AI and Technology Teaching

By Anthony:

A month ago I was shocked and discouraged when an African friend sent me a personal Whatsapp message and I realized it was written with AI!

In Uganda, most people are not using AI yet. But many youth and professionals are. You go to a burial and you hear a speech, and realize it was made with AI. Someone asks a theological question on Whatsapp, and a person makes a nice response, and you realize it was a copy and paste from AI. You see AI being used to generate reports for NGOs, letters, CVs, and assignments. It is out of control.

When many Americans think of Africa, they unfortunately think of poverty. But Africa is far more developed than Americans realize. Americans should realize that the same technologies springing up in the USA are springing up in Africa as well. Life for many rural Ugandans remains quite difficult, but in Ugandan cities, most people own a phone, and often a smartphone. (43% of Ugandans over age 10 own a mobile phone). Family disconnection due to devices and screen time is an issue here too. The average urban home has a television and a smartphone. 

One key difference is that Americans have adopted new technologies much more gradually over a longer period of time. But technology in Uganda has exploded at breathtaking speed. Someone can go from never having used the internet before, to suddenly having a smartphone, Whatsapp, and free AI. 

I felt a burden to create this teaching in November 2025 when I first started noticing a couple pastors using AI in a dishonest way to create instant sermons, without letting people know that they used AI to do so. This really distressed me. Then I thought about other issues like our friends' children lying awake at night unable to sleep because they are addicted to watching videos and chatting on phones, and the rampant cheating in schools using AI, and parents having no idea about the internet pornography accessible through their children's' phones. 

That led to a teaching on technology from a biblical perspective. It takes anywhere from 5 hours to 14 hours to get through the whole thing, depending on the amount of time we give for discussions. Here is an advertisement for one of the conferences that I made using my AI. (I'm not against using AI, I'm just worried about the misuses).

I've taught this now 5 times: a conference for 110 church leaders in Soroti, a conference for 200 youth in Soroti, a half-day church teaching, a two day teaching for our group of Bishops and their wives, and another two day conference in Kaberamaido with 167 church leaders from PAG.

The feedback has been great. One pastor traveled from Kenya to Uganda just to take part in the conference. People say it's the first they've experienced of its kind. I already have invitations to teach this in Kenya and in Tanzania. 

Some pastors who attended these conferences did not yet have smartphones themselves, but they wanted to understand what was happening in the world, and why their youth are so addicted to their phones. 

These are a few of the many topics I cover:

• Technology from a biblical perspective
• Smartphone etiquette
• Social Media and Mental Health
• Dopamine Addiction
• Pornography Addiction
• Using AI
• Pastors and AI
• Fake news and Whatsapp Forwards

I teach about AI with some hesitancy. For the pastors who don't yet know about it, I'm creating a very real and strong temptation for them. But people are learning about it quickly anyways, and this way we provided a forum to discuss how to use it wisely as pastors in a way that glorifies God. 

I do demonstrations with an AI voice chatbot and also AI text chatting and show them some of the features and some of the things I warn against. AI seems almost like magic to those who have never been exposed to it (still does to me a little too!). I also show them some videos I made by asking AI to turn some of my photos into videos. 

Here are some of the things we talk about in the conferences:

