You heard the African student’s prayer before a BYU football game. Here’s the story behind it

BYU football fans are famous for flocking to games wherever the team plays in the United States, but head coach Kalani Sitake searched last summer for a way his players could fulfill the university’s motto, “The World is Our Campus.”

“What does Heavenly Father want us to do with this platform?” he asked friends. “And how can we actually serve and help and connect everyone?”

The most visible outcome so far was the remarkable opening prayer delivered over Zoom by an African BYU-Pathway Worldwide student, Faith Kisakye. The Ugandan’s prayer went viral for her tender, heartfelt pleas that BYU fans make Jesus Christ their central focus and that the world become “one body in Christ.”

BYU football players say the connection they’ve made with BYU-Pathway Worldwide students in Africa has changed their perspective on and off the field. Students at BYU-Pathway, which provides an inexpensive on-ramp into higher education and online degrees from several schools, say they feel that the team is playing for them.

“The world becomes a lot smaller all of a sudden when you start talking about BYU,” Sitake said, “and now it becomes even smaller when you start talking about BYU-Pathway,” which has 26,000 students in Africa and a total of 74,000 worldwide. In all, there are more than 150,000 students taking higher education courses at the schools in the Church Educational System of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Zoom meeting that started it all

Sitake invited several players to join a committee to work on the idea. In August, the entire BYU football roster sat in the team room for a Zoom call with BYU-Pathway students in Africa. The team expected to be joined by 50-60 students in Africa, but the demand was far greater. The team’s Zoom license maxed out at 300.

BYU junior safety Tanner Wall, who began an MBA program this fall, led the meeting.

“We really wanted to share with these Pathway students across the globe that they’re a part of us and we play for them,” he said.

The African students wanted the team to know how deeply they felt that.

“Bless those young men to know they play for us all,” Kisakye said during the meeting’s opening prayer.

After the call, she broke down with emotion.

“I just cried after that interaction. I even had to cry,” she said. “I thanked Heavenly Father for loving me this much, because if it wasn’t for his love, I wouldn’t even have been able to mingle with the football team. I asked my Heavenly Father, ‘Who am I that you have chosen me?’”

BYU players who had served missions in Africa spoke to the BYU-Pathway students. Several of those students spoke, encouraging the players.

“Football players will tell you that something that drives them every day through hard practices is their ‘why,’” said junior running back Enoch Nawahine, who served a mission in Malawi. “I think that Zoom call that day flipped a switch in everyone’s minds that we play for a lot more than just ourselves. We play for these members that are across the seas who have very little, but for us to be able to play in their names and to represent them means the most to them.”

The mission companions reunited by the BYU football team’s outreach

Freshman defensive end Carson Tujague and Kakooza Richard, 28, a physics and math teacher from Uganda, served as mission companions recently in Botswana and Namibia. He has returned to teaching, but the first BYU-Pathway certificate he is seeking is in entrepreneurship. His plan is to use the program to earn an online degree through BYU-Idaho.

Tujague had no idea Richard would be on the Zoom call. It was a sweet reunion. Tujague said Richard helped him become a better man.

“He’s one of the most intelligent people I know,” said Tujague, who is redshirting this season. “He was a professor before he went on his mission, and so he was very educated already, definitely a lot smarter than me. He was able to help teach me a lot about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Richard thirsted for more connection with Tujague and other American companions.

“Sometimes I long to listen to them, to hear from them,” Richard said.

He welcomed connecting over football, even though he is still learning the game.

“This is kind of like a bridge to us,” he said. “It leads into more personal conversations, him getting to know me, how I’m doing and also, I get to know how he’s been.”

Tujage feels exactly the same.

“It’s cool to be able to still have something to connect over, even though we’re on the other side of the world,” he said. “You know, it’s something I can talk to him about, and he’s even messaged me and said, ‘I’m trying to learn about football, and I want to watch your games’ and that kind of thing.

“It’s really cool to know that you’re playing for a lot more than yourself. You You have people all over the world who are supporting you, and it just helps you play a little bit better.”

What BYU players said has helped them

Sitake noticed a difference in his team immediately, during the meeting, as well as after.

“I saw our players’ eyes as they realized that there’s a lot of people out there cheering for them, and it’s not just to win, but they love the way that they represent themselves on and off the field,” he said.

Sitake said the players felt empowered.

“When players feel like they’re doing something more, playing for more things than just themselves, and they’re a part of something that’s bigger than themselves, it’s big,” he said. “I saw our players anxiety and stress lighten up a little bit, and I saw them showing more gratitude and appreciation for where they’re at and that so many people support them.”

Wall, the junior safety, who served a mission in Brazil, said he appreciated that the BYU-Pathway students shared messages with the team about how to use teamwork, even though they aren’t familiar with American football.

“We had a message shared with us about the importance of discipline and humility, every guy really committing to his role and how that can help the team,” he said. “That was really powerful coming from people who don’t really understand very much about the game of football applying principles of the gospel they have seen bless their lives they know could help us find success as a team. So that was awesome to see.”

Junior wide receiver Chase Roberts said working with BYU-Pathway students helped him maintain perspective.

