From Torture to Gangland Ministry
Samuel Okurut’s story begins in a place no human being should ever know.
As a young university student in Kampala, Uganda, he was abducted, beaten, and confined for 90 days in what he describes as a concrete “safehouse” — a suffocating chamber with little oxygen, where prisoners were called out at night and later found dead. When his own name was called, Samuel believed his life was over.
Instead, he was released.
But survival did not immediately become freedom. Back home, traumatized and bitter, Samuel found himself asking God the question that haunts many survivors: Why did You save me?
The answer came years later in an orphanage.
After encountering a ministry of reconciliation, Samuel says the Holy Spirit confronted him with his own bitterness. As he shared his story aloud for the first time, forgiveness began to loosen what trauma had locked inside. “For two years,” he says, “even though I was outside the cell, I was actually still in a cell.”
Then came Benjamin.
Walking into a baby home in Uganda, Samuel saw an infant lying on the floor. In that moment, he felt the answer to his question: he had been saved “for him.” Although he was later unable to adopt Benjamin because he was single, the vision widened. It was not only about one child. It was about the “Benjamins” of the world — the fatherless, abandoned, and alone.
That calling eventually led to Father’s Heart Village, a ministry developing a rural community in El Salvador to provide homes and family-based care for orphaned and abandoned children. The organization describes its mission as creating families and homes for children in urgent need, with a stated vision to serve orphaned children in El Salvador.
The need is real. El Salvador’s long struggle with gang violence, followed by the government’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown, has left many children separated from parents. Reports have documented tens of thousands of children affected by parental detention, poverty, stigma, and trauma. (EL PAÍS English)
Samuel’s ministry has not unfolded in safe conditions. He recounts being sought out by a gang leader who wanted to meet him — not to threaten him, but because, as Samuel understood it, “the fear wasn’t me. It was actually the fear of God.”
The Scripture that anchors his calling is Psalm 68: God is “a father to the fatherless” and “sets the lonely in families.” (Bible Gateway)
Samuel’s life now stands as a living answer to the question he once asked in the dark: he was saved, so others could be brought home.
