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Pathway to Hope: BYU–Pathway Worldwide in Africa | Jane Clayson Johnson | September 2025
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Welcome to the Recent Speeches podcast presented by BYU Speeches, featuring inspiring new devotionals and forums given each week on BYU Campus. Be sure to check out our other podcasts by searching BYU Speeches wherever you get your podcasts or by visiting speeches BYU Edu podcasts.
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This forum address, entitled Pathway to Hope, BYU Pathway Worldwide in Africa was given on September 30th of 2025 by Jane Clason Johnson, an Emmy winning journalist.
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Thank you so much. It is such a privilege to be here with you. As Elder Gilbert mentioned, our son William left this summer for his mission after finishing his freshman year here at byu and seeing you all reminds me of him and the remarkable gathering of young disciples that you are on this campus. You fill me with such hope. Today I want to share with you and show you in part of a documentary, another gathering of remarkable studentsstudents you may never meet. But who are your brothers and sisters in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? They are the students of BYU Pathway Worldwide. Some of you may not know much about BYU Pathway. Sometimes people ask me if it's a charitable program or an international outreach effort. It's not. BYU Pathway is about education, affordable, spiritually based, and accessible to students online around the world. BYU Pathway is part of the Church educational system and Currently more than 85,000 students in 180 countries are enrolled in BYU pathway, 25% in the US and 75% internationally, with more than half of those students in Africa. Two and a half years ago, my husband Mark and I were invited to join a Zoom Call with four BYU Pathway students. They were from Papua New Guinea, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. For over an hour we listened to their stories, how BYU Pathway had transformed their lives. We were overwhelmed by their intelligence, their determination, their resilience, and their faith. We were also humbled by the sacrifices they were making to get an education, sacrifices most of us could never fully comprehend. It was on that call that I understood for the first time in a very profound way this phrase that I had heard before that I hope you will. Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. I could not get these students out of my mind. I wanted the youth and young adults of the church, including my own children who are your age, to know their stories. I wanted our members everywhere to understand BYU Pathway and as a journalist, I wanted the world to see the remarkable ways that our church is blessing so many lives across the globe. So I pitched a documentary project and went to Africa. The crew and I spent almost two weeks in Kenya and Uganda. We shot about 90 hours of video, 90 on three cameras and a drone. Conditions were often very challenging. Even clean food and water were sometimes hard to come by. It was exhausting. It was exhilarating and completely transformative, meeting some of the most remarkable people I have ever known. Brothers and sisters, BYU Pathway is one of the great miracles of our day. It is democratizing education. It is transforming higher education with remarkable innovations like the three year bachelor's degree certificates, the support of service missionaries, the impact of scholarships, and so much more. But the reason BYU Pathway works is because it is divinely inspired. And the reason BYU Pathway students sacrifice so much is because they know God will help them. BYU Pathway reaches into the most unlikely placesto the poorest city streets and to the most remote rural villages where people have only dreamed of getting a college degree. It meets these students where they are with structure, support and a spiritual foundation. It educates them and then helps them find remote jobs when they graduate. BYU Pathway is lifting families out of poverty, strengthening communities, preparing a new generation of leadership in the church across the world, and enabling the very gathering of Israel today. I am honored to play for you a 22 minute clip from the hour long documentary that we produced. It's called Pathway to Hope. You will meet your fellow CES students, Elizabeth, Grace, Faith and Vianney Jr. And Janet. Their circumstances are very different from yours, but their faith in Jesus Christ and their dedication to his gospel is the same. They have overcome many challenges, some of which we could never imagine. You will see in the film, but it bears repeating. 74% of BYU pathway students in Africa struggle to find even two meals a day. 76% don't have stable housing or reliable Internet. Their technology challenges are daunting. Imagine if you would for a moment trying to write a term paper for one of your classes on a cell phone because you cannot afford a computer. Imagine logging on to finish an assignment as the power cuts out. Or sharing a donated laptop with a dozen students who take turns rotating on it, sometimes late into the night. That is reality for so many BYU Pathways students, and yet they persist with resilience, gratitude, and tremendous faith. The stories of missionaries from Africa to me are particularly poignant. I saw so many examples of companionships of missionaries equally yoked in faith, both capable, both driven. Yet when they return home, their paths diverge. One goes back to the US to education, to family support, to opportunity. The African missionary returns to a world with limited access to higher education, steep unemployment and little safety net. For them, BYU Pathway is hope. It is the bridge that keeps them Moving forward professionally and spiritually. As you watch now, I invite you to think about your blessings and what the courage of these students can teach you about your own journey of discipleship. The privilege of studying at BYU with professors, resources and opportunities all around you is a miracle in itself. Through BYU Pathway, the Lord is extending that same miracle to his children all over the world. This is their pathway to hope.
