society to western Uganda, where he distributed them free of charge.
“First of all we gave these Bibles to Christians,” he says. “But when we were giving them out, there were so many people flooding to us, wanting to know about the Word of God, so we gave some to non-Christians too.”

Many people in his home area are poor and would not have been able to afford to buy Bibles.

“Because we bought the Bibles at a reduced price from the Bible Society we were able to give them to people who would otherwise not ever be able to buy one,” he smiles. “And the people were happy!”

In addition to his success in distributing Bibles and planting churches, Mr Kizito also has enjoyed some more personal ‘victories’.

Confronted

“About a year after I was chased out of my parents’ home I went back to that uncle of mine,” he explains. “I confronted him just like Jesus confronted Paul on the road to Damascus. At first my uncle said, ‘I don’t want to hear your words! Go, you son of Satan!’ But I persevered. A year and a half later, after I had spoken to him several times about the Bible and the promises of God, he accepted Jesus.

“I was preaching in the church when he came down in front of everyone and declared himself a servant of God. When I baptised him I was so happy! Now he too is a preacher and goes out and talks about God’s Word all over the place.”