Chapter Nine
It is only when you wake that you realize that what you considered to be normal within your dream was in fact quite unlike anything else in life. So it was with my first confession to one of my former targets: It was only as I walked away that I realized quite how terrified I had been. Eating together had been a practical act of restoration between us, and it was something we had not done for over five years. It meant they finally accepted us. This was wonderful, though I was still terrified.
The fear did not disappear quickly. It was there on Sunday as well, when I stood up at the front of the congregation at Kakiri-Kakiri Church of Uganda. This was the same church where I had hidden from the jigger hunters, the place where my faith had received its first morsels of nourishment and where my academic ability had been called out of its slumber. And here I was, standing in front of all these people who knew me, about to make myself vulnerable as a young man who had become a breeding ground for hatred, violence, immorality, and murder.
I decided not to mention any of the names of people I had wanted to kill but told the congregation about how Jesus had arrested me and breathed new life into me. I finished by saying, “Anyone here who I have had conflict with, I want you to know that I forgive you unconditionally. And I ask that you forgive me, too.”
My stomach knotted as I stood and looked out at the people. Some were sitting on low benches; others were standing or leaning against the mud walls. Yet the nervous feeling I had then was nothing compared with what I felt about the next confession I would have to make. As I left the church I knew whom I must speak with. I might not have liked the idea, but I knew it was the next step to take on this journey.
In fact the man I visited next had no involvement in Peninah’s murder. Our history was long, and I had wanted him dead for one hundred different reasons, all stored up within me over years of hatred and contempt. And then there had been an incident with a goat. Some years before—around the time when I was raging and drinking and fighting my internal civil war throughout the year after Peninah’s death—I had killed his goat, albeit not intentionally. I had thrown a stone at it, and it had died. He was a bad man with a reputation for violence, and so at the time I had denied any involvement with the goat, and the police had arrested and beaten someone else as a result. But I think he always knew I was guilty.
God had reminded me of this incident and told me I needed to confess. I had avoided this man’s house for years—as I had avoided other houses as well. There had been an enmity between our families that was toxic, and so it was important for me to go and sort this out.
I felt God say that this was something I should do alone, so I did. The man was drunk when I arrived at his home. I think this only increased his sense of surprise when he looked up and saw me. Sitting around the fire with him were his wife and his mother, and all three of them remained silent as I approached.
By now this was the fifth time I was going to tell my story, but I felt lost for words. I was stuck again. How should I start? I was not anticipating him being drunk, although on reflection there was nothing surprising about it. But it increased the fear. He was not a big man, but his yellowed eyes could flash with violence at the slightest provocation. I had seen him beat his children mercilessly, and within his reach were any number of weapons—a long stick, a machete, a log in the fire. Would he use any of these on me?
“My son,” said his mother. She was old. Time and harsh conditions had not favored her beauty, but her words were the most beautiful you can ever hear: “I hear you have accepted Jesus as your Savior.”
From that I told them everything. I told them about the way I had behaved, about the man I was becoming, and then about the choir and realization that without Jesus—and without forgiveness—I would be finished. And I told them about the goat. I told them I did not mean to do it, but it was I who had killed it. I told them that I thought about it every time I saw goats and that I was sorry and ready to pay any consequences.
The man looked at the fire. What was going on? Would he pull that stick out from his side and beat me? Would he tell me I would have to pay? Would he exact revenge in some other way?
It must have taken five minutes for the silence to be broken. It was his mother who broke it, singing a song about the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment: “Faith has made you well. Do not fear.”
The man spoke up. “I knew you were the one who killed this goat. I knew it was you. And I was so angry.”
He allowed the silence to return. He said nothing again, but this time there was no singing to fill the gaps. I could do nothing but wait.
Eventually he continued. “After five years that anger has died down. If God has forgiven you, who am I not to do the same?”
He was not a Christian at all, and he never even went along to church. To hear him talk of God with respect was surprising, but that feeling only increased as he confessed to me that he had also done things wrong. “Many things,” he said. “Worse than killing a goat. Pray for us that we might be forgiven.” So I did.
After a short prayer it was time to go. It was getting late, and it was already dark. The fire provided enough light for us in the compound, but beyond the fence it was going to be hard to see. I stood up to go.
“You cannot go alone,” he said. “Let me escort you.”
What could I say? I had no option other than to agree, and as soon as we left the compound it was clear he wanted me to walk in front while he followed behind. The path that wound across the valley was narrow, cut into the forest with just enough room for only one person to walk along at any time. These were the routes along which people carried their water or their matoke, arteries that were designed for commerce, not community.