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In Africa, only 9% of the population ever reaches college. And the odds of escaping poverty can seem insurmountable.
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Basically, you're just fighting to survive and.
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That'S all that is first priority.
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Here in Uganda, things are difficult. College is really expensive here, the job market is really bad.
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But a revolution is quietly unfolding across the continent.
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There's no way you can join this program and you remain the same. It's impossible. It's impossible.
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BYU Pathway Worldwide is giving tens of thousands of Africans the chance to defy the odds by providing high quality, low cost, spiritually based education online.
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The Lord is using Pathway to bless us all. The students in Africa.
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In crowded neighborhoods across Africa, many families survive on less than $2 a day, facing hunger, disease, and limited access to education. In Nairobi, Kenya, Elizabeth Walbamba works 75 hours a week, barely making enough to feed her kids. Her home is a 10 by 10 foot room with no running water, no indoor plumbing, and yet Elizabeth is a student. She recently enrolled in BYU Pathway, a groundbreaking online program designed to help people like her around the world earn a degree from an American university.
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Pathway has given me hope, it has given me confidence, and I know I'll get a good job.
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It's hard to be a single mom. You're working, you're going to school, you're taking care of your kids. That's a lot.
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Yeah, I have a few hours with him, so when I come in the.
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Evening.
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It'S like a rush hour.
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Elizabeth is just starting BYU Pathway, but within one year, she'll be on track to double her income. The program offers affordable three year online degrees and students earn job ready certificates along the way, opening doors before they even graduate. For students like Elizabeth, it means they can earn a degree without choosing between school and feeding their families. This innovative approach is changing lives for thousands across Africa.
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We're on our way now to tell the story of Grace. When we knew we were coming to Africa, it was Grace's story we knew we had to tell. She was forced into an abusive marriage, fled. And the story of how she found the gospel and how she found Pathway is nothing short of a miracle. Oh, thank you for Welcoming us into your home. Thank you.
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So honored to have you in my humble home.
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We are so honored to be here.
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Yeah.
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Thank you for inviting us.
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That's my mom. She looks quite a bit like me. That's my dad.
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This is your father?
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Yes.
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Oh, he was everything to you?
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Yes, he was. When he died, everything just changed. He was the sole provider for the whole family.
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And that was the beginning of a very difficult time in your life.
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The worst. The worst period.
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Grace lost everything when her father died. Her uncles took her small inheritance for themselves and forced her into an abusive marriage at the age of 18.
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I felt like it was a punishment from God. It was the worst experience I could have ever imagined. He would lock me up most of the time. I never went to the shops. I never left the house. I never had any friends. My family, they never could come to visit. I'd be interrogated. I'd be beaten and boxed around. And in the middle of the night, I left. And. Yeah, we started a new life with my kids. Those two rooms, I used to stay in one of them with my four daughters.
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Yeah, this is a very small space. It is five people.
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It is very small. This is where we cook the meals from. We just get firewood like this from the forest and just make a fire over here. That's what we used for food every day. Once a day, if we were lucky.
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So this is where you would go to forage for food?
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Yes, the forest is just behind the house. It would take me at least two hours to find food in here, enough to feed the five of us. Sometimes I'd look for hours without even finding anything, so.
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And that meant no dinner that night?
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Yeah, no dinner.
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Shortly after leaving her husband, Grace met the Missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She was soon baptized and introduced to BYU Pathway by her church leader.
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There's a bishop that was taking this gathering class, and I was very curious. I said, hey, well, President, what are you doing? Then he explained to me, this is BYU Pathway, and I just loved it.
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This is where you study?
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Yeah, that's where I do most of my Zoom meetings. It's not so big, but yeah.
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And when do you usually study?
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I study in the morning and in the late night. Then during daytime, that's when I do my remote jobs because I've been having two jobs. So I take three hours for one job and eight hours for the rest of the job. Then I study in the night and very early in the morning.
