Tombstones and Banana Trees (8 page)

My self-esteem had been crushed when my father left, and I wept. I looked at these boys and girls as they sang, and they were happy, joyful, united. They were my age-mates, and yet they were all at university while I was struggling to learn how to read. I admired them. In my heart I whispered the simplest of words: “I wish I was like them.”

The words may have been simple, but they were significant. As the choir kept on singing I was now open to all they said. I was thirsty, and they were a fountain at which I could finally satisfy my thirst.

A boy called Abraham stepped up at the end of the song to introduce another song:

“Christine told you that God loves you unconditionally, but He also forgives you unconditionally and can wipe clean every sin you have ever committed. No matter how bad you have been, He can forgive. That is why He died on the cross. He can forgive you—just like He forgave Saul and all those other murderers and fornicators. He can forgive every sin if you are willing to confess to Him today. Some of you are thieves who have been stealing books; others are drinking heavily, involved in witchcraft, the occult, violence, sexual immorality. Some of you are contemplating suicide or planning to kill someone. But Jesus is here today to forgive.”

With that, Abraham introduced a song about forgiveness, singing, “What can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” While they sang I asked myself, “Can God really forgive me?” I had a small notebook with a list of nineteen people in it, their crimes against me listed alongside their names. Every year I would celebrate anniversaries of evil—the horrors done to me. I was in a notorious gang, and most people knew it. My mother had been called in to see the headmaster because he wanted to suspend me after all the drinking, which was against the school rules. He had caught and warned me many times but had never believed people who had accused me of greater crimes. Yet students were fed up with sharing a room with me and my vomit and urine-soaked mattress.

And I looked at my relationships with girls. I had told so many of them that I loved them, asked so many to marry me. I was lying to fifteen girls, just so that we could have sex and I could have friends around me. I had a love deficiency syndrome. If a girl told me she loved me, I would be happy for a time. I was compensating for the love I had lost but causing so much pain along the way. It did not occur to me that I was behaving exactly like my father.

Finally, a girl named Lillian got up and spoke:

“Remember that God loves you unconditionally. Remember that His love for you does not depend on what you do, that He can be your source of self-worth and significance. And this same God who loves you also forgives you for every sin you have committed. But you must also know this: This God commands you to forgive every person who has hurt you, to forgive every person who has destroyed your self-esteem, to forgive every person who has crushed your self-worth. God commands you to forgive them, because if you do not you cannot truly be forgiven. You need to know that unforgiveness is the single most popular poison the Enemy uses against God's people. It causes everything from mental depression to health problems such as cancer and arthritis. Unforgiveness can open us up to curses, but when we forgive we are opened up to God's forgiveness. Forgiveness puts us in a receiving position when we pray, and it helps us become spiritually fruitful. When we keep God's commandments and love one another we prove that we love Jesus, and we abide in Christ's love. What a magnificent blessing forgiveness really is! God loves you; He forgives you and commands you to forgive others unconditionally.”

My sense of calm and peace was torn down at once. Savage dogs within my soul ripped at the thawing heart, destroying in a flash of fur and teeth and blood the sense of hope that had begun to entice me. I was nothing but anger, nothing but rage, nothing but pain. How could she say those words? How could she tell me to forgive? It was volcanic, this anger; twenty years of it. I stood in the hall and screamed with all the rage and force and pain I could find: “I will never forgive my father, even if he walks on water!”

I ran out of the hall. I thought the gang would follow me, but they did not. Instead I heard later that some of them went up to the front for the altar call. Something was struggling within me, strangling me, choking me—the anger and bitterness, the demons of hatred and vengeance. I have never experienced such anger as I did then. I could not cope with the enormity of it. I thought that I would die.

My mother was so special to me that she was the only source of healing I knew I could rely on. I wanted to go back home to her, to sit on the dirt and have my tears turn into mud while she held me. I wanted to go back to her, even though I had treated her with such contempt.

Chapter Eight

Do You Believe in Me?

The roots of the East African Revival go back much further than September 1929. Yes, it is true that was the month when British missionary Joe Church sat on a hill in Kampala to pray and read the Bible for two days with his friend Simeoni Nsibambi. Yes, they felt a profound sense of God clearly identifying the problem at the heart of the African church—too little personal holiness among the members. And, yes, so many of us trace the revival that followed back to these forty-eight hours.

Yet the roots go back further. They go back to Cambridge University, from where Joe Church, as a student, became a Christian and was propelled south. They also reach back in history, four decades to be precise, to the time when D. L. Moody spoke at the university and helped ignite a passion for global missions that transformed the planet. Moody's story in turn has its own ancestral scribes; like a baton passed from runner to runner, revivals are incubated in the lives of the faithful from generation to generation.

All that being said, there are so many of us in Uganda, and throughout East Africa in general, whose lives have been changed as a result of 1929. It did not take long for things to happen, and after Joe Church returned to Gahini in Rwanda (my mother's hometown), Christians began to unite, to pray, and to confess their sins in public. Something was pulling them together, calling them on, urging them not to settle for a life of half-mumbled hymns and forgotten promises to God. They were hungry for more, and the tears that flowed were just one indication of the depth of their conviction.

