Thursday 5th July
The past week has been an epic rollercoaster of emotions.
*Let me introduce you to Kangwaha. I have known Kangwaha for a little over two years. He is the father of James and Gerald (two of the youngest street boys). Since they were 4 and 5, James and Gerald had been living around the town with their dad, washing cars with him to make money from that young age.
*he has given me permission to share his story so that you can pray for him
The boys were sponsored just over two years ago now, and despite the fact that I worried about their transition to ‘normal childhood’ i.e. going to school, the most of all the 7 street boys, they have continued to astound me with their social integration and academic performances.
Their dad has had alcohol and drug problems for years. The whole town was scared of him and his violent outbursts, however four years ago, he got into a fight and someone hit his arm so hard with a piece of wood, that his humerus snapped into two. Since then, his left arm has basically been separate from the rest of his body (apart from the skin holding his arm together, and the nerve undamaged, thank goodness). He always enjoyed flinging his arm all over the place, just to show people what had happened. Since meeting him, I have always worried about Kangwaha, as much for the boys sake as anything else – they love their daddy so much and are continually concerned for his welfare. I have tried to help him here and there with some food, a mattress etc, all superficial stuff really, and nothing to deal with his deep rooted alcohol and drug addictions.
In February, Kangwaha came to me crying and in agony over his arm. It was extremely hot and swollen, and he said he would be travelling to the nearest city (Mbarara) to get it amputated. I was devastated, and I knew the boys would be too. I took him to a good friend of mine who is a radiographer, who said that with a fairly simply operation, (fixing the bone back together with metal plates), his arm could be normal and functioning again. (He had the opportunity to do this when his arm first broke four years ago, however he refused to go to the hospital because he feared that the man who had broken his arm would pay one of the nurses to give him poison and kill him (!!))
After some months (February – end of June) of counseling, and overcoming his fear that he would die in the theatre, Kangwaha agreed to have the surgery. I messaged the surgeon on Tuesday to ask for a slot in the next two weeks. His reply – ‘I have tomorrow and nothing else until September. If you want him to have surgery tomorrow, bring him for admission today’. I was like ‘woah, didn’t expect that Lord’.
As a little background, hospitals in Uganda require an ‘attendant’ (a close relative) to look after a patient at all times while in hospital. This care includes, administering medicines, washing the patient, cooking/providing food for the patient, and general care.
I knew that Kangwaha didn’t have any close relatives, or anyone who would volunteer to look after a quite frankly difficult, stubborn addict. Except… Jonas and Muhumuza. These men are my colleagues and good friends. They have been with me since the beginning with the street boys, constantly going above and beyond the call of duty (or what I pay them for!) – counseling the boys, taking them to the hospital when they’re sick and so much more. (In fact, Muhumuza and his wife look after James and Gerald during the school holidays as they have nowhere else to go.) Without a moment of hesitation, Muhumuza said he would be Kangwaha’s attendant (i.e. leave his family for days, sleep on a bench next to Kangwaha’s hospital bed, and do whatever else necessary to look after him.)
Muhumuza and Kangwaha travelled to Kisizi Hospital on Tuesday afternoon for him to be admitted, and Jonas and I travelled early on Wednesday morning for the operation day. I was SO NERVOUS. I think I’m a natural pessimist and I was thinking of everything that could go wrong – what if he runs away before the operation even happens, what if the operation isn’t successful, what if he does actually die during surgery, how will his recovery be?
He was very wound up in the hours running up to his operation at 11am – he was hungry, he wanted tea, he wanted a cigarette, he asked me to take his children to the UK if he dies…
I was told that the surgery would take 1 ½ – 2 hours. 2 ½ hours later, I was genuinely getting rather worried. Eventually, he got wheeled out of the theatre and into the ward. The nurses told me that he had become extremely violent upon waking up from the anesthesia, as a result of his addictions and the withdrawal, and so they had to sedate him again. For the rest of the day, he was in and out of consciousness, though when he woke up he was very aggressive (for example when he bit a male nurse on his arm). He was vomiting as well and Jonas, Muhumuza and I were quite worried about him and how Muhumuza alone would manage him during the night. Jonas, the hero that he is, stepped up and offered to stay the night at the hospital as well (bearing in mind he only had the clothes he was wearing, and had yet to inform his wife and three young children that he would not be coming home that night.) Last night, after a hugely stressful and tiring day, Jonas and Muhumuza stayed up with Kangwaha until past midnight, holding a bucket in front of him as he vomited endlessly, and then dozed on a wooden bench until morning. Heroes.
