Tombstones and Banana Trees (11 page)

According to the witch doctors the boy had not been taken by an animal. They thought he had been bewitched by my mother. We heard this at the time, and it worried my mother greatly, so much so that she, too, visited a witch doctor to get protection against any possible attacks from her husband. There was so much fear going around that it was hard to know what was true.

Witchcraft remains a severe problem in Uganda today. People often sacrifice animals, but some demons demand bigger sacrifices … human ones. People believe that when you sacrifice a human you appease the gods. That is why they thought my mother sacrificed that boy to protect her own children. She did not, but it is true that whenever we heard their threats, we would go to more witch doctors to protect ourselves, too.

Child sacrifice is a horrendous reality for us today. Many will try to keep it hidden, but we all know it takes place. Some people believe that if you cut off a child's head their blood will seal whatever covenant you make. They believe that if you put a child's head or body in the foundations of a house, the building will stand longer. There are newspaper stories about these things, claiming that in the last two years as many as nine hundred children have been sacrificed, while over one hundred have been trafficked out of Uganda to Sudan, Congo, and other countries.

The sad thing is that there is no political will to change it, and so child trafficking becomes an even more lucrative criminal enterprise. Our leader, Museveni, has made it easier for these things to happen. He has opened up freedom of worship, so that in Uganda now it is no longer Christianity that matters most; all traditional African religions share equal status. Animism, sorcery, and witchcraft are a growing national problem. The Chinese have poured a lot of money into research of traditional medicine, and that has led to the creation of the Traditional Healers and Herbalists Association, making it hard to differentiate between an herbalist and a witch doctor. The trade in human body parts—from female breasts to genitalia—is increasing. One recent story told of a man who was arrested on the way to a witch doctor who was going to buy and then sacrifice the man's twin children for 100 million Ugandan shillings—a little over forty thousand dollars.

In Uganda we have only one medical doctor for every seven thousand people, yet we have one witch doctor for every two thousand people. We are one of the centers for witchcraft, but we are not alone. Most African people believe in witchcraft and sorcery rather than in the healing that comes from Christ. Their first thought when illness strikes is to contact a witch doctor. And, in many ways, witch doctors work. But just like Satan appearing to Jesus in the wilderness, their power is built on nothing but destruction and death. The church must find its voice on this issue, and we must rediscover the ministry of healing and deliverance to counter all this evil.

My father denounced witchcraft when he came home. But the boy never did come back.

Of all the changes, the fact that my father started to talk about us positively was one of the most welcome. For many years every word from him about us had been negative, but now he started to talk positively about our mother, about my sisters and my brothers and me. People would come up and say to me, “Hey, Birungi, your father said you are a good boy.”

That made a great impact on the village and a great impact on us. We were chronically negative, and yet he started to plant the spirit of positivism. He would even tell men who had openly despised us that we had saved his life, and in time he became a leading example of talking about your wife and children positively.

After two years he did something profound. He told our mother, “I believe that God is doing something great. I am going back to Queen Elizabeth National Park in Bunyaruguru to bring my other wives back here.”

My mother was not as opposed to this as you might think. She knew—as we all did—that full restoration was needed, and the toxic relationships with the other wives could only be dealt with face-to-face.

He brought two of them back, Lodah and Kobucence. Lodah was the mother of the boy who had gone missing. She was the most expensive of all his brides, costing four cows and twelve goats. She was very beautiful as well as expensive, but I never liked her as much as the day she returned home to us and we all apologized to one another. Kobucence was the youngest wife and the favorite. We ate together, and the reconciliation was complete.

The wives went back after we all agreed that the children needed to get to know each other. So my father arranged a family meeting. We all contributed some money by selling crops or something similar and we all came together: thirty children, twenty-seven grand-children, five of his wives. We had bought a cow from my sister Winnie and slaughtered it. The reconciliation party included all our aunts and uncles—there were over eighty people gathered—and in front of them all, my father gave a speech.

He described how we had hated one another, how we had used witch doctors against one another, and how God had brought reconciliation to us all. He said that because I had been a channel of healing and reconciliation, he would be happy to leave his family in my hands. He made me his heir that day, in front of all those people. It was a very important moment, to know that when he died I would take on the family.

We had been such terrible enemies at the start, and perhaps he had sinned against me more than he had against the others, rejecting me as his first son and heir, leaving me with the responsibility of caring for my family but no tools with which to support them. I was so very happy about being his heir that I still give thanks to God for it even today. And when my father died, all the members of the family—wives, children, grandchildren—chose to respect me. Perhaps my father chose me because I chose to forgive, or perhaps he chose me because he thought I would do the job the best. I do not know. But I am sure of this: Forgiveness transforms every one of us from outcast to heir.

Not that everything always went the way I had hoped. I was still working through my list of people I had wanted to kill, and my father helped me approach some of the families. One conversation did not go well.

John was an uncle of mine. I approached him with my father. John was furious when he saw us, and it only got worse when I told him I had wanted him dead for the part he played in Peninah's murder. He shouted that we were falsely accusing him and that we were poisoning people against him. He told us to never again step foot in his compound.

