Adapted from A Distant Grief by Kefa Sempangi, copyright 1979, Regal Books (Ventura, CA 93006). Used by permission.
Despite the growing shadow of Idi Amin, Easter morning, 1973, began as a most joyous occasion for the Redeemed Church. The sun had just risen and the sky was empty of clouds when the first people began arriving at the compound where we worshiped.
They came from almost every tribe, from the Baganda, the Basoga, the Banyankole, the Acholi and the Langi, the Bagweri and the Bagisu. They came from as far away as Masaka, a town eighty miles southwest of Kampala. There were old men with walking sticks and young women with babies on their backs. There were small children with flowers in their arms. There were doctors and lawyers, businessmen and farmers, cotton growers and government workers. Only a few had traveled by private car or taxi. Most came on foot or rode bicycles. Others crowded into lorries so lopsided they seemed ready to collapse at any moment. But however the people traveled, they arrived with the same joyful greeting: “Aleluya, Azukide! Hallelujah, he is risen!”
By 9 A.M. over seven thousand people were gathered. It was the largest crowd ever to attend a Sunday service at the Redeemed Church. When there were no more places in the compound, people climbed trees or sat on the roofs of parked lorries. A few large groups set up in nearby yards with their own amplifying systems. Hundreds of others stood in the street.
Before the service, the elders and I met in the “vestry,” an empty house by the compound, to pray. We felt deeply the hunger in the hearts of the people who had gathered for worship. We knew their desire to hear the Word of God, and we prayed that their lives would be transformed by its power.
As we poured our hearts out to the Father in agonizing intercession, desperate scenes from the previous weeks flashed again in my mind. I saw a face burned beyond recognition, and a woman huddled in a corner weeping. I saw a crowd of soldiers standing in the park cheering, and heard the sound of boot crunching against bone. I remembered the arrogance of the mercenaries, and the dreamlike deadness of my heart. Once again the seeming triumph of evil overwhelmed me. I felt a deep fear. I myself had fallen. How could I hope to strengthen others? Who was I to feed God’s children in this most desperate hour? What words could I speak?
My brothers and sisters needed courage to stand firm in the growing terror. They needed strength to sustain them in suffering. They did not need my sermon. They did not need my thoughts on the Resurrection. My father had been right. “In such times men do not need words,” he had said. “They need power.”
As I prayed for strength and wisdom, the words of Matthew 14:19 came to my mind. It was the same text that a brother had read to me many years before.
And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
With this verse, I heard the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit. It was Jesus who provided bread for the crowds. The disciples’ task was only to distribute what their Master already had given them. It was God who sustained his people. He was not asking me to feed his children from the words of my own heart. He was asking me only to distribute the living bread he had put into my hand.
With that in mind, I led the service, preached the sermon, and prepared for the benediction. In the uncertainty of our lives and with the nearness of death, the words of Simeon held deep meaning:
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people.
We did not know when we would see each other again or when God might call us home. But we went out in peace because we had seen with our eyes the salvation of the Lord. With a loud amen from the people and a final chorus from the choir, the Easter service ended. I turned to the elders, and we embraced, praising God. It seemed as if days instead of hours had passed since we had met for prayer. I was exhausted, but there was joy in my heart. God had answered our prayers: he had broken bread and fed his people.
I greeted several more friends and then left for the vestry to change my clothes, hoping to have a few minutes alone. I had to push my way through the crowd, and when I finally arrived at the house I was exhausted. I was too tired to notice the men behind me until they had closed the door.
There were five of them. They stood between me and the door, pointing their rifles at my face. Their own faces were scarred with the distinctive tribal cuttings of the Kahwa tribe. They were dressed casually in flowered shirts and bell-bottom pants, and wore sunglasses. Although I had never seen any of them before, I recognized them immediately. They were the secret police of the State Research Bureau-Amin’s Nubian assassins.
For a long moment no one said anything. Then the tallest man, obviously the leader, spoke.
“We are going to kill you,” he said. “If you have something to say, say it before you die.” He spoke quietly, but his face was twisted with hatred.
I could only stare at him. For a sickening moment I felt the full weight of his rage. We had never met before, but his deepest desire was to tear me to pieces. Everything left my control. They will not need to kill me, I thought to myself. I am going to collapse. I am going to fall over dead, and I will never see my family again. I thought of my wife, Penina, home alone with our child, Damali. What would happen to them when I was gone?
From far away I heard a voice, and I was astonished to realize that it was my own.
“I do not need to plead my own cause,” I heard myself saying. “I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden in Christ. It is your lives that are in danger. You are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you have killed me, he will spare you from eternal destruction.”
The tallest one took a step toward me and then stopped. In an instant, his face was changed. His hatred had turned to curiosity. He lowered his gun and motioned the others to do the same. They stared at him in amazement, but they took their guns from my face.
Then the tall one spoke again. “Will you pray for us now?” he asked.
“Yes, I will pray for you,” I answered. My voice sounded bolder even to myself. “I will pray to the Father in heaven. Please bow your heads and close your eyes.”
The tall one motioned to the others again, and together the five of them lowered their heads. I bowed my own head, but I kept my eyes open. The Nubian’s request seemed to me a strange trick. Any minute, I thought to myself, my life will end. I did not want to die with my eyes closed.
“Father in heaven,” I prayed, “you who have forgiven men in the past, forgive these men also. Do not let them perish in their sins, but bring them into yourself.”
It was a simple prayer, prayed in deep fear. But God looked beyond my fears, and when I lifted my head, the men standing in front of me were not the same men who had followed me into the vestry. Something had changed in their faces.
It was the tall one who spoke first. His voice was bold, but there was not contempt in his words. “You have helped us,” he said, “and we will help you. We will speak to the rest of our company, and they will leave you alone. Do not fear for your life. It is in our hands, and you will be protected.”
I drove home that Easter evening deeply puzzled but with joy in my heart. I felt that I had passed from death to life, and that I could now speak in one mind with Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
-Kefa Sempangi
Later the assassins began attending Sempangi’s church and made a commitment to Jesus Christ. They used their positions to help church members whose lives were in danger, and even helped several families escape from Uganda.
Copyright © 1990 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