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This is a sacrifice that you're making for Your family?
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Yes. Yes it is.
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Most of the students we met here in Africa would never be able to afford a college education without BYU Pathway. These are first generation college students, Pathway Pioneers breaking a cycle of poverty and changing the course of their lives. Simply put, the promise of Pathway brings hope in a place where it's hard to find.
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We met Junior Kanyana, a recently returned missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
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Everything started when I joined the church. My dad beat me, they stopped paying for me school fees while I was in high school.
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So when you joined the church, your family cut you off?
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Yeah, they chased me away from their home.
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Still, Junior decided to stay in the church. He eventually served a mission with no family or financial support.
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When you were about to come home from your mission, how worried were you?
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I did not have family to welcome me. I did not have a home to stay.
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For the majority of African missionaries, the transition home from their mission is a harsh reality. Like Junior, many leave the mission field where they never had to worry about their next meal, only to step back into a world of uncertainty, wondering how they'll get by.
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What was that like having a companion who was going home to college, who was going home to parents, who was going home to a place to live, and you didn't have that.
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When they are asking me about what am I going to do? I don't know what's going to happen next, but I could cry inside of my heart without showing them because I'm a kind of person who does not want to show people that I'm suffering.
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For returned missionaries like Junior, who have no home to return to and no money to their name, BYU Pathway is their last hope. And it's only possible through scholarships. For African returned missionaries, BYU Pathway provides a tuition discount up to 75%. With extra scholarships available, a full bachelor's degree can cost as little as 2 to $300. But for those earning a few dollars a day, that's still a challenge.
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We can deliver a credit hour for about $5 a credit.
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And still 74% of your BYU pathway students have trouble finding two meals a day. That's right. This is grinding poverty at its very base level.
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Pathway lifts people out of poverty. We're seeing them get education, get an employable job, and eventually have a career where they're self reliant and can serve and lead and build other people.
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I won't give up and I'm gonna prove wrong to people who think maybe I'm gonna give up. I'm gonna prove wrong to Them in a good way. By being educated, by getting my education.
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Done in Africa, 74% of BYU Pathway students struggle to find even two meals a day. And 76% lack stable housing or reliable Internet. So while BYU Pathway is breaking barriers, bringing education to those who could never afford traditional schooling, for many, even the minimal cost of access, tuition, Internet, a quiet place to study, remains out of reach. That's where Be Selfless comes in.
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So we've been on the road now, driving about four hours from Masaka to a town outside Kampala. We're going to a place called the Be Selfless Center. Be Selfless is a place where Pathway students come to access the Internet to complete their college assignments. I wanted to come to this particular center because I wanted to meet a young woman named Janet.
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My family, my grandparents, they're from Rwanda. I grew up with only one grandparent. Most of them died in the genocide. My mom died when I was 7. The underlying cause was HIV, AIDS. Yeah.
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You think about her often? Yeah. Even now.
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Janet joined the church at 15. She served a mission in England and returned home to Uganda with high expectations from family and friends.
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They thought maybe, no, she went to a great country. Maybe she'll come back with lots of money.
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And.
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And when I came back, it was actually hard. They made fun of me because, like, how, you know, how do you go to such a good country and look at you. You're back. You have nothing. And it was actually very, very, very tough. And at some point I was like, I wish I did not serve in England because people wouldn't have a lot of expectations from you.
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When you came home from your mission, how did you find Pathway?
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I remember sitting in the chapel. We had President Gilbert telling us that we can actually study from BYU online. I just took it. I just took on the opportunity.
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The Lord's in charge of what's happening here, and it was the time he needed to come bless the entire church. The students in Africa, they're so faithful. They're so hopeful, they're so capable. They just needed the opportunity.
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The Be Selfless center in Uganda is run by returned missionary and BYU Pathway graduate Stephen Maraca.
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So this is like a little pathway village in here.
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Yeah. The objective of education is what brings us here so that we can better our lives.
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What year are you in the program? This is my first year. Fantastic. And sometime. But it's worth the journey.
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By next year, I'll be graduating, so.
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I'll be having my bachelor, and that'll.
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Be a happy day.
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Yeah. Be the best day. Ever.
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What are you working on? Institute. What is the retention rate for the students who come here?
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97%.
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Finnish pathway. 97%.
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97%.
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That's incredible.
