May 2022 - Reintroducing Robert Katende, SOM Executive Director, Chess Ministry Founder/Director, and All-Around Great Guy!
Robert Katende’s visit to the U.S. last month allowed us a face-to-face question and answer session with this valued staff member and dear servant of the Lord. Born and raised in Uganda, he makes his home in Kampala, with his wife Sarah, and three daughters, Mercy, Hope, and Grace.
When did you first join Sports Outreach Institute?
I connected with Sports Outreach in 2000 when still in school, through Aloysius Kyazze. He was coaching the Miracle Football (soccer) Club at the time, and I started playing for them, and later played for his Sports Outreach Ambassadors Team. Though I was invited to join the Uganda Junior National Team when I was 14, I had to choose between playing and working in the garden. I needed to work for my survival, as I was very poor and lived with my Auntie, so I chose to work. After college I stayed connected with Aloysius, and eventually agreed to play for the Good News Football Club (GNFC). I saw that Aloysius was more than a coach, and nowadays we say he “stepped on and off the field.”
Tell us about the Good News Football Club in Kampala.
Originally 16 people were recruited to play on the GNFC, and today there are still three of the original members on the team (Robert, Moses, and Sam). Over 70% of the team’s current players were ministered to in the Sports Outreach projects—Katwe, Nateete, Bwaise, Kibuli.
What changes have you seen since joining SOM? Good or Bad.
So many changes on this journey. Sports Outreach started with three staff in 1987, and today there are 62. I used to only volunteer, and in 2003 Aloysius got called to serve in Gulu, and I travelled back and forth with him. The chess program started in 2004 at Katwe (slum in Kampala). Chess was not embraced at first, but shortly after that Russ Carr, SOI founder, brought 10 small chess boards to me. My excitement was beyond receiving the boards, but the endorsement of chess program that I had initiated. That was the turning point of the chess ministry. In 2005 the Charlotte Eagles soccer team came to Uganda and had a big crusade in both Kampala and Gulu, and then in Kenya. The results of these crusades were that SOI began work in Kenya in 2006 (now a robust ministry site); raised funds to purchase land in Gulu (2007), and in 2012 we bought land in Kampala, now home of the Sports Outreach Resource Center (SORC).
The education program in Uganda started organically in 2006 with three students, Ivan, Richard, and Samuel. When Andrew Popp died in 2005, his parents remembered visiting the chess program participants in Uganda, and decided to set up a memorial scholarship fund, so the education program came first for kids in the chess program. With more education funds, we expanded to recruit “learners,” children with potential to learn and study, that were identified by the coaches. Education funding is less consistent now, so we ask, “How do use of what we have, and impact more lives?”
What is your vision for the ministry?
In the next five years I see an ideal ministry organization. One that can retain the best staff, people who have good working skills, creating a robust team with the heart to go the extra mile (beyond their job description). People who can say, “No one need pay me for what I do, but I am gladly doing it. This is the purpose of my life.”
What is the “spiritual” temperature of people in Uganda these days? Are they still open to the Gospel?
Spiritual dynamics have changed with the addition of mobile phones. They are necessary and people have more access to information. It is hard to say if people are less open to spiritual things, but there have been setbacks. Some churches take advantage of people. Our approach to sharing the Gospel is unique as it is relational. Through the children we connect with adults rather than the other way around. It makes a BIG difference! Children are readily available to listen, who you are preaches more than anything else.
We conclude with a comment from Robert that captures the spirit of Sports Outreach, not only in Uganda, but at all our ministry sites. “We are just the vehicle. Ministry is about a life transformed. That is the goal. All glory goes back to God. This is a ministry driven by the heart, not obligation. Those that stay, you know it is from their heart. They know this is what they have been made for.”
WELCOME NEW BOARD MEMBERS!
We would like to welcome Nicki Kennedy (Belmont, NC) and Steve Pettit (Lynchburg, VA) to the SOI Board of Directors. Both Steve and Nicki have generously given of their time and talents, and we are thankful to be working with them in this new capacity. Steve will also be serving as Board Chaplain.
TRIP TALK
Uganda here we come!
Please be praying for two outreach trips this month. Waymaker Church (Lynchburg, VA, from May 8 to 19) and Hope College (S. Holland, MI from May 24 to June 5) are each visiting the SOM teams in Kampala and Gulu while on the ground.