He did not keep much distance between us. I could not feel him behind me, but I knew he was only one or two paces back. With every step I was convinced he was going to hit me, and my mind flooded with memories of the stories people told about this man—how his rage was such that he had even killed his own stepfather. My neck was exposed, and I feared that somewhere along the way he would reach into the darkness and pull out some weapon or other hidden for such a time as this. For two miles we walked in total silence. I had never felt such fear.
Eventually we both reached my home. When I knocked on the door, my mother opened up to see me and my companion standing just off behind me to the side.
She was shocked.
The man spoke up. “We have sorted ourselves out. You and my wife need to sort things out. And my mother.”
And that was it. My mother agreed, and he disappeared. I was sighing with the sweetest relief at his first words—“We have sorted ourselves out”—and I knew he would not harm me now. Later my mother went and made her peace, and over the years the man and I developed a good friendship. I helped his daughter when she got married, and his son helped me build a home. Years later I helped lead his mother to Christ.
I saw others in those first two weeks as well. Gradually it did begin to get a little easier to start the confessions, but as my confidence grew so did the sense that there was one confession that stood out above all the others. This one had the very real potential to change everything in my life for the worse. Yet I knew that, after two weeks at home, it was time to go back to school.
I decided that as I returned to school I would have to take with me everything I had stolen from it. I had dinner plates, textbooks, clothes from other students. There was even a sickle that I had stolen from the headmaster’s garden one day while I was working there. I had denied it so vehemently at the time, but now I was about to present him with overwhelming evidence that I had tricked him and treated him like a fool ever since I had arrived there.
All the headmaster knew was that I had run away two weeks ago. My return itself would be an issue, and I made straight for his office when I arrived. On his desk I placed the three boxes with the stolen items spilling out of them.
I told him what had happened—about the bus trip, the conversion, and the changes that were starting. This was easy. What followed next was not. I confessed to my part in the riot, to my drinking, my womanizing, my stealing, my lying, my violence, my hatred, my treating him like a fool. As I spoke he looked through the items on his desk: spoons, cups, plates. He saw the sickle and looked up at me. He did the same when he saw one of his son’s footballs that had gone missing from the garden—both things I had denied all knowledge of in the past.
“Are you aware that if a thief is caught they are expelled?”
“Yes.”
“Then go to the dormitory, and I will meet with the governors. Wait there until I send for you.”
I walked down the hill to my dormitory. It had been just two weeks since I had left there, but I was immediately struck by how alien it felt. My mattress held the low, unrelenting smell of stale urine and vomit. How could I have lived like this? How could I have considered this any sort of life worth pursuing? I was alone in the dormitory—a room with one small window and eight other mattresses on the floor. So many times I had come in here looking to fight, only to end up collapsed and incontinent on my heap of old straw in the corner. I had been an animal. I wanted nothing more to do with that life, and if the governors decided that my crimes should be given even a fraction of the punishments they deserved, I would never be able to return. This might well be the last time I lie here, I thought.
What would I do? I had hoped that education might be my way out, that it might lead me into the army and then into the shoes of a killer. But now that I had been born again, I saw that education need not necessarily lead me to kill. If I could complete school, then I might be able to teach or become a minister. I might be able to do more for God and others. I might be able to do more than I had ever hoped. But that sort of talk was pointless. I was sure I was going to be expelled. I deserved nothing less.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by the sound of the school drum. It was only ever beaten if there was an emergency or if the headmaster desperately wanted everyone to gather. There was always danger in the air when the drum was beaten; either someone was going, some big man from the government was on his way, or something else was wrong. I am not sure I thought it was anything to do with me when the rhythm started up.
The school compound was set up so that there was an area where we could all gather in front of the school offices. There was a platform upon which the headmaster and visitors would stand and in front of which we could gather. The school site was set on the side of a hill, and the land had been terraced all the way down to make the best use of it. Down beneath the top level with the offices and meeting area were the classrooms. One more terrace down was the library, then below that the dormitories. As I climbed up, running up the hill with students pouring out of classrooms, I became lost in the crowd. As I approached the top I could see the platform; on it were all the boxes I had left in the headmaster’s office.
We had a motto in school and it came into my mind at that point, blocking out all other thoughts: The suspected thief is killed. I knew it was over for me. All the violence I had handed out was about to come back to me.
The headmaster waited for the students to assemble, and then he spoke. He looked directly at me.
“Zinomuhangi, come here.”
It was the name my father had given me, the one that meant “they have a creator.” I would have preferred it if he had called me by the other name my father had given me—Barisigara (“the one who will stay”), but that was hoping for too much from the man whose trust and kindness I had treated with such contempt.
“We have called you because we have a very urgent matter. We have arrested a thief who has been stealing from all of us. Open these boxes, Zinomuhangi.”
The rest of the school had no idea that I was the accused; they just thought I was helping. I carefully laid out every item on the platform. With each piece I handled I saw the evidence against me mounting. I knew my guilt already, but as each item passed from box to hand to platform, I was reminded again of my sins. Why had I stolen so much? Why had I been so greedy, so wrong? Why had I lived like this?
