An Early Christmas Present

It was Sunday afternoon during the third week of camp here in Uganda. We had already gotten settled in the school at Lweza, our place to sleep for the week. I had learned in previous weeks to explore and meet people in the villages or just along the dirt paths that lead through the bush. So, I yelled at one of the boys to come with me so I would have an interpreter if I needed one. The path led alongside fields of cassava, potatoes, and maize. As those fields became less cultivated, we ran into two little girls. They were both excited to see me and were not shy at all. The little one, Christine, who was probably age 6 ran and immediately grabbed my hand, looked up into my eyes, and smiled. The older one, named Mariah, bowed and told us that the path led to their house. Both of the girls attended Lweza. Mariah invited us to keep walking to their house. I didn’t really want to go into someone’s house or feel like I was intruding, but this is Uganda. They don’t see things as an interruption and welcome visits from strangers. So we went with them until the path ended at a small mud brick house. I was surprised as we walked up to see two of the other boys from the New Life Homes already sitting in the grass. They were talking to an old man who was sitting on the steps to the house. When the man saw me, his face lit up and he quickly invited me to come over. I started to sit on the ground, which he thought was crazy. He offered me a seat but I assured him the ground was fine. He wanted to know why I was there and that he was honored to have me at his house. I listened as he talked with the boys about his land and what not. The girls disappeared into the shed/kitchen to work on dinner. The old man had a real light about him. The age expectancy here is 60 and he was obviously older than that. The blue light in his eyes shone out and the smile even with a couple of gaps was beautiful. As he stood to greet me he hunched over on his cane. When he straightened up he is probably 5’2. He reminded me of a smurf, minus the blue stuff and the hat. He offered us some of his jackfruit. It was a generous gesture considering how little they had. As we got up to leave, we thanked him for the jackfruit. He asked if I would come back sometime, and I told him I would on one condition. I told him I wanted to hear his life’s story. His smile grew even larger as we set up a time to get together the next day. As we walked off all the boys who were there could not help but comment on how nice the man had been.
Monday afternoon I grabbed a shower, well more like a water pouring, changed clothes after the football match, grabbed a notebook, grabbed a boy, Vincent, to translate, and made the walk over. I was really excited to get to hear his story. To this point all the stories had been with kids from the street or formerly from the street. I wanted to hear from someone older and from the village. As we arrived the vet was there vaccinating his cows, so we waited and talked to the girls. I asked Christine what she did around the house to help. She told me how her jobs were to wash dishes, sweep, help dig for potatoes, and sometimes they would send her to buy stuff at the road. By the time we finished our conversation with her, the old man had returned. He invited us to come and sit inside the house. The living room was about 8 by 8. It had two wooden couches that looked as though they might break if you sat down too quickly. On one table there was an old dial TV connected to a car battery that he said he didn’t have money to charge. The walls had old calendars and small black and white family pictures on them. Speaking of the walls, they are unfinished after about 6 feet allowing you to see into the top of the bedroom. The tin roof has a few holes in it that are seen as the light shines through them. As we looked at the pictures, he began to tell us about each one with pride. Soon, I had Vincent tell him that I really just wanted to hear about his life, and so the story began.
The man’s name was Kasumbe Jeremiah. He was born on the island in 1936. His father had spent a lot of time with him when he was younger, teaching and instilling a work ethic in him. In 1953 he started working as a conductor on the boats that carried people over from the city to the island. By 1955 he had made friends with a white man who taught him how to drive the boat and in within a year he had his license as a captain. These were the good days. Kasumbe had a job and all was well. In 58 his family bought the piece of property they own now, about 8 acres. Outside the door is a large tree whose trunk is twisted or worn. “I planted that tree when we moved to this land,” he told me. But the good times would not last.