• I teach about the injustice of AI companies making Nigerians and Kenyans do the dirty work of training AI. See this article.
• Questions about the Mark of the Beast always come up. Even today there are regularly social media forwards about Obama introducing a microchip as part of his health care plan. Some people think that Americans have microchips in their bodies already. But more generally we talk about misconceptions about the Mark of the Beast being something a Christian could accidentally purchase, and explain why we shouldn't necessarily think it's a piece of technology or vaccine.
• We discuss the rampant problem that people answer phone calls and text messages while also trying to have a face-to-face conversation. 
• We talk about how phones get misused in the worship service. Unfortunately it's not uncommon to see a person watching Whatsapp videos during the sermon, or pastors sending messages during worship.
• In the social media topic, I learned that while body image issues in terms of weight can be a problem for girls in Uganda, the bigger issue is that photo apps include skin-lightening filters. One young woman testified that she would no longer do that to her profile photos. She changed her photo to "the original me."
• In the US, it's hard enough for parents to help their children not misuse phones and internet. But here you have parents who have never used a smartphone themselves buying them for their children, and having little idea what is possible for them to do on the phone.
• We talk about lazy parenting. It is very common for parents to pass to a crying baby or young child a tablet or phone to get them to be calm.
• We hear that many university students are so lonely that they spend hours talking to AI chatbots.
• I learned that some best men and maids of honor poorly prepare Christian couples for marriage by advising them to watch pornography to learn how to have sex. 
• Many people are guilty of talking on the phone or texting while driving a car or motorcycle. They have pledged to stop after this training. We regularly see people on motorcycles or bicycles on our crazy roads here trying to text. There are a lot of road accidents.
• One youth had an action plan after the teaching to no longer leave music on in his room all night every night.
• People are really touched by ideas of having tech-free meal times with no phones and no televisions.
• People are convicted of phone addiction for themselves and their children. A lot of people shared about the problem of endlessly scrolling social media or Tiktok.
• Very few people think it is okay to leave your phone on silent or off at night, because there could be an emergency. Yet many people don't know how to mute Whatsapp notifications and they may get hundreds every night.

The need for this teaching is HUGE! I realized I need to do more research and study and improve on the curriculum I made, and perhaps make it accessible for others to use to teach it as well. So I have a lot more work to do.

Harvesting the Fish Pond

By Anthony:

I always am able to catch tilapia, but I was worried that there were too many catfish in my pond eating most of the small tilapia which thankfully reproduce regularly. But some catfish is good to keep it from becoming only tiny tilapia in mass numbers. The catfish weren't reproducing so I knew there were about 28 left (I started with 33, and with 200 tilapia). All other methods including hooks and traps to catch the catfish were not working. Some of them were getting huge. So I recruited a bunch of friends to help me use a wide net, moving with it across the whole pond.

To start though, we first had to remove all of the pond plants (we put them back in when we were done). We also pumped out a lot of water to the plants around the yard to make the pond less deep so that we could stand up without the water going up to our heads.

The first day we used our own net, and it completely failed. We fished with it from 8am to 1pm and only caught tilapia. We didn't catch a single catfish. I gave everyone some tilapia to take home but it was really disappointing. There were a lot of exclamations about Jesus' disciples saying "we fished the whole night and caught nothing!"

I planned another day to try again. We fixed all the holes the catfish had punched in our net. We made it like 5 nets thick. We did major renovations on the net to try to make it much less likely for catfish to sneak around the sides of it, or under the bottom of the net. We used a hosepipe filled with sand along the bottom of the net to weigh it down. We were really optimistic and did a lot of work! Only to find out it still completely failed to catch any catfish.

That same day, we had to call our guard's friend, who has a really good large net, with a long pouch in it. We rented it for the rest of the day. The fish look at the opening in the middle of the net (the pouch), and think it's a way to escape, so they go into it, only to find it has a dead end. Then they are stuck.

We seriously muddied up the yard and even killed small tilapia in the mud. We also accidentally netted huge logs that I had in the water. That made the net really heavy when it had a 3 foot log in it!

However, we were much more successful this time! We managed to get 10 catfish. Catfish have to be some of the sneakiest and smartest fish. Because we dragged this net so many times trying to leave no space for them to escape, using all of our efforts, and still most of them never got caught.

Here is the biggest catfish we got. It was very strong.

We threw back in the small tilapia, but kept about 15 or so. We all got dirty. I took the longest shower I've had in the last few years. It was a fun and interesting experience to do with friends here and we will remember it! It's been a few months already that have passed by the time of this post and the tilapia have multiplied greatly with thousands of fingerlings.

Reverend Moses Farm Tour

By Sara:

Another farm tour happened in March.  The latest farmer group to complete their lessons got to travel to Abwanget, where a friend of ours, Rev. Moses Opus lives (in the straw hat in the picture below).  Moses is a very creative farmer and has (more than a little bit) of almost everything on his farm.  Fruit trees, vegetables, staple foods, bees, goats, and chickens, among other things.  I love the way he uses what he has, to do amazing farming.  Any enterprising farmer who is willing to work hard can copy what he has done, without any expensive inputs.