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The goal here is to help students complete their degrees through BYU Pathway. Prior to be selfless, most of these students had to do all of their assignments on their cell phones. Here they have access to computers 24 hours a day, six days a week, and they're almost always in use.
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I would study in the night so that you sleep during the. You take shifts.
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Students also get meals here. They receive a small stipend for travel.
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And a safe place to stay while.
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They complete their assignments.
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So this is the girls dorm. Oh, there's a baby in here.
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Yeah.
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How many single moms do you have in here?
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We have around 10 single moms. Yeah. We encourage them to bring their kids sometimes. Our cultures here, when you get pregnant, they kick you out of the home. But the prophet has also encouraged you to seek an education and that's how you'll be able to take care of that baby. So when they come and get an education, we know that they will increase their chances of being successful in life.
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B. Selfless centers currently support just 1% of BYU pathway students in Africa. Though new centers and chapel Internet access are expanding, resources remain limited. Still, BYU Pathway is opening life changing opportunities, like in this village near Masaka, Uganda, where Faith and Vianney Senyanga are raising five children with one on the way.
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When I finished my project planning certificate, I looked in myself and I was like, I love baking.
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Baking?
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Yes, I love baking.
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I love baking.
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In her second year of BYU Pathway, Faith launched her own cake business, more than doubling her income and allowing her to provide for her family. A key factor in her success was the guidance of service missionary Lori Cummings.
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Hello.
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How are you?
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Fine.
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Good to see you.
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Sister Lori Lori Cummings is one of thousands of Service missionaries who dedicate five to ten hours a week leading gatherings, offering support and guidance and helping students with their coursework.
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I always wanted to serve a mission and I thought, why not? Now it's something I could do from home.
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What is your role as a BYU Pathway missionary?
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I feel like our role is just to support the students, to help them get used to doing online education. We do Zoom visits in their homes and I see their homes. They train you to do a Zoom meeting if you've never done that before.
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I'm not very good in math. It was not easy.
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But Faith and Lori remained close friends after their gatherings ended. And Lori continued to support Faith by Helping her obtain an oven to grow her business. Before Faith had this little oven, she could only bake one cake a day over charcoal. Now she bakes five cakes a day. It's changed everything.
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Faith, how is the bakery business?
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The bakery business, it is going on so well. I have five to six orders a day. I just have one that is yet to be delivered right here. Oh, how beautiful.
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Oh, I love it.
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I am just so proud of you.
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Before I joined Pathway, I knew Jesus Christ, but I didn't understand Him. I didn't know that he could do the things that he does for us, that he loves me. My testimony of the Savior has strengthened so, so much because of Pathway.
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So what would it mean for BYU Pathway students in Africa if there were more service missionaries?
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The need is so great. We right now, the last year and a half, have had to turn away students because we don't have enough missionaries to facilitate.
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Oftentimes we just plead with individuals who have more time and ability to do this, to take on a cohort or two that they can work with and mentor. And we need more of them and it's just going to keep growing.
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Starting a baking business changed Faith's future. Many BYU Pathways students find new career opportunities even before graduating. With a US accredited degree and real world skill skills, they are prepared for global jobs. Grace, for example, found remote work through Bloom, a company that connects BYU Pathway students with online employment to overcome limited local job options.
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Eric and I both served missions in developing countries, both in Latin America, and we became really passionate about creating opportunities like we have here in the US where they can get home from missions and basically have this path to self reliance.
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By connecting students with job opportunities as early as their first certificate, Bloom helps them earn while they learn, increasing their chances of finishing their degree with Bloom.
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Today, the goal is to help return missionaries all around the world. You know, know that they have a path to self reliance if they're educated, if they're willing to work hard through an online job. If you have a business, if you know a business owner, if you work in a company and you need to hire, consider hiring these BYU Pathway students and giving them a shot to wow you and impress you.
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In addition to Bloom, BYU Pathway is continually expanding its network of mission aligned employers, companies who've already Provided More than 9,000 jobs to students around the world.
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We don't have enough remote jobs for everyone right now. There's just this ongoing race between finding enough employment opportunities to keep up with an ever increasing enrollment. We need to find employment partners who Understand how special, how well prepared these students are and are willing to find opportunities that these students can have all around the world.
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For Grace, her job at Bloom was a springboard for other, more lucrative employment at an American venture capital firm. Matt Downs is her boss.
