Image description: A person’s fingers locked one into another is resting on a Bible with a black cover during service at Adonai Inclusive Ministries. On one of their wrists, there is a band with the Kenyan flag. They are dressed in a patterned shirt and blue jeans with their legs crossed over each other. Beside them is another person adorned with bands on their wrist wearing a ring dressed in a black outfit with a white motif. Kampala, Uganda (Minority Africa) — It is a quiet Sunday morning in a Kampala suburb. From a distance, the distinct voices of people singing can be heard. As one draws closer to the origin of the song, it becomes more apparent, the emotions unmistakable, as a group of about two dozen people chorus in unison, “Let your living water flow over my soul. . .”. At first glance, it looks like a usual church gathering. But the person seated by the entrance keeping watch and scanning the area around the hall, the suspicious gazes from the congregation whenever someone enters the room, and the rainbow-themed backdrop reveal a more profound truth. This is no ordinary congregation. This gathering has been organized by Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries, an LGBTQ+ affirming church in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. It is led by and welcomes gay people, a huge fraction of who struggle with reconciling their faith and sexuality. When I arrive at the venue, I am met with skepticism. The person at the entrance nervously looks at me as if asking, “Who are you?” My guide, also a member of the church, quickly notices their concern for safety and steps in, introducing me as a member of a media team there to cover the day’s proceedings. “They are with us,” she says, in this context referring to an ally, putting their mind at ease. Realizing that this moment might play out again with the rest of the group, my guide, a woman I would later find out is called Ruby, makes a formal announcement communicating our presence. I am there with a cameraperson and Minority Africa’s Sexual Minorities editor. There is a man who is standing in front of the congregation, decked in a grey suit and smiling. He is Pastor Kagwa Ramathan Mutyaba, the founder of Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries, and is more commonly known as Ram Gava. “When you get baptized, you accept Jesus as your Lord and personal savior,” 26-year-old Gava says to the congregation during his sermon and referring to a baptism taking place later in the day. Before starting Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries, Gava had served in mainstream churches in various capacities; however, he always faced rejection because he was “different.” “What the pastors were preaching about people like me was hate; ‘people like you need to be killed, people like you need to be silenced’,” says Gava, who realized he was attracted to men at the age of sixteen. In the congregation is Gabbie, a trans woman who was raised in the church but lost interest because of hostile attitudes towards her gender identity. “I was this girly boy. People sometimes came to my father and they would tell him, ‘We do not understand your son, why is he girly?’” Gabbie who is a youth pastor at Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries recalls. “Some people would think I’m going to spoil them,” she adds. Her dilemma went beyond just concealing her identity from her church. Gabbie’s father is the pastor of the church she grew up in, and in such a setting, image is very important, so much so that until this interview, Gabbie had not officially come out to her family. “There are some things you’re not supposed to do because you’re in the closet, you don’t want to create alarms around, you don’t want to become an issue of discussion around people,” 22-year-old Gabbie explains. “You do things according to who you are with, you go through a situation and you cannot share with anyone,” she adds. Despite this huddle, Gabbie always wanted to work in the church. She started actively serving in her father’s church around 2007 when she was seven until exhausted by the discrimination she experienced, she left the church in June 2021. Nearly two months later, she joined Adonai Inclusive Christian Ministries where she now serves as a choir leader and youth pastor. “I came to this church because it is a bit far from home; it will be so hard for [my father] to find out which church I am in and what they do,” she says. And it seems to have worked. “[Here] I am basically myself. No judgment,” Gabbie says with satisfaction present in her tone. “I have never been myself like the way I am here.