In 1962 the level of the water in Lake Victoria went down enough that the island was an island no longer. This of course was why the area was called Mpata Island. Yet there is no such resemblance of an island today. The dropping of the water meant that boat transportation was not necessary and within a few years did not earn him very much money at all. So, in 66 he decided to head for the city to make a better living. He got a job through a connection he had with some of the Bugandan King’s friends painting houses. The Bugandans are the largest ethnic group in Uganda. As Kasumbe was getting this job tensions rose in the government and by 67 leaders were trying to literally eliminate the people. After Bugandan King Freddie died in 68, some of the militant leaders of the new government searched out anyone with a connection to him. They came looking for Kasumbe and burned houses in the area trying to find and kill him. After things died down, he got another painting job in Kampala. However, it was only two years before they shut the company down because they were donating some of their profits to the Bugandans.
From 71-86 Kasumbe worked in the city finding whatever painting job he could. During this time as he struggled to get food on the table, he and his father put into action a plan for his retirement. They spent their money on coffee, bananas, jackfruit, and cassava. They prepared the land and planted the crops in order to sell for money. However, shortly after he retired in 86 the whole coffee crop got a disease. Following the failure of the coffee, his health took a turn for the worse. In 87 he was diagnosed with high blood pressure. The pressure caused problems in his hip joints and the pain forced him to walk differently. Those factors lead to the deteriorating of his hip and the curvature of his spine. Now his back is crooked and his left leg sits almost two inches higher than his right. As I was looking at the x-rays he brought me, he kept talking about the pain he feels when walking about and how that pain lead to his inability to maintain the crops. He still continued to try going back and forth to Kampala to get odd jobs after his official retirement.
In 86 the last of his 8 children was also born. He was blessed to have 5 boys and 3 girls to three wives. One of his children has since passed away. As we continued to talk about the struggles, his face grew a little darker. He said because of the lack of money, he was never able to get pay for his children to go all the way through school and become good citizens. He felt as though he had let them down. Now, the seven remaining children live in Kampala and work “little jobs” as he says just to get by themselves and so they cannot come and help him out. In 95 they started work on the house we were sitting in. He quickly points out to me all the problems with the walls and the roof. He never could get enough money to finish the house and so he and his wife live in it as is.
Today, his health is continuing to get worse. According to his doctor the blood pressure causes urine build up. His shoulder joint now experiences pain and he can hardly move it. He says to me in the little English he knows, “I have no power anymore.” The right side of his face bleeds every day and every night. And the cataracts in his eyes are very obvious. He is a man whose temporary body is failing him. However, his spirit runs forward. In order to help one of his kids he keeps Christine, his granddaughter, but it’s the fact that Mariah is there that is more impressive. Mariah and her brother lived on the island before both of their parents died suddenly. The two children were living in the bush on the island. Kasumbe took in Mariah and helped find somewhere for her brother to live not far away. Kasumbe, a man working to survive every day and dying on the outside, provided life to this little girl. Mariah is actually one of the sponsored children through Abaana. She is intelligent and was always the first to lead worship during camp.
As we finished up the conversation, Kasumbe asked if I wanted to walk the property to see how everything had turned bad. He STILL believes that one day it will work out and he will be able to do something. He just doesn’t know how. I was hesitant to let him because I knew how much pain he was in to walk, but Vincent told me to let him. We headed out through the overgrown grass and down a path that lead by a weed filled cassava and bean field. He would point things out and say “if only” or “I’m trying to get.” As we were walking by the banana plantation enclosed with weeds above my waist, Vincent grabbed me and shaking his head said, “I thought I was the only one in the world who has had to go through such suffering. This is horrible! His whole life.” Vincent was right and hearing it from the mouth of a child who had lived on the streets was quite sobering. We walked by the coffee plants and he showed me the disease that still haunts them. Finally, we reached the edge of his land on the path we had entered the day before. It looked different now because I knew the story. My friend shook my hand and again thanked me for coming. He asked politely if I would come again, and I said, “I will see you tomorrow.”