I left the hospital and drove back to Rukungiri yesterday evening at around 6pm. I got into the car and I wept as I drove. I wept at the injustice of a man having an untreated broken arm for four years. I wept at the sacrificial kindness of two men, with young families, offering to be away for them for days to care for an extremely difficult man who they owe nothing to. I wept for myself because I felt like nothing was in my control and things hadn’t gone as smoothly as I had hoped. I wept for the fear of what the coming months would bring.
In the middle of my tears and angst, I suddenly felt the most incredible sense of peace. Peace literally wrapped itself around me in a hug and I felt so calm and… held. I strongly felt God saying to me, ‘he’s mine, you’re mine. This isn’t your burden to carry, I’ve got it.’ My fear and my tears left me, and I felt the holy presence of my Abba Father like never before. It was incredible.
Jonas came back to Rukungiri this afternoon, and Muhumuza has stayed at Kisizi.
Sunday 8th July
Because Kangwaha has now somehow settled, we decided to take his children James and Gerald to visit him in hospital today. My car has had mechanical problems, so I booked a ‘special hire’ to take us (myself, Jonas, James and Gerald) to Kisizi. I prayed and prayed that today would go smoothly.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at the hospital, as soon as we saw Kangwaha, he burst into tears, and literally cried like a baby, saying ‘I want to go home. I want to go home. I will run away and you will not see me’. He then stormed out without greeting any of us. The boys looked so confused, and I was so disappointed for myself and for them. We were desperate for Kangwaha to stay in the hospital for at least a few weeks. We knew that the moment he came back to Rukungiri, he would drink again, start drugs again, and do more serious damage to an unhealed arm. I said to Jonas ‘I think we’ve made a mistake. What have we done? We should have just left his arm. How are we going to keep him in the hospital? We can’t force him to stay, but what will happen to him if he leaves?’ Jonas, calm as always, just said ‘it will be okay’.
My prayer in that moment was seemingly impossible, ‘Lord, help us to have a good conversation. Help us to listen to each other. Give us patience and wisdom.’
If you’re reading this, you may or may not believe in miracles. You may or may not even believe in God. But I promise you, the way God answered my prayer was above and beyond any earthly reasoning or understanding.
We found Kangwaha, and we sat together in the Hospital chapel – me, Muhumuza, Jonas, James, Gerald and Kangwaha – and we talked (well, they talked in the local language, I just prayed). Kangwaha listened, he asked questions, he made jokes, he laughed. The boys even got to open their hearts to their dad. After about an hour of talking, Kangwaha agreed that he would stay in the hospital until this coming Thursday. Small steps, it was the best we were going to get, so we agreed.
We left the chapel, and Kangwaha came to me to talk. He has limited but decent English.
He said ‘thank you for what you have done to me and my children. I love my children so much. Now, I don’t want to take alcohol or marijuana. It is not good for my arm. Muhumuza prays for me every night. When I go home, I want to pray and go to church every Sunday. One day, I will be okay’
Now, when all this was starting last Tuesday, in the midst of all my anxieties, Alfred said something along the lines of ‘who knows what God is going to do for Kangwaha or how He might work in him or change him through this situation.’
Over the past week, I have experienced many moments of fear, worry, questions and uncertainties. I have worried endlessly (and continue to worry tbh) about how Kangwaha will manage when he gets out of hospital, probably this weekend. Knowing that he is (reasonably) secure and contained in hospital, and in the constant presence of either Jonas or Muhumuza has allowed me to sleep (reasonably) well at night. However, the big wide world of Rukungiri is another story, where he will again be tempted by easy access to alcohol, friends who are also drunkards, marijuana, people who think it’s funny to get him drunk. He stays in a mud house with terrible hygiene conditions. His arm isn’t even in plaster and the doctor says it will take two months to heal. What are these next two months going to hold? Who knows. What are those next two months going to need? A lot of patience, commitment and grace from Jonas and Muhumuza (and myself although I have a Mission Direct team arriving in six days!), continued miracles to restore Kangwaha’s life and a LOT of prayer. Can you be someone who commits to praying for Kangwaha? I feel like we need a whole army of prayful warriors for Kangwa to get through the next two months physically, emotionally and mentally unharmed. I believe in a God who heals and restores body, soul, mind and spirit. Because of the unfathomable love of God, I believe Kangwaha when he says ‘one day, I will be okay.’