The rest of the boys started whistling. They started calling out, “Where is the bird? Where is the bird?” It was the word we always used to describe a thief, and they shouted nonstop … a bird, a bird, a bird.
They could not be stopped.
The only thing I had on my side was the gang. They were all there. Perhaps they would help me. But what could they do? They knew nothing other than the violence I had embraced so fully before all of this.
Once all the items were on the platform, the headmaster looked at me. He said nothing. The shouts from the crowd died down as they, too, followed his gaze. It was my turn to speak.
I told them everything. I did not start with the events of two weeks before but went all the way back to my childhood. I told them about my father, about the abuse at the hands of my sister, about my uncle and the machete and the humiliations in front of the whole village. I told them about Peninah and wanting to kill myself and about the waterfall and Aidah Mary. I told them about the list, the gang, and the army. And I told them about the items I had taken out of the box—how I had stolen them all. I stood there in front of eight hundred students and told them everything. I declared that I was leaving the gang as of that moment. I denounced fighting, drinking, and treating girls so badly.
My words built up to a crescendo as I was my own prosecution. This was not a debate but a trial—a trial without defense. I had no defense; I had nothing to say to try to play down the pain I had caused or the wrong I had done. I exhaled my final words.
“I know a thief is to pay for his sins, and I am ready to pay.”
I stopped.
The headmaster had never heard my story in full. My mother had told him much of it, but there were parts she had skipped over. In front of the school I had held nothing back. The headmaster was in tears. The students looked on in shock. None of them knew the truth about me. I had tried to convince the rest of my gang mates that I was rich, but this speech undid all I had told them before. The gang leader was not impressed, and to taunt me he started singing the chorus of “Tukutendereza Yesu.” Most of the eight hundred students sang in unison and made fun of me, the thief who stood in front of them. But to me the name of the Lord had been glorified, even by the Muslim students in the crowd. Their singing made my shaking legs stand firm.
The headmaster spoke first. “If God could arrest everyone who has committed a crime here, there would not be many of us left. I am going to talk to the board of governors and see what can be done.”
And that was it. The students were told to go back to classes and I was expected to do the same. There was no judgment, no beating, but no full reprieve either. I walked down the hill in the crowd, boys talking to me, asking me if it was all true, if I really had done all those things. I do not remember what my answers were. It was my turn to be in shock.
A week later the headmaster told me of the decision of the governors. They had agreed to forgive me. The drum beat again, and the school was assembled and told the news. They were told how I was also appointed school librarian because the governors guessed I would have a good idea how students were stealing books. As a matter of fact I did, and from that moment on I was one of the best librarians the school had ever had. Not many books went missing on my watch.
I also joined the school’s Scripture Union group and learned how to read the Bible, how to pray, and how to preach. They asked me to join them in traveling to other schools and to give my testimony. I discovered that, far from being filled with gang members and nothing else, the school was alive with wonderful Christians. Other students took me alongside them, including the son of Mugyenzi, the man I had met on the bus and who had brought such healing to me and my mother on that morning. These students did an incredible work and taught me a lot. They looked out for me, protected me, and nurtured me.
As well as Scripture Union, Campus Crusade for Christ was so gifted at teaching me how to grow as a Christian and how to carry out person-to-person evangelism using the four spiritual laws, things I still find helpful even today. I had never paid it much attention before, but there was a cathedral opposite the school. Lots of the old revivalists would meet there, and I made a habit of spending time with them. They taught us how to repent, how to spot the characteristics of revival, and what part personal holiness played in it all. It was a big movement, and we were united. Slowly but steadily I started to preach.
A little while later, as my life began to settle into its new rhythm, I was at home and knew the time was right to talk to the woman who had fed the killers and shown them to Peninah’s house, waiting to hear the shots fired before turning around and returning home. To talk to her about all of this was a painful task, made more painful by the history between us. Before Peninah’s murder this woman was my favorite. When I was small she had fed me many times, and I had always liked her more than the other women around. After Peninah’s murder she used to come to visit us, to try to cover up her guilt and pretend that all was well between us, but we always disliked her.
It was painful to sit down and talk to her. And it was difficult as well. I had tried on one or two earlier occasions, but it had never worked. She did not want to discuss it and would always pretend she did not know what I was talking about.
But this time, somehow, I knew it was right. Instead of talking about me, I started with the truth about her: “I heard you were in the group of people who murdered Peninah. So I have come to sort things out with you.”
All that happened was this: She cried. And cried. And cried. The tears threatened never to cease. In time, though, as they eased off, she said, “I do not know whether God will ever forgive me. But I want peace with you, my son. I want peace.”
