Chapter Eleven
It is one thing to try to forgive someone on the occasion when they have hurt you, but it is quite another thing to adopt a lifestyle of forgiveness. This takes effort, determination, and sacrifice. To live a lifestyle of forgiveness means choosing to pursue a life of holiness and avoiding the things that could defile you. You have to repent, daily. You have to pray, daily. You have to read the Bible, daily. And you have to forgive others far more frequently than that.
Forgiveness is a process, and it is one that can take years. You might forgive someone once or twice—choosing to not give in to bitterness and to offer grace and kindness—but the wounds we carry within us take far more than Band-Aids and quick kisses to heal. It often takes years to overcome emotional pain, as our own lives—yours as well as mine—make perfectly clear. And when you are dealing with people who deliberately act to harm you, the whole thing just becomes even more complicated and painful.
So why do it? Why forgive?
Forgiveness is like breathing in and breathing out. We must inhale and exhale, asking forgiveness of our own sins and offering it without charge to those who have hurt us. Without it, we suffocate. Without forgiveness we die.
Forgiveness is a serious issue, yet we talk about grudges the way we talk about babies. You can hold a grudge, carry a grudge, bear a grudge, or nurse a grudge. The trouble is, when you nurse something, you feed it, you make it grow, and pretty soon it’s a full-grown adult-sized affair that you cannot close the door on when it gets too noisy.
Grudges do not make sense. Why would people pick up something that weighs them down each day and carry it around with them?
“But this person really hurt me!”—that is the usual excuse for holding on to these things. Some of us never seem to realize that it is by holding on to grudges that we enable our debtors to keep on hurting us. Even when we know we are supposed to forgive, sometimes it feels too much like giving up something we could not live without.
Abraham Lincoln told a story about a man on his sickbed who had been told by the doctor that he did not have much time to live. He summoned an old friend named Brown with whom he had quarreled bitterly. They had not spoken for years, and from his bed the man talked of how he was going to die soon, of how petty their differences looked in the face of death, and asked if they might be reconciled. The scene moved everyone in the room to tears. Brown clasped the dying man’s hands, embraced him, and turned to walk out of the room, a shattered man. Suddenly the man on the sickbed, having one final thought, raised himself up on one elbow and spoke for the last time: “But see here, Brown; if I ever recover, the old grudge still stands.”
It is a good story, one that leaves us with a trace of a smile and the words how foolish! in our heads. But it is closer to the truth for some of us than we would like to admit. It can be hard to let go of bitterness.
We need to change our view of forgiveness, away from being something that we struggle to give up and toward a lifestyle that sets us free. Forgiveness is not a weapon; it is a revolution—and I hope that by now you are considering joining in the army of revolutionary forgivers, ready to fight bitterness and hatred with love and grace.
When I became a Christian, I found out early on that everywhere I went were people I needed to forgive, and very little has changed in the years since. At first it was the boys who had bullied me when I arrived at school—I had to learn how to live with them. Today I might not be troubled so much by gangs, but there are still many reasons to stop, to pray, and to exhale a little of that same forgiveness that so transformed my own life.
I have found that if there is such a thing as a key to forgiving others, it is found when we grow in God’s love. If you reach out to God and seek a deeper relationship with Him, He will draw near to you, and you will find that deeper relationship with Him. God’s Word is clear about this fact:
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Luke 11:9–10)
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. (James 4:8)
The relationship is yours for the taking. Christ wanted this relationship with you so badly that He gave His life for it. Your heavenly Father wants this intimate relationship with you even more than you do. What kind of a relationship does God want with us? He wants an intimate love relationship with us that will empower us to forgive others unconditionally, just as Jesus did with His enemies.
Do not be deceived: Forgiveness is a choice. We must choose to forgive those who have done us wrong and then lay the whole mess in God’s hands and leave it there. Give your hurts and hard feelings to Him. Think about Jesus: Even though they murdered Him, some of the last words that left His mouth were, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Look at the depth of God’s love for us! How can it not begin to change us if we allow ourselves to be truly open to it?
After finishing at school I moved on to Kigezi High School in Kabale. I had no more trouble with gangs and learned far more about God as I joined a revival movement. That movement was formed by the people who had experienced the East African Revival firsthand all those decades before. They were elderly now but very genuine. It was such a change to be surrounded by people who worked to build me up rather than limit my future. Their love was genuine, and when they saw me making mistakes they would tell me how to change. They taught me how to handle relationships, and all in all it was a very good time of learning from these old men and women.