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Good morning, Matt.
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How are things?
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Yesterday we were looking at the. I have had so many remote job opportunities and I felt overwhelmed by how much impact the certificate can have.
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And I think that's one of the things again, that you're really good at is just helping others get better because of your willingness to just jump in and get the work done.
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Thank you so much for believing in me.
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Yeah, we're a team, Grace.
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Yeah, we're a team.
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Our students are becoming self reliant household providers. They will become the employers themselves. They will bring employment into their countries, they will become the leaders of organizations, but it's also enabling them to be able to serve and build the kingdom of God across the earth.
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Every one of the dozens of BYU Pathway students I interviewed here in Africa expressed overwhelming gratitude for this inspired program. They know this is their chance, the opportunity they've prayed for, hoped for, and so their determination to succeed is profoundly moving.
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The Lord is using Pathway to bless us all, the students in Africa. It's changing so much everywhere. There's no way you can join this program and you remain the same. It's impossible. It's impossible. So today I'm walking commencement and it's been a dream of mine since I began BYU Pathway. I just want to inspire my children and everyone else out there to have hope and know that they can do it. If I did it, an ordinary woman like me, they too can do it.
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These are just a few of hundreds of inspiring stories. And in the coming decade, there will be thousands more. BYU Pathway calls these students the hidden. Many individuals with great need, yet who remain unseen. They are now emerging. And soon we will witness generational poverty being broken, doors of opportunity community opening, and entire communities being transformed for the better around the world.
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God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in. He numbereth his people and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. That scripture in Alma is true. And after working on this documentary, I know now more than ever that the Lord is aware of all his children. He knows Grace. Grace graduated, as you heard, with a degree in communications. She was hired as a manager, an area manager at BYU Pathway Worldwide. Her daughters now attend international schools. She's also covering school fees for six other children. Education, she says, is her biggest investment. He knows junior While continuing his studies. Junior volunteers at the newly constructed Nairobi, Kenya temple. He recently became engaged to be married and he's been hired to promote BYU Pathway across Kenya. God knows Janet, who is still pursuing her BYU Pathway education, focusing on public health while juggling multiple part time jobs and teaching seminary to local high school students. She also helped her brother find the Gospel and enroll in BYU Pathway. He knows Elizabeth, who had to pause her studies at BYU Pathway for several months because she could not afford tuition. She eventually restarted doing most of her schoolwork on a cell phone because she could not afford a computer and she is saving to buy one after recently joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She told me life is tough but I am pressing on. I won't give up. And he knows Faith, who continues to grow her cake baking business. She and Vianney work remotely for Bloom and are now able to install running water in their home and pay for their children's education. They are first generation college students, Faith and Vianney, first generation saints. Vianney is the branch president. Faith is the primary president in their little branch in Uganda. With their beautiful family, they are growing the kingdom in their little corner of the world. One experience I will never forget happened as we were leaving Faith and Miani's home in Uganda. We had been filming all day. It was late at night, it was unbearably hot and the crew and I were exhausted. So I was hurrying to gather up our gear when Vianney comes over to me and says, almost in a whisper, sister Jane, it would mean the world to us if we could all kneel down together for a prayer. So there we were at 10 o' clock at night, the crew and me in a circle, hand in hand, listening to Vianney offer the most beautiful prayer of gratitude. And in that moment it all came together for me. I felt more than I can ever put into words the deep faith of these students, their sacrifice, and what the Gospel of Jesus Christ and BYU Pathway means to them in their lives. I hope you will watch the entire documentary. This was just a little slice of what there is. The hour long piece will air this weekend on BYUTV immediately following the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference. Then you can stream it on BYUTV. After that. Please tell your friends and family to watch and most importantly to find a way to become involved in this remarkable work today. My brothers and sisters, I invite you to think of yourselves as part of this miracle. Never take your education here at BYU for granted. It is a sacred stewardship as a student at BYU many years ago, I remember being told, these blessings are not just for you. They are meant to be shared, to lift, to build, to serve right now and for the rest of your life. I testify that the Lord is directing this work. It is a marvelous work and a wonder. God is mindful of every people he loves his children in Provo, in Nairobi, in Manila, in Kampala. He is gathering Israel on both sides of the veil. What an honor and a blessing it is for all of us to be part of it. And that is my testimony that I leave with you in the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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