Friday 13th July
Today, I left early morning to collect Kangwaha from Kisizi Hospital (and Jonas who has been attending to him since Sunday). I spoke to the Doctor last night who said that it would be preferable for Kangwaha to stay in the hospital, but if he’s really insistent, we could let him come back to Rukungiri and hope for the best!! I’m not in favour of this decision AT ALL but I spoke also to Kangwaha last night who said that if we didn’t let him leave by midday tomorrow (today) then he would escape…. And I knew he was serious.
So, against my better judgment, I travelled to Kisizi Hospital this morning, praying along the way that things over the coming couple of weeks would miraculously go okay. Upon arriving at the hospital, he was delighted to see me, and as I cleared the hospital bill and collected his medication, he said goodbye to the friends he has made during his ten days at Kisizi.
On the drive home, I asked Jonas to counsel Kangwaha about how things could and should be when he gets back to Rukungiri, for his own recovery and well being as much as anything else. Kangwaha really opened up to us about his past, especially his alcohol addiction. He had worked out, with a mental health nurse at Kisizi, that assuming he has spent 2,000 UGX per day on alcohol (40p) for the past 26 years that he has been drinking, that he has spent a total of 19,000,000 UGX (almost £4,000 GBP) on alcohol – a massive amount here!! Kangwaha spent a lot of time as we drove reflecting on how different his life and the life of his children may have been if he has used that money in a better way, particularly buying a piece of land for his sons to inherit when he dies.
We were about 20 minutes from Rukungiri town when Kangwaha suddenly asked us to take a detour to visit his relatives. I got so confused because he had previously said he didn’t have any living relatives. We then drove another 20 minutes off the beaten track, and entered a house with a very old lady and about 6 other women inside. It turns out the old lady is some distant aunty. Jonas, Kangwaha and the ladies all spoke together in the local language for about half an hour, and the result of the conversation was that the old lady said that he could be buried there in her home, but she doesn’t want anything to do with him while he’s alive. I was shocked, and Kangwaha cried, basically saying in broken English that he has no one, no one loves him, no one cares if he is alive or dead. I told him that his children care very much, I care, Jonas and Muhumuza care, and he has many friends who care too.
There are a row of bars where Kangwaha can normally be found in Rukungiri, and he lives a little way past them. When we arrived back in Rukungiri, Kangwaha was warmly greeted by his (drunk) friends. I got a ball of dread in the pit of my stomach, wondering how long it would take Kangwaha to go back on his word, go back to the alcohol and marijuana, and do some serious damage to his newly operated arm. To ensure that he doesn’t work for money over the coming weeks (he always does very heavy manual work like carrying water), Jonas and I decided that I would give money every day to a local trustworthy lady, and Kangwaha will go there before breakfast to collect 1,000 UGX (20p), before lunch to collect 2,000 (40p) and before dinner to collect 2,000 (40p) – total £1 a day to feed him. We knew that if we gave him this money directly, it would be a HUGE temptation to him to immediately buy alcohol.
As I prepared to leave him this evening, he promised me that he won’t take any more alcohol, that he will take his medication and rest his arm. Honestly? I don’t think he can.
Friday 20th July
This week, I saw Kangwaha on Saturday to get his stitches taken out his arm at a local clinic (one day after he got back from Kisizi). I was delighted that a whole 18 hours had passed of him being in Rukungiri, and he seemed extremely sober. It all went without a hitch.
On Sunday, I was away visiting Princess in Masaka, but Alfred told me that Kangwaha came to his shop in the afternoon, looking extremely smart and proud, saying that he had been to church. (Yay he really went!!!)
A Mission Direct team has been here all week, so I haven’t had a chance to check on Kangwaha, but I knew that if there were any problems, Jonas or Muhumuza would let me know. But I went this afternoon and, guess what….. a whole week, back in town, no alcohol, no drugs, no fights. GOD IS SO GOOD.
It’s literally a miracle. I do believe in miracles when I saw this man today. An alcoholic for years, and with no professional intervention, he hasn’t touched alcohol for 2 ½ weeks. I spoke to his friends who say he is a different person. I spoke to him, he was full of joy and laughter. He was so happy with his arm, so proud to tell me that he has collected some avocados to take to his son’s visitation day tomorrow, but above all he was thankful to God for rescuing him.
The journey will still be long, but there is hope. Kangwaha genuinely believes there his hope for him and his children to have a better life. It started with an operation to fix his broken arm, but it’s become his whole life which is healing and mending and transforming for good. One day he will be okay… in fact, yesterday he was okay… today he was okay… and tomorrow I believe he’ll be okay too.
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