Bishop Festo
Kivengere
“The
Apostle of love”
The
year in which Bishop Festo Kivengere was never discovered. All that could be
told is that he was born in a kraal full of dying cattle.
In
about 1926 Kivengere’s family moved from their first home and settled on the
tiny hamlet of Kyamakanda.
Don’t you play near the path
One day in 1931, Festo was warned by his parents to
be careful when he took the cows out. ‘‘Don’t you play near the path,’’ his
father questioned him. “Because there is a strange person coming through today,
a powerful woman. We have been hearing about her for one thing she is paid. On
his way to the pasture, Festo’s friends added more lure details about the
mysterious visitor including t
he
alarming details information given as a fact by one boy on the authority of his
friends that she could and did eat people. Boys being boys, however, they
concluded that parental warnings against playing on the path did not prevent them
from hiding in vintage places besides and so they were. That was the first time
in his young life, Festo Kivengere laid his eyes on the European. For the
awesome intruder was not a pink people eater from mars but a fortified year old
English missionary named Constance Hornby. She had already worked in eastern
Uganda for several years, now she was bringing the gospel into an area where it
had not yet gained a foothold.
Constance settled in Yamaganda joining a young
African bible teacher who had come there from Kenya a few months earlier. He
held reading classes for the villagers, young and old. He taught about a God,
who was far more powerful than the dreaded spirits of the rocks and rivers, a
God who had come to earth as a man named Jesus. The people of Yamaganda quickly
displayed thirst for this fascinating new knowledge.
One day Constance welcomed a little girl named Mera
into her reading class. The first missionary did not know that the future
Bishop’s wife was now one of her pupils.
Our
prayers for Festo are answered
One Sunday morning he went to
church to take boys from his school to attend the service. After the first
song, young people were giving their testimonies and people were being
converted even before the preacher began to preach. As usual, he sat at the
back near the door just in case things got hotter as the service went on.
Suddenly his niece too stood up
to speak. She said, "I want you to praise God. The devil has been making
me afraid of telling you what the Lord has done for us. On Friday night the
Lord assured us that our prayers for Festo are answered. And Festo is sitting
in the corner right there, and we know that he is going to come back to the
Lord today."
Festo froze and remained
speechless due to such embarrasment. He moved out of anger and went to his
uncle’s kraal. The two spent the day drinking and mocking the revival. Festo
also planned to come back and make things difficult for his niece who was
foolish enough to embarass him in public.
In the late afternoon, his friend
and fellow teacher Festo Ramunahe pulled up beside him and said, breathlessly,
"Festo! Three hours ago Jesus became a living reality to me. I know my
sins are forgiven!" Ramunahe mentioned three specific things for which he
wanted forgiveness, relating to some questionable things they had done
together.
Ramunahe’s words, and the way he
said them made Festo like a shadow, having seen in his friend the reality he
had missed. Kivengere cycled home utterly miserable and empty.
When Festo reached his room, he
knelt by his bed, struggling for words to the One in whom he no longer
believed. He finally cried out, "God! If You happen to be there, as my
friend says, I am miserable. If You can do anything for me, then please do it
now.
Suddenly, as if in a vision, in front of
him was Jesus hanging on the cross, as clear as anything he had ever seen with
his physical eyes. Festo later described it as Calvary almost as it were up
before him on a screen. He was shattered. For a time it seemed as if there was
no one in the world except that man hanging on the cross. As Festo looked at
him, he did not see just a helpless human being hanging on the cross like a
criminal; he saw God slaughtered for his sin. It was as if He was saying, “This
is how much I love you Festo.”