As the repentance, prayers, and tears began to move out of the meetings and onto roads and hillsides, those who had no faith of their own began to take note. Many were converted, and soon the revival spread out from Rwanda to Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Lifestyles began to change as a result, and there was a marked drop in practices like polygamy and the branding of children with names that weighed on them like curses.

According to Michael Harper, a commentator writing in
Christian History
in 1986, the effects of the East African Revival have been more lasting than almost any other revival in history; it has impacted the majority of Protestant leaders in East Africa today.

Revival changed everything. It emphasized conviction of sin, judgment and righteousness, repentance, forgiveness, confession of sin, giving testimony, and restitution. It raised up brokenness, honesty, holiness, dedication, prayerfulness, expectancy, and every-member ministry. People gave generously, refocused on Scripture, and encouraged women in ministry. Integrity was a premium, and the church grew dramatically as a result.

Nevertheless, in some churches these foundations are being destroyed and revival has grown cold. People have worried more about the outward signs than the character that lies beneath them. Proverbs 22:28 says we should not uproot the landmarks that were planted by our forefathers. Unfortunately the church is in danger of uprooting these revival landmarks, and if this continues unchecked we shall lose our rights as the firstborn of this great revival. We are in danger of becoming much like Esau, who never received his birthright back even when he sought it in tears. We must pray for an unending revival. Here is a prayer I wrote, which has since become a song:

Do it again, Lord, do it again,

Send us the rains of revival again.

Pour down the fire in the hills once again;

Pour down the anointing again;

Pour down conviction and repentance;

Rebuild the broken walls again.

Oh dig the wells again, Lord.

I have a personal interest in the legacy of the East African Revival because it touched my life, too, thanks to an old man named Mugyenzi, whom I was soon to meet on a bus. After I ran from the school and the choir and the words about forgiveness, I went into town to make the journey back home. Somehow I had enough money for the bus fare. While my head and hands raged at the idea of being told to forgive all those people who had inflicted such pain on me, I still knew this was not a time to fight. Previously, perhaps, I would have stood and shouted at the choir, but not now. Something had changed—only slightly, but enough for me to know that this was not a battle … this was a retreat. I needed to be back home. Where else could I go with all this pain?

The bus was crowded, and I sat at the back. I do not remember much of the first part of the journey, but as we reached the midpoint, I started to panic. We were descending a steep hill, approaching a part where the road met a river that slowed, broadened, and snaked its way through trees with branches and leaves that trailed into the waters. The location was loaded with meaning and memories for me. Not only was this the river I had begged to swallow my life on the day after Peninah's murder, but this very part where it bent around on itself was the place where, just a year or two before, we had met the hippo at night.

I was struggling to breathe. I needed to think clearly, to see through the adrenaline. And it was then that a moment of clarity settled on me and I knew, beyond all doubt, that if I crossed this bridge with such bitterness and anger still unresolved and raging within me, I would die. I do not know how I knew, but I felt this to be true to the core of my being. If I did not change—and change right now—my life would be damaged far beyond anything I had known already.

My heart told me that I had to say something, and as I got to my feet I was almost hyperventilating. But I had to put words to this sense that I wanted change in my heart. I needed to be a different person by the time we had crossed the bridge.

I stood and spoke.

“From today I have agreed to forgive my father. I am not going to kill him.

“And I am not going to kill my stepmothers … or those who murdered my sister … or those who raped my sisters.”

I kept going, listing every one of the nineteen people on my list. I mentioned all their names and confessed other sins I had committed in my life—sins of sexual immorality, theft, witchcraft, lying, hatred … on and on.

They thought I had finished, but then I added these words:

“From today I have accepted Jesus Christ. I am not going to kill anyone.”

Then I fell to the floor, screaming, and wept bitterly.

Mugyenzi was on that bus. He was an old man—the sort you still see today, set too small within a suit made for a different man in a different time. Mugyenzi had grown up in Kabale and had been profoundly influenced by the East African Revival. I do not know how long he had been watching me, but as soon as I was on the floor he left his seat and came to crouch down next to me. He picked me up from the floor and held me in his arms. He addressed the rest of the passengers on the now stationary bus.

“What has hit this boy is nothing new. The same thing happened to me in 1936, and I confessed my sins in public, in tears just like this one here. I believe that he has accepted Jesus Christ today. Let us pray for him.”

As he spoke I was feeling worse. It was as if something was trying to choke me, strangling me like my father throttled my mother. I could not breathe, could not inhale enough air to keep me alive. All I felt—all I
was
—was this mess of anger and death and hatred. I was filth. How could I even open my eyes, knowing that God knew all of this about me?

Mugyenzi prayed. His words were about forgiveness, love, and the cross. He prayed that I might know the truth about God's wild affection and grace for me.