It was also the first time I came into contact with Bishop Festo Kivengere, a renowned international evangelist who was our local bishop. He became a hero, model, and close friend of mine.
People called him “the Billy Graham of Africa.” He had grown up in the southwest region of the country as I had. He was one of the many thousands whose life was transformed during the East African Revival, and he went on to become bishop of Kigezi. He acted as Billy Graham’s translator, and according to legend Graham had such faith in Festo that he told him not to worry too much about translating literally and that he trusted him to just get the message across in his own way.
I met Bishop Festo when I was at Kigezi High School, but you may recall that it was not the first time I had seen him. He was there that day in the football stadium when Idi Amin had ranted and raged at the Christians before they were executed. Later Festo wrote about that day:
February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale. People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution…. Death permeated the atmosphere…. A silent crowd of about three thousand was there to watch…. I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me.
They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them. They were handcuffed and their feet were chained. The firing squad stood at attention. As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say…. How do you give the Gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?
We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out:
“Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.” The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.
I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces.… [They] were so dumbfounded … that they even forgot to put the hoods over [the men’s] faces! The three faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.1
Later Bishop Festo had to flee the country to escape Amin’s soldiers. Later still he published a book with the title I Love Idi Amin. In it he wrote:
On the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing.” As evil as Idi Amin was, how can I do less toward him?2
I had a lot to learn from Bishop Festo, particularly when it came to talking to people. I knew that forgiveness was important and that I needed to keep short accounts with people. My problem was that I was a little too direct. I used to go to people and say, “I hated you because when you did X and Y, it hurt me. Please forgive me, as I am sorry.… Oh, and I also forgive you for A and B and C.”
Bishop Festo taught me that starting by listing the mistakes and then asking for forgiveness was not the best approach I could take! “The truth is good,” he told me once, “but it is even better when presented in an envelope.”
He also taught me that forgiveness is like vomiting. When you are sick you do not choose to vomit rice and leave meat inside you or vomit salt and hold back the sugar. When you are sick you open your mouth and vomit out everything indiscriminately. It is the same with forgiveness; you have to get rid of all that is troubling you inside. You have to forgive everything.
When our father left we lived like revolutionaries; we did whatever we wanted, we never consulted others, we never thanked anyone. Ours was an independent life, and we felt no need to respect others. I needed to learn how to submit to authority, how to talk to superiors, how to repent without causing offense, and how to sort things out with people in a spirit of love.
During my time at Kigezi High School I also learned how to live by faith, relying on God for food, school fees, and the rest. God provided. He used some missionaries who paid for my fees even though I had no clue they were going to help. Thanks to their support I no longer needed to raise money by working as a porter at school. It restored my self-esteem.
I finished my A-levels in 1986 and went to study at Makerere University in Kampala. I finished three years later with a bachelor of education degree. In my heart I had never really left Kabale or the wider southwestern region of my beautiful homeland. I had chosen to study education, as my heart was for young people and I sensed I would have a ministry of reconciliation with youth.
So during the summers it was all too easy for me to return to Kigezi High School to teach. I would often end up sharing my testimony as well, sharing with people how things had changed for me. It was always a very natural thing for me to do, whether in a crowded classroom or at a larger evangelistic campaign.
I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1987, on the ninth of February. I was at a meeting at the university, where Bishop Festo was the chief missioner, and the experience made such a big difference in my life. It left me with a growing sense that I needed to set something up to unite with others. There were many others like me who were passionate about their faith and who also still believed that the Anglican Church had a part to play in the future. We wanted to start up some sort of movement that would reach young people with the gospel and, through them, in time reach their parents.
So, with some friends back at university in Kampala, I began the Kigezi Anglican Youth Missioners. It was like a back to Jerusalem ministry, and every holiday we would bring teams back to our home territory to work. Bishop Festo welcomed and supported what we were doing, and because he was a charismatic man who loved young people, I suppose it must have been encouraging to see us working in this way. This ministry later grew into Uganda Anglican Youth Missioners, which has brought a great revival in the Anglican Church of Uganda and extended to the great lakes region of eastern, central, and southern Africa.