We all admired this huge jackfruit tree:

Everyone also loved how beautiful this new grass thatched hut is in his home: 

Moses is growing passion fruit in a small, fenced area, and is utilizing their shade as a nursery for starting seedlings.  His family intends to plant 100 lemon trees this year, so he is starting them under the passion fruit.  He also uses old water bottles for his seedlings instead of buying potting bags, which helps him save money and reuse waste.

Moses was on the trip to Uwepo and one of the plants he came back with was a grape vine.  Everyone was amazed to see it since they had all read about grapes in the Bible but had no idea what a grape plant looked like:

Another great innovation Moses uses is planting a certain local plant densely around his tree seedlings when they are small.  This protects the seedling from getting eaten by goats or cows.  Since he puts a lot of mulch on the ground around the trees, chickens also aren't able to squeeze inside and scratch it up. 

Uwepo Farm Tour

By Sara:

Thanks to a generous gift from one of our supporting churches, I have been able to take groups of farmers on learning visits to different places.  In early March, I led another such visit.  I brought the Magoro farmer group to Uwepo, an organization and teaching farm in Jinja.  The farmers in Magoro have shown their enthusiasm for learning and willingness to contribute to further educational opportunities, so it was a great opportunity for them to get exposure to more new ideas.

Since Jinja is very far from Magoro, the group traveled by bus part of the way on the day before the tour.  They spent the night at a church.  The next morning, they left at 5:30am in order to get to the Uwepo farm before 9am!  The Uwepo staff were so impressed by the group's timeliness.  

I really appreciate the work that Uwepo is doing in educating farmers and in propagating unique varieties of plants.  We ate breakfast at the farm and one of the items in our breakfast was breadfruit chips.  Breadfruit is a tropical tree which produces starchy fruits that can be eaten like cassava or potato.  One tree can live 80 years and can give up to 250 kilos of fruit in a year!  This is a great investment since it allows the farmer to passively get a lot of food, without a lot of intensive labor.

Although it poured while we were eating breakfast, the rain stopped in time for the tour to proceed.  There were lessons on grafting:

We got to see examples of vegetable growing, mixed with trees:

Everyone got to do some hands-on activities with preparing food for black soldier flies and learning how to raise them (even me):

We saw how the farm is raising chickens and learned about new things to feed them: 

At the end of the tour, we went to the nursery where Uwepo sells many varieties of plants.  The group found lots of trees they wanted to take home to their gardens.  Even the driver of the bus bought a seedling for himself!  And although the breadfruit seedlings are expensive, compared to other tree seedlings (due to the difficulties in propagating it), five people bought seedlings and were excited to go plant them at their homes. 

Video Interview of Sara and Jane

By Sara:

Here is another video produced by the Resonate communications team when they visited Soroti: 

HWHIA discussions and testimonies

By Anthony:

Here are some testimonies, discussions, and stories from various Helping Without Hurting in Africa trainings from around the continent.

Here is a video from Christian Aid Ministries in Liberia. It was amazing to see how the training led them to make real practical changes to their ministry programming. Listen to them explain it in this video:

Participant Testimony:

"The lessons from Helping Without Hurting in Africa (HWHIA) 2024 have influenced my approach by shifting my focus from providing temporary relief to fostering long-term empowerment and sustainable development. By prioritizing dignity, partnership, and asset-based approaches, I now involve the needy in identifying solutions, build on their strengths, and avoid creating dependency. I’ve become more mindful of cultural sensitivity, holistic care, and the potential for unintended harm, ensuring my actions uplift rather than undermine. Ultimately, HWHIA has taught me to listen more, act with humility, and focus on sustainable impact that equips individuals and communities to thrive independently."

Here is a fun cake that the hosts of the training in Jinja, Uganda made for the graduation of participants. It was very cool!

Participant Testimony from Lillian Nakanyike in Uganda:

"When we were taught about the benevolence ministry, I returned home (that same day) and met with my lead pastor and his wife to discuss what I had learned and how we could streamline our benevolence ministry within our church. I was given the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with the leadership (which lasted up to midnight), and one of the key points highlighted was that our church was very self-focused, despite being relatively new to the community (having relocated about 8 months ago from a town setting to a more residential village setting).