“When we step on the field, there’s people watching us who need us who have never even stepped foot in the United States and or on the BYU campus, yet they love us so much and we’re playing for them,” said Roberts, who served a Tagalog-speaking mission in Calgary, Canada. “It just gives more meaning and more desire to do our best and play for not just your brother on the team or next to you on the field but outside of the country.”

Nawahine, the running back who served in Malawi, said the meeting was a powerful reminder of his mission.

“It made me kind of homesick, to be honest,” he said. “What a beautiful time in life it was to have served and to be worried about everyone else besides myself, a very selfless life, one that my Savior lived. To be able to experience that for two years meant everything.”

How the stadium prayer happened

Faith Kisakye dropped out of nursing school because she needed to help her family support her younger siblings. She felt ostracized in her previous religious community when she became pregnant as a teen. She found the Church of Jesus Christ 17 years ago.

“The church welcomed me. I’ve got wonderful sisters who loved me as if they are my own,” she said.

Now a single mother of three, she has served as a seminary teacher and Relief Society president in her church. She started BYU-Pathway because it was so inexpensive. She earned straight A’s in the Pathway program and earned a scholarship to do online classes at Ensign College, a BYU sister school.

Kisakye has earned a project management certificate and now is working on a second certificate in medical billing and coding.

She learned about the BYU football “match” while looking at upcoming Ensign College events. She asked Matthew Downs if she could say the opening prayer at a game.

Downs was part of the group Sitake spoke with in the summer when the idea was developed. He is a BYU-Pathway missionary and chair of the career advisory board. He conducts Zoom calls each Friday to advise students in southern Africa, central Africa, Europe and the Pacific Islands. He also works to help develop remote job opportunities for students while they are in school and when they graduate.

Kisakye’s prayer:

“Our dear Father in Heaven, who oversees all his creations. We thank you for our Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, we pray for our friends from our friends from Kansas State, that they may feel welcome and enjoy the game. I pray for all BYU fans around the world. May we remember that Jesus Christ is our central focus.

“I pray for the students of BYU, that they may know you know their name. We are grateful for the gathering of Israel that unites us around the world as one body in Christ. We pray for our team. We pray that you cleanse them from negative energy so their performance will be their best. We praise thee with all our heart, and we say this prayer in the sacred name of our Savior and Redeemer, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

She then looked up at said, “Go BYU!”

An invitation for BYU football to go to Africa

Downs said many BYU-Pathway students face major challenges. In Africa, many have to find a computer or a better phone to be able to complete assignments, which also require enough bandwidth in an internet connection. Many need access to electricity and a job to pay for life while they study.

As if to illustrate those hurdles, Faith Kisakye’s power cut out during a Zoom interview for this story. It was night, so her room went dark. She didn’t lose her internet connection because she uses a battery in her router, but she said power outages are common.

Downs said the resilience students like her face shows future employers their grit.

“They’ll bless your company because of their energy, their hunger, and they’re, they’re really remarkable individuals and professionals,” he said.

Kisakye maintained her hope in the future. She told the Deseret News she wants to meet the BYU football team — in Africa.

“If I get the chance to meet the leaders of the football team, I’ll just ask them to visit Africa,” she said. “Let the football team get a tour in Africa, because we need that closeness. We need them here.”

Downs loved the idea.

“I think we should absolutely set it up for our team to go to Africa, and perhaps many of our athletic teams to go and visit and see their fans around the world. We’re very blessed as a Church Educational System to have a global campus, a global student body, and the opportunity to go and see those fans and connect with them, so that when they’re watching something on TV or on the internet, that they can really know that we we play for them, and I think that that’s a great idea, and we should get that set up with coach.”

One student body, one system in Jesus Christ

BYU President Shane Reese has made belonging one of the core tenants of his administration. BYU-Pathway President Brian Ashton joined Reese and the football team during the Zoom call in August.

“The definition of Zion is that there’s an effort to be one,” Downs said.

He noted that Faith Kisakye’s plea that all BYU students be one in Christ fit right perfectly in a larger call within the Church Educational System issued by Elder Clark G. Gilbert, the church commissioner of education.

The schools, administrations and students in the system should be striving to become one system in Christ, Elder Gilbert has said, according to Downs.

Making a BYU football experience unique

Latter-day Saint missionaries carry a lot of responsibility. Many return home hungry to serve in major ways. The BYU football team has 55 returned missionaries, and Sitake said several have continued to mentor BYU-Pathway students after the August meeting.

Right now, the players are busy with football — they are 5-0 — and school. Wall said the player committee plans to meet again after the season to decide how to do more to connect with fellow students in the church system over the next year.

Sitake said that desire among his players to find belonging with other BYU-system students around the world was part of the goal.

“We were trying to find ways to look at enhancing the (BYU football) experience altogether,” he said. “I think when people are looking at recruiting, trying to find more ways to show why BYU is unique and different, and why being here as a football player is more than just football is important.”

He says he sees players jumping at the opportunity to mentor and connect with students all over the world.

“When you know that it goes global,” he said, “it matters even more.”