One day Bishop Festo challenged me:
“Many younger people leave the Anglican church and head to the Pentecostal churches when they get baptized in the Holy Spirit.” He paused. “I am suffering from leukemia, and I do not have long left to live. I would like you to take over in the driving seat of the gospel bus so that the revival does not die with me.”
That was our last conversation. The next time I saw him was when I went with others to the airport to receive his coffin when his body was flown back from Nairobi.
From that moment on I decided to walk in Bishop Festo’s footsteps. I wanted to connect with younger people, and we ended up witnessing a tremendous revival in Kabale. Sadly that was not all that we saw; the diocese became divided over the revival, and there was a messy split within it. But the Anglican Youth Missioners remained credible, going on to become a national movement. Even today it carries out great work, with an Anglican youth group existing in every university and school, bringing spiritual renewal to the church and reintroducing people to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
My father died when I was taking my final exams, but even if I had not been busy with study I would not have been any better prepared. His death was unexpected. He was not sick and I had no warning that it was coming. His death caused me great embarrassment, so much so that it is only recently I have started to talk about it.
My father died as a result of a drinking game.
It was a market day, and he was doing what many of my countrymen spend so much of their time doing: He was sitting about, drinking and watching what was going on with his friends. There were four of them there, and somehow the conversation turned to the particular strength of a two-liter bottle of home-brewed alcohol that was on sale in the market. The idle conversation turned to a show of male bravado, and my father bet the others ten thousand Ugandan shillings (about five dollars) that he could drink it all in one go. He did. Then he collected his winnings and went to lie down under a tree. He never woke up.
My father had not given up drinking after he became a Christian. It was very embarrassing for us to lose him like this, and the sorrow and shame lasted for a long time. It was made worse by the fact that I could not get to the funeral due to my final exams at university. But still he died reconciled with his family and relatives, having put right so many of the things that would have caused problems after his death. I would never blame anyone for his death, and I still believe that he went to heaven, even though he died drunk.
I believe that the transformation in his life, the reconciliation with his family and neighbors, was genuine. I know some believe an alcohol-related death will take someone to hell, but I am not so sure I agree with that. The Bible is not so black and white. While it condemns drunkenness, it condones drinking wine in moderation. There are some people who do not drink in public but who drink a little at home, including Christians in Uganda. Alcohol remains a very dangerous thing, of course; it can make you addicted; it can make you sexually immoral or violent. Last year in Uganda eighty men killed their wives while drunk, and thirty-seven wives killed their husbands in self-defense. Uganda now has the second-highest rate of road traffic accidents in the world because of reckless driving caused by the influence of alcohol. The impact can be devastating, which is why the old revival movement declared drinking alcohol a sin in 1936. From then on no born-again Christian was supposed to drink, and the change has proved very positive with people.
My father’s death left a big impact on us children. It was devastating, but it was not an isolated incident. My aunt Lillian died through the abuse of alcohol; my two brothers, James and Robert, as well; one of my uncles; and my grandfather and great-grandfather. I feel sad when I admit that most of the people in my family are alcoholics. It is a family stronghold that many of us have given in to. That and polygamy. Thankfully I can say that I have been delivered from both of them by Jesus.
I used to love drinking, even though it would make me sick and incontinent. But becoming a Christian changed things for me, teaching me that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And so I decided to stop. I did not want to take a step closer to the state in which my father committed most of his crimes. When I lived in the UK, where Christians drink without a problem, it was tempting for me to go back, but I had escaped this bondage and did not want to get caught up again. I wanted to be an example to my children. None of them drink now, for which I am very grateful.
Because I worked at Kigezi High School during every summer vacation while at university, it was not surprising that I started out as a teacher there after I graduated. At the same time as teaching I was also speaking and preaching at churches throughout the district on the weekends. Within a few months this was all I was doing—teaching during the week and preaching on the weekend. It was too much, not least because I had met a woman I loved deeply and was intending to marry. How could I be a good husband if I was never around? I quit teaching in the high school and moved to help educate trainee teachers instead. I taught at National Teachers College of Kabale and later at Kakoba in Mbarara. That gave me more time for preaching … and for Connie.
I met Connie during my gap year in 1986. There was a war between Museveni’s rebels and the government of the day, which resulted in the rebels taking power and the whole of the west of Uganda being cut off. I went to teach in a girls’ high school in Rukungiri—the same town in which I had studied and become a Christian. At the school in which I was teaching I met her, the beautiful head girl of the school. She was born again and looked after the Scripture Union ministry in the school. The head teacher allowed me to take students out twice each month for evangelistic weekends. I was leading a team, and Connie often came along at my invitation. Of course I did not know I wanted to marry her then, but we connected well.