One of our action points was to identify an activity that focused on giving back to the community, while also sharing the word of God and making our presence known. Drawing from the classes I had attended with HWHIA, I suggested meeting with the village women, as we already had plans to celebrate Women's Day. My proposal was to have a presence in the marketplace, meet the women, clean the market, offer aprons, and use our expertise to educate them about preventable cancers and provide recommendations if needed. We could also share the word of God regarding self-care for women.

This idea was well-received, and we went on to have a successful Women's Day event. As we had anticipated, many women were unaware of our church's existence in the community, and they expressed interest in attending our services and invited us to interact with them periodically. Our intention is to make Christ known to them and see transformed lives, both spiritually and in terms of their health."

Another Testimony:

"The lessons from HWH 2024 have profoundly shaped my perspective and approach to helping the needy and vulnerable. They have heightened my awareness of the needs around me and equipped me with strategies to address these needs effectively without fostering dependency. Instead of offering unrestricted aid, I now focus on providing regulated support that encourages self-reliance and inspires individuals to take active steps to improve their circumstances. This balanced approach ensures that help is both impactful and empowering."

Another Testimony:

"As I provide support, I prioritize sustainability and empowerment, helping individuals overcome current challenges and fostering long-term growth. My goal is to facilitate a deeper connection with God, nurturing a secure faith that transcends temporary solutions. Through my experience, I've learned to encourage individuals to focus on their relationship with God, rather than solely relying on human support. This approach has proven effective in promoting spiritual resilience and independence. The Holy Spirit has also granted me discernment to look beyond immediate circumstances, identifying underlying issues and providing permanent solutions. By addressing root causes, I help individuals break free from recurring struggles, experiencing lasting transformation and spiritual liberation."

Group Discussions 

One of the activities during our training is dividing the group into separate groups of men and women so that they can determine how to spend a certain amount of money on behalf of the training group. It's a quick activity to demonstrate the importance of hearing from many voices in the community, including from different types of people in the community who have diverse needs and concerns.

What is quite funny to me is that in almost every training group, regardless of which country we are in, the ideas presented by the men and the women are very predictable. Almost every time the men come up with ways to invest the money to multiply it for the future. And in almost every group the women come up with ways to care for the personal needs of vulnerable people in the group, such as those with disabilities. Jonny and I always laugh at this because the pattern just keeps reproducing itself. I'm guessing the results might be a little different in the USA where gender roles are less rigid. But it's very interesting to see how God has gifted men and women differently and how they both have important ideas, but very different.

An interesting discussion that comes up a lot in our trainings is the issue of benevolence ministry and how most churches are wary of getting too involved in such ministry. Why? Churches don't want to attract a lot of materially poor people to their services, nor do they want to be known for having a lot of poor people. This is because of how strong the prosperity gospel is in Africa. The powerful testimonies of God at work are always about people prospering financially. Having a church with a lot of poor people makes people worried that others won't be attracted to come to their church. On top of this is a very practical concern that I understand well: if your church begins attracting a lot of poor people as you care for them, you might struggle with constant requests for financial help.

Something very different from our culture in the USA is that I repeatedly hear from pastors who attend our trainings, in any of the countries we have trained in, this statement - "Being here at the training is a vacation for me!" This tells you how busy and exhausted most pastors are in their lives and ministries.

Video Interview of Anthony and Moses

 By Anthony:


When some of the Resonate communication team members visited Uganda, this is one of the videos they were able to capture:

Pastors Marriage Conference

By Anthony and Sara

We had a busy few weeks with almost back-to-back marriage conferences, first the one for bishops and then another for pastors.  Both were at the same hotel in Jinja, which gave us a very good deal and took great care of both groups.

The participants in the pastor marriage conference were mainly from the book discussion group Anthony started in Soroti, but since not all of the members could go to the conference, they opened it up to some Timothy Leadership Training facilitators as well.

We were grateful to have Dr. Conrad Mbewe and his wife, Felistas, from Zambia, facilitate this conference.  We picked them up from the airport and did a touristy birdwatching boat ride to see shoebill storks in the morning, before heading to the conference. Conrad and Sara were very excited by the birds and we got to see a shoebill stork for the first time. It wasn't even an adult and was still huge and amazing!