While we had been talking my mind had been in full motion of how to help. As me and Vincent continued down the path heading to the school, I asked him if he would be interested in helping Kasumbe out. He told me he would love to. I figured I could get all 12 of the guys to come over the next afternoon and we could clear the land so he could use it again. All we needed was to track down some tools. That night around the camp fire I let Vincent tell them the story. As he was speaking in Lugandan I could see the boy’s heads shake. We asked if they would be willing to help and they all agreed. The youth minister part of me was really starting to get excited. I was pretty sure none of these former street boys had done a mission project for someone else and so this was about to be a huge learning experience about God.
The next day we asked around and were able to come up with an ax, three slashers, and two hoes. I asked Mariah that day at camp if they had any tools at the house and she told me they had several. Vincent had set up for us to visit after lunch, so as we finished up 12 former street boys, 2 Americans, one bus driver, and an uncle headed down the path to Kasumbe’s. We asked the other guys to stay back out of sight while we went in to talk. He lit up as we came walking to the house and quickly told us to come inside. Before he could start talking I told him I had something to ask. I said, “How would you like an early Christmas present?” (This was before I learned that most Ugandans don’t exchange gifts.) I told him, “After hearing your story I wanted to do something to help. So I told some of my friends and they agreed to come and clear your land so you can use it, BUT can we use some of your tools because we don’t have enough?” A large smile came over his face and he, of course, agreed. We went outside and yelled for the rest of the boys to come on. Kasumbe got us some more slashers and hoes and we got to work. The boys jumped in just like a group of excited workers. Of course they got tired like a bunch of teens too. We worked for about an hour and a half clearing the yard around the house and starting on a small garden he had to the side. While others were taking a break, they would just sit and talk with him. As we told him we would be back the next day to finish the banana plantation, he told the boys they could grab a jackfruit. He came over to thank me again, and I told him he didn’t need to thank me or any of us, but to thank God because he was the one who gives the gifts.
That night as we talked around the campfire about the week, I asked what had been their favorite thing about camp so far. Several of the boys said they had really enjoyed working. I talked that night about being a Christian and how it wasn’t about words it was about action. After we finished for the night, Peter, who is one of the boy’s two social workers and uncle, came over and said, “I love how you teach them. You give them practical ways of applying what they read in the Bible.” Isn’t that what Jesus came to do? To show us what it meant to live out the Bible.
The next afternoon was rainy, but we still went to work. Our goal was to finish clearing all the weeds from the banana plantation. We finished up and even did a little more. I wish we would have had another day to continue working because I think the boys would have loved to keep going. I turned around at one point to look back at the house. There was Kasumbe surrounded by several of the boys telling them about how it used to be an island and how he used to be a painter. A huge smile ran across his face and I couldn’t help but do the same. I asked Vincent to tell him that all of them had formerly been on the street. As soon as he said it, Kasumbe screamed and started clapping. He could not believe that these boys had turned their lives around and he was very proud. There really is something to hearing the screams of joy from people who have overcome or have prayed for such things. The people here have gone through so much struggle that stories of winning bring out their excitement. And that is what these boys are doing. They are winning. They were learning what it meant to serve even as they have been served. As we were leaving we called Kasumbe over to thank him for his hospitality. We also thanked him for being an example to us by taking in Mariah and allowing her to have a future. We only hoped that the work we had done would help his. He asked us to sign a book he had because his wife would never believe him when she got back from a trip to visit family. He wanted the names of everyone who had come and helped them.
We said goodbye and headed down the dirt path again. This time we left a little different than when we came. I think about how we often pray that when we go to church. We ask to leave a little different than when we came. Aren’t we supposed to when we encounter Christ. I know we had just been at church. The body of Christ had been present in the giving and receiving. I pray the boys will remember the experience. I pray they become servant, because that is what this whole camp thing has been about. I know I will not forget my new friend. I look forward to going back to see him before I leave. I told him I would be back. And I would bring back a copy of the picture for his wall like he asked.
May you have a Merry Christmas. May you choose2B the gift for someone else, and may you receive more than you could ever give. I KNOW I HAVE!