Kalende, a renowned international LGBT activist has denounced her lesbian lifestyle publicly and added that the love of God has completely transformed her life.
She became an LGBT activist in 2007, leaving her family behind as a preacher’s kid in a Pentecostal household in Uganda and career as a journalist. She was once a global champion for LGBT rights and frequently called out Christians and politicians for their support of traditional marriage. Today, she says God has forgiven her for what she calls the “sin of same-sex.”
Kalende led the Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG), an umbrella body for LGBT organizations in the country and have travelled around the globe speaking on gay right. In 2014, she gained asylum in Canada and became a fellow at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission when the Ugandan parliament criminalized homosexual behavior.
As at 2016, she remained “steadfast” in her debate for LGBT rights in which she believed that transformation is in the power of truth, as they say the truth set you free but today there is dramatic turnaround believing only gospel truth set her free from her sinful past.
On her Facebook page, she posted that “The enemy had a plan to divert and eventually destroy my identity. God had a plan. A good plan,” she added that “The enemy had a plan to divert and eventually destroy my identity. God had a plan. A good plan,” from there re-arranging LGBT to TBGL which means Transformed by God’s Love.
Her parting away from her Christian background is what she admitted to be what she “wrestled with” for years.
“Often times I read my Bible – particularly scripture on homosexuality and marriage – but my heart was hardened,” she recalls in her Facebook post. “Instead I asked God questions like: If your design is for me not to have sexual relations outside of marriage and for marriage to be between a man and a woman, why then do I have same-sex attractions? Now I understand this shouldn’t have been the approach of my conversations with God.” Instead she says she should have trusted God despite not having all the answers.
In her new call to Action she writes: “My approach should have been: Lord, I don’t have answers but I trust and believe your Word. Your intention is not to harm me or prevent me from enjoying life. Your intention is to preserve me; and to give me not the life of my choice but the life I deserve according to your love.”
Kalende is now hoping the turn around that happened to her, will occur to others too through the grace and love of Jesus.
She recently wrote: “Dear LGBT movement: I found Life, Truth and Grace. My prayer is that you find the good life as I have. Y’all have become my reason for intercession. I know, from some of the messages I’ve received so far, that the Holy Spirit has begun speaking to your hearts. He is the revealer of all truth…To pastors I disagreed with, I am sorry. To politicians I violently fought in a war of words, I am sorry. To the old and young generation of this nation, I am sorry. To my FATHER and maker, I am sorry. To myself, I am sorry. I am at peace with my soul because I am forgiven and forever set free. Psalm 51:17.”
Aphorism CITY 