Here is a picture of the juvenile shoebill we saw (Conrad took this photo):

The pastors in the book group had read "God's Design for the Church", by Dr. Mbewe, and were excited to get a chance to ask him follow up questions about it. Conrad and Felistas also facilitated wonderful sessions on topics like: creating boundaries between the church and the family of the pastor, preparing for retirement, the experience of being a pastor's wife, building physical and emotional intimacy in marriage, and physical and mental health.

Felicitas led some private discussions with the women:

The pastors planned their conference to have a bit more free time than the bishops did, so they enjoyed relaxing in the evenings - going to the gym and swimming in the pool. A few people went swimming in a pool for the first time in their lives. Some couples even were able to fit in a boat ride to see the Source of the Nile River (the hotel is located right next to the Nile).   

Dr. Mbewe's teaching was incredibly helpful and clear. All of the participants really appreciated it. There were some things they knew, but needed the reminder and the encouragement to pay attention to in their families and ministries. And other topics which were completely new for some of them to think about.

These pastors were also interested in taking a farm tour, so Sara organized a tour of Uwepo's farm, just outside of Jinja, where she took some youth in 2023. Uwepo has so many interesting plants and practices which they do an excellent job teaching about on the tour. The pastors and wives came back from the farm full of excitement. It opened their minds to new business ideas and new types of trees and plants. 

Sara did the same drawing activity that we did with the Bishop's marriage conference. Each of the pastors and wives had to draw one another following Sara's instructions. People seemed to have a fun time with it.

Peter testimony - "I am so grateful for the opportunity to be part of the marriage conference. The teachings really impacted me and how it was planned was very interactive. The visit to the farm too was timely and opened my mind to such great ideas. The bread fruit and the rabbits and chicken touched me. I look forward to doing something soon."

Richard testimony - "It was such a blessing to attend the retreat together with my wife. This indeed is a turning point in my marriage since we learnt together. I have indeed gained a lot of insight in the  different topics.  Doctor Conrad Mbewe is so gifted a speaker.  My appreciation goes to the sponsors through Rev. Anthony, who made sure that the couples get an opportunity to be treated fantastically in such a luxurious hotel Paradise in Jinja.  That would not be possible without funds.  May God richly bless you all."

Moses testimony - "Thanks so much my friend and brother in Christ Jesus. The book club meetings have made a big change in my ministry. 1. Roles of church members. 2. Different ways of raising church money. 3. Discipling. 4. Teachings among others. 5. The marriage retreat was exciting since it was our first time. 6. Planning for retirement was crucial in the workshop. I have started making some re-forms in the ministry. Thanks God bless you and our partners."

Basil testimony - "I was so impacted by the marriage retreat and I would love to share my experience. First of all thank you for how you organized the daily program while we were at Jinja. This arrangement gave engagement with my family at a very deeper level but also produced a certain rest both in my mind and body. I am now working on a few things as I prepare for retirement, I have sketched a workable plan to implement what I learnt in class and the farm visit. But above the list of things I am grateful for is a spark of fresh intimacy developed between me and my wife. And to all our supporters, thank you for conveying God grace and favor to us through your finances, I am forever blessed. Shalom to you."

Joseph testimony - "This conference has brought a positive change in my relationship with my wife. In the first case we had not got time earlier to be out in such a hotel but this time this conference enabled us to enjoy such facilities. Secondly the teachings on retirement preparation, visit to UWEPO farm has opened our eyes as a family to plan on how we can utilize our land effectively. I would like to thank our partners from America for sponsoring this retreat. May the Almighty God bless all of you abundantly."

Some video testimonies from the ladies:

 

Stella's husband is the one who taught her to speak English after they got married, and encouraged her to join him in ministry.

 

You may notice a common theme: that many women are anxious about participating in ministry with their pastor husbands.  The husband has often received some theological training and goes to informal trainings all the time, but his wife hasn't had the opportunity for that kind of training.  Yet she is often expected to be like a pastor to women, since she is married to the pastor.