Festo Kivengere

Festo Kivengere was a Ugandan schoolteacher and a grandson of a local chief, converted in the East African Revival, the movement that spread through the region on plain public repentance and singing. He interpreted for Billy Graham in Uganda and became Anglican bishop of Kigezi in 1972, the year Idi Amin seized power. When Amin's men killed Archbishop Janani Luwum in February 1977 and Kivengere's own name was on the list, he and his wife Mera walked over the Rwenzori mountains into Rwanda by night.

Six months later he published a short book on forgiving the dictator, titled without irony I Love Idi Amin, arguing that the cross leaves a Christian no room to hate even the man hunting him. He went home after Amin fell in 1979 and gave his last decade to relief work, orphans, and reconciliation between Ugandans who had been on opposite sides. He died of leukemia in 1988.