And that is what followed between us. Our reconciliation became one of the most treasured changes in my new life. It did not stop there, either. She became a born-again Christian. Almost twenty years later, I still love to tell the story of how it happened.
Many years later, she got sick. She was admitted into Kisiizi Hospital—the one at the bottom of the waterfall, so close that you can hear the roar as you stand in the compound and almost feel the spray. The hospital was running a mission at the time, and they invited many preachers to come in and speak to the staff and patients. They asked me to join them and give my testimony.
They say that white people teach, while Africans preach. I do not know about that—I have some good muzungu friends who preach the Word with passion and zeal. But I also know that if you invite me up to the front of your church to say a few words, I will probably speak for a little longer than you might expect. We say that muzungu have the watch but we Africans have the time. This is what happened on the Friday night of the mission in Kisiizi Hospital. I was invited to give my testimony but ended up preaching. There were loudspeakers throughout the hospital, and I know she was listening as I told my story and gave the gospel message. Included in my testimony were a few words about the reconciliation with her. I did not mention her by name, but she knew I was talking about her.
The next day there was another meeting, and I went along. I was surprised to see that she had left her bed and was sitting upstairs on the veranda of the hospital ward. It may not have appeared all that significant to an observer, but to me—as well as her daughter, who was also a born-again Christian—her shift away from her bed to the outside, where she could hear and see the preachers more clearly, was deeply symbolic and profoundly encouraging. Her daughter and I felt inspired to pray for her with even greater determination.
On Sunday another man was preaching, and he spoke well. After speaking he said, “Today there are some people God has been speaking to. God brought you to this hospital not to get physical healing but spiritual healing. I want you to come here, and we will pray for you, and you will get physically and spiritually healed. If you want this, come up to stand with me.”
She was in the hospital receiving treatment for various conditions—high blood pressure, severe arthritis, and so on. I watched the cluster of people approach the preacher, who was standing in front of a makeshift altar, and at first did not notice her shuffling up with her two walking sticks guiding her steps.
As she reached the front she threw down both walking sticks. Her hands held aloft, she turned around to face the congregation. Her face was transformed. Gone was the burden of guilt and the lines of pain. She simply shone. I jumped up, ran to her, hugged her, and we both cried for what must have been ten minutes.
Eventually she was given the microphone: “I thank God today. He has healed me physically and spiritually, and today I want to give my life to Christ.”
She was no stranger to Christianity, but her past made her words even more dramatic. Formerly, her husband was a church leader. Because of the problems that had taken root and thrived amid their hatred and anger, he had stopped being a lay preacher and taken a swift descent to becoming a drunkard. He remained as such even after her conversion, but she became an even more significant member of our family. She has done a great deal to bring many of them to Jesus Christ. Now she visits me when she comes to Kampala, she calls me when she is sick, and we have become great, great friends. I want to thank God so much for that.
It has not been easy to reach this point. Even after that weekend in the hospital—for years afterward, in fact—I would often remember her and feel the same old feelings of hatred and anger toward her. I reached a stage where I put her photo in my Bible so that when those old feelings of resentment came to me, I could look at her and forgive her. It was a tool that really helped me, and within three years we were much better.
Within weeks of my becoming a Christian, I could see that God was teaching me about forgiveness. While my own confession and absolution had taken only a matter of hours, the issue of how to forgive others was taught over a far, far longer period of time. Instead of hours, I have spent decades learning why I need to forgive. Through it God has taught me that restoring broken relationships is a vital part of following Jesus. Even as a growing Christian these lessons were so valuable to me.
Today I am no expert on the matter. Instead of a professor I am like a schoolboy with a soccer ball made out of tape, plastic bags, and rags. I am fascinated by forgiveness, drawn to it, compelled by it, and delighted when anyone wants to join me. That is what revolutionary forgiveness becomes after a while—a passion. It draws us in, yet it does not overrule us. We must still make the choice to overcome our reservations.
Back then I still had so many reservations. I may have spoken with many of the people on my list, but there was one more restoration ahead that would cost me far more than the others. One of my aunt’s daughters brought this to my attention just a few weeks after her mother’s conversion.
“What about your father? Surely your forgiveness must extend to him, eh, Birungi?”
This daughter I was speaking with was dying of HIV/AIDS. I was meeting with her to pray, and the news of her mother’s transformation had left an indelible mark of peace and happiness on her emaciated frame. For many, many years she had prayed for her mother, longing that she, too, would know the power of Jesus’ love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Now, when she was just a few weeks away from death, her prayer had been answered.
In those few months between the dawn of her mother’s new life and the nightfall of her own we often talked and prayed. Before her body lost its battle against relentless infection, she asked me, If God had transformed her mother’s life so dramatically, then why could I not expect Him to do the same for my father?
I knew she was right. But that did not make me any less terrified.