As soon as Mugyenzi prayed I felt something leave me, replaced in turn by a peace that I had never experienced. I sat back on the seat and wept and wept and wept. But these were tears not of pain but of joy and peace—two feelings that were new and unfamiliar.

When the bus reached my home, Mugyenzi got off as well. We stood at the place where all this pain and sorrow had started—the tree beneath which I had been abandoned—but we did not stay there. We walked past that place, up the track and through the banana trees, to see my mother. It was a long walk, longer than I had ever remembered. I was concerned about what would happen next.

We crossed the stream, walked through the trees and up to our compound. My mother was standing there, having seen us approach some way off. I suppose she must have assumed that I was in trouble, that this man was escorting me from school, that I had been expelled for some shameful episode.

As soon as I saw her I broke down and wept uncontrollably. She did not know what was going on, and I could offer her no explanation. All I could say as I cried in her arms was, “Forgive me.”

“It is all right,” she repeated, over and over.

Eventually I found my words. “I am sorry. I have done so many terrible things to you. So many terrible things at school. But I wanted to say sorry because Jesus has forgiven me this morning.”

Mugyenzi carried on from there, telling her about the bus and about my prayer. He and I had barely spoken up to this point. I had been in too much of a mess on the bus, and as we walked up to the compound our steps had been in silence. He wanted to know why I was trying to kill these nineteen people. I had not told him when we were on the bus, but as my mother told the whole story, he sat back and said, “I think you both need Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can sort out this family that is so broken.”

He stayed with us for three hours. He began by telling me, “You must confess to your mother now. You must tell her everything.”

So I did. Unlocked and unrestrained, I told her about every mistake I had made and kept hidden from her. I told her how I used to cheat her, exaggerating the school fees and pocketing the difference. I told her how I used to run away from school to go dancing, to fight, and to have sex with girls. I told her the hundred ways in which I had embarrassed her, how I had broken the vow I had made to her on that first walk to school.

I had been wondering about this moment from the time we got off the bus. How would she react? Surely she had no option other than to think badly of me. How would she respond to the news that I had behaved just as she must have feared I would?

And what about my change? She knew I wanted to join the army and kill all those people, and we had shared the lust for revenge. Would she allow me to break free from our murderous plan? How could I convince her that it was essential not only to let them live but to forgive them as well? And how would she cope with me telling people about my wayward life? She had made me promise not to embarrass her before—and I had broken that in my sin—but now I was about to do something that had a far greater potential to embarrass her. Would she agree? Would she give me her blessing? Was I about to lose the one parent who had truly loved me?

I was silent, and in the quiet Mugyenzi turned to my mother.

“What about you? You need to forgive your husband. Will you?”

The short answer is that, yes, she did. At that moment, in the midday sun, when just minutes before she had been carrying out her chores in the compound, the course of her life was utterly transformed. From where that change came from, I can point only to God. Only God could have given her the grace and the love to release her grip on a thirst for revenge that had been with her for years. Only God could make that change.

Mugyenzi was not finished.

“Your son has confessed to witchcraft,” he said. “Where is it?”

My mother brought out the medicines from the house. She threw them on the fire. We both searched out every fetish we had bought from the witch doctors and added them to the flames. I went inside and brought out all the letters and photographs from girls I had been using. The fire consumed it all.

There was more to come from Mugyenzi.

He told me that because Jesus had forgiven me I would have to go and tell everyone what He had done. I needed to tell everyone I had hated and everyone I had hurt what I had done and how I had changed. He was like a madman, telling me to do all this. There was no sense that I should bask in the gentle love of my newfound faith for a few months. Mugyenzi, like all those other East African revivalists, knew that faith and lifestyle are intimately linked. If I did not change the way I lived, my love for Jesus would not outlast the year. Personal holiness was no accident; it was a discipline, put into action by a united head and heart. If I was serious, he said, I would not waste a moment.

He was right. I had every reason to keep this beautiful revelation of Jesus' love to myself. If I listened to the voices of caution, I would start to hold back, and for good reason. By confessing to my sins I was running a risk. Anyone who found out I had wanted to kill them had a case in the law courts against me. They could charge me with attempted murder or false accusation. I could have spent as many as fourteen years in jail for that. And the girls I was sleeping with—some were younger than me, some were married, some were even married to my cousins. Generally it was not illegal, but I was about to open myself up to people who had little love for me in the first place. With this news of my crimes they would have every reason to pursue their own revenge.

But no one who considered himself a born-again Christian would hold back on the public confession of sins. It was an essential part of faith, not an optional extra.

So I had to go and sort things out with people.

There was a lay preacher who lived nearby. I remember little about him other than that he had elephantiasis of the feet and so could not walk at all well. I also remember that he was a very dear man of God. Mugyenzi had stayed with us for three or four hours, and as he left he had encouraged us to go and tell someone we trusted in the village. My mother took me to this man's house to share our news. And there was also Deborah, my uncle's wife, who had told me so many stories from the Bible when I was a small boy. We told them both everything that had happened, words tumbling at first, then tears streaking all our faces. Some were of joy, but some of those tears were made heavy with sorrow.