For many years we did not talk. But after five years I had a reason to break the silence. I knew he was unwell, so I went back to pray for him. He was suffering from malaria, but according to his wife he was suffering from demonic attack—he was a traditionalist, and they claimed he had not pleased his gods, who were now unhappy. But I prayed for him, talked to him, and led him in the sinner's prayer, and he accepted Jesus as his Savior. He died years later, still a Christian, with his wife sharing his faith. For a time I was able to pay school fees for his grandchildren, and one of them stayed with my wife and me in Kampala.

We knew John had sold a cow in order to contribute money to Peninah's murder, and having his grandson Livingstone stay with us was a clear and constant reminder of the pain that had been caused and the change that had taken place.

The final person with whom I had to set things right was Eric's first wife, the co-wife of Peninah. It was not until 1997 that this happened, eighteen years after Peninah's murder, and there was a reason it took so long. This woman had been the instigator of the murder, and Eric had chased her away once the truth had come out. For many years we had prayed about it, looking for opportunities to be reconciled with her, but for so much of the time it seemed impossible. There were times when I feared for my life; she had brothers who knew about the conflict between us, and it was all very difficult.

One day I met her quite by accident. I was sent on mission by the diocese, and their home church was one of the ones under my jurisdiction. I gave my testimony, explaining how I had been able to forgive and sharing how I did not have anybody in my heart whom I hated.

She was seated in the congregation. Eric had died of a heart attack, and she had returned to Kantare to attend his funeral. At the end of the service I stood in the doorway, greeting people as they left. She stood in front of me. I said hello. She did not look the way I remembered her; memory had turned her into a bitter-looking monster, but she was friendlier, calm, and less tense than I thought she would be. Yet we still had no time to talk.

Her sons decided to bring her back to her home near the house where I had last seen Peninah's body, where Eric's third wife, Peace, now lived. We all gathered there: Eric's first wife, her sons, Peace, and my aunt Jane. There was one other person there as well—my niece Katy, the one whom as a baby I had removed from her mother's lifeless, blood-soaked breast.

My mother had warned me not to eat any food that was offered—for fear of being poisoned—but as I sat there, this woman I had feared and hated in equal measure for so long broke down.

“I am sorry I killed your sister,” she said. “She destroyed my home, my marriage, my business. She was younger and Eric favored her and I had lost everything to her. Out of anger and jealousy I decided she did not deserve to be happy.”

She told me she knew that people thought of her as a killer and that she needed to give her life to God. I got the chance to express my forgiveness to her verbally and physically, in front of my aunt. But I was wondering how Katy felt. She cried as she heard this woman—who had so strenuously denied any involvement in her mother's death for so long—finally confess to the truth.

After a year the woman became sick and died and was buried in the same garden as Peninah. And so both of Eric's first two wives died as born-again Christians.

As so many of my family became Christians, there was great change in the village. So many people had been involved in this story of hatred and abuse, murder and denial, that when God rolled away our stone there was a sort of holy chaos that followed.

I talk a lot about revolutionary forgiveness because that is the best way I can think of to describe what happened to me. A revolution is a fundamental change that turns things upside down, something that affects not just individuals but also the wider community. Today in my home region, there are clear signs that things have changed. Domestic violence, especially against children, has decreased. The place is full of living testimonies, walking symbols of the power of forgiveness. Many, many teenagers have been completely transformed; they know that tough times come and go but that they can stand and be somebody. They see that Christianity has something to do with changing people's lives for the better. They expect to make a difference, not just carry on as before except with a slightly better record of church attendance. They are hungry for change and look to God to instigate it.

In my life and ministry, I have seen so many people in spiritual bondage due to bitterness, blame, and unforgiveness. It is not uncommon to find people harassed by demons because of bitterness in their hearts. After all, bitterness is also known in the Bible as spiritual poison: “For I perceive that thou art in the gall [poison] of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23).

Unforgiveness not only gives demons the right or ability to torment us, but it also prevents God from forgiving our own sins. Now this is serious, for if we cry out for God's help with unforgiveness in our hearts, He looks down and sees our sins before Him. Unforgiveness puts up a wall in our relationship with our heavenly Father. Jesus was very clear that if we are to be forgiven, we cannot be unforgiving toward others: “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:15).

We need to give to God the things that belong to Him. Unforgiveness is actually removing something that belongs to God and taking matters into our own hands. God's Word tells us clearly that we should allow God to bring His wrath upon that person and let Him have the room to repay those who wrong us. Romans 12:19 says, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Those who have wronged us will reap what they sow. If you choose to forgive somebody, he may be off your hook, but that does not mean he is off God's. God's Word tells us clearly that what we sow we shall reap: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

Unforgiveness is actually a form of hate against another person. If a person hates somebody, it is a sign that the person lacks love in his heart. Why? He is not firmly rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, and Christ's love is not flowing through him. As simple as that sounds, that is how it works. What somebody may have done against us is one thing, but if you take Satan's bait of unforgiveness to heart, it will do much more harm than that person did. Do you want to continue to allow someone else's mess to trouble you even more? Has there not been enough damage? Allowing yourself to hang on to hard feelings and become bitter only causes your wound to become even more infected spiritually. Honestly ask yourself, what good is it doing you to hold on to the hurt and bitterness that the Enemy has tried to plant within you? It is doing nothing but harm and is holding you in bondage spiritually. The only reason you are holding on to those feelings is because it feels good inside. Do not let this poison fool you.