Connie was born in an abusive home. Her father was an alcoholic. Although he was not a polygamist, he was a very violent womanizer, and Connie, her mother, and her siblings spent a lot of their time sleeping in the bush to avoid being beaten. Her father was such a prolific and reckless drinker that he sold his wife’s bed to get money to drink. He even sold the iron sheets from the roof just so that he could pay for his drink. Everyone in the village saw that the family was in a terrible state, and when I met her, Connie had to work at school for her fees. I helped out with the fees while on my gap year, though little did I know that I was investing in a future marriage. I also had no idea that later on this would be another family I would see transformed by Christ. Eventually Connie’s father became a Christian, and today he is both an evangelist and one of my closest friends.
After she left school Connie and I grew close. In time I decided to propose, and since her father worked in the post office, I gave him a letter to pass on to his daughter. He was curious and asked her what it was all about. Connie knew that I was a traditional man and that a letter from me could mean only one thing. She explained, and he was happy about it. He thought I was a good boy.
His wife felt otherwise. I believe her words on hearing of the proposal were something like “over my dead body.” She thought I was common and way too inferior for her daughter.
In Uganda sons-in-law are supposed to gain great respect from mothers-in-law. A son-in-law is supposed to be a counselor, a confidant, a supporting male—there to step in should the father-in-law pass on. Connie’s mother wanted none of this from me.
Things were no better by the time Connie and I were married. The wedding day itself was horrific. I went to pick up my future wife, but there was her mother, standing sentry at the entrance to the house. She was a dam across the door, refusing to allow either me in or her daughter out. And from her mouth flowed vile verbal abuse. She cursed and swore at me, and it was only when Connie pushed her hard at her back that she stumbled and allowed my fiancée to escape and make it to the car. As we sped off—leaving the flower girl and the matron behind—her words had already inflicted deep wounds on us both. All the way from Connie’s home in Rukungiri to our wedding in Kabale we sat in silence broken only by the sounds of our crying.
That was quite a test. How do you forgive someone who does something so deliberate to hurt you? Connie had warned me that her mother was not happy, but I never thought she would be quite so rude to us. I never imagined she would behave in such a way.
Later—years later—we did reconcile, and we asked each other’s forgiveness. Now I am close to her, and she says I am one of the best in-laws she has ever had. But at the time the pain I experienced was immense. Despite the fact that my father and I had long been reconciled, this repeat of a parent figure pouring out abuse cut me to the core.
I had been dropped by a previous fiancée as well, which had devastated me. We were friends for three years, and out of the blue she terminated the relationship. I was so wounded because it was like adding an insult to an injury of rejection. After prayer and fasting, the Lord told me that the best wine comes last. Indeed Connie came as the best wine. Yet my marriage to Connie did not have the easiest of starts; in addition to all of this, we had to work through my fears and insecurities around sex that were the consequence of my being abused by my sister. But we persevered. We prayed. We wept, we talked—with each other as well as wise friends, relatives, and leaders—and we trusted that God would heal. And He did, fully and without reservation. I call Connie “Miss Uganda 1991,” for she captivated my heart with her beauty. That this beautiful, faithful girl would marry such a wrecked boy could only be because of the redeeming blood of Jesus.
After we were married I worked for Scripture Union as a traveling secretary for the west of Uganda. There were about two thousand primary and secondary schools in my region, and from 1992 to 1994 I visited as many of them as I could. I would travel and give my testimony, nothing more than that. I cannot tell you how many came to the Lord, but there were many, many people who did. I used to keep records, and from 1989 to 1997 I noted that I had led fifty thousand people to Christ. After that I stopped counting.
Working with Scripture Union was easily the happiest time in my life at that point. I had a sense of fulfillment, and I was speaking to students who were going through difficulties that I cared about—domestic violence, bitterness, anger, and hatred. I spoke with so many victims of rape, so many who had been defiled or molested by uncles and aunts and sisters and brothers. I still give thanks today for that time, for so many people with whom I was able to talk and pray. I thank God for the privilege of seeing Him take that which I thought was decayed and using it to bring others closer to wholeness—and closer to Him.