Uganda God's Generals: Professor Simeon Kayiwa

 

Professor Simeon Kayiwa

“The man who met Jesus”

“Teacher, pray for me, please, I need a camera real badly.” Easy for you to guess why he wanted one, he had a girlfriend. It was maybe not a good thing, but if he saw the miracle, he might revise his unwise relationship. He learned something that day, that it is not just the big things we ask God for; He is interested in the small details as well as the big picture.  

 

He said to Mwesezi, “That you may know I saw Jesus, go to Katwe town, (a mile away) and stand by the main road and wait. There you will get money for purchase of the camera.” To Professor Simeon that is how Jesus in the Bible works. There was no other way for him except to do things His way. So John went to Katwe and waited. Sort of ridiculous, but he went to Katwe any way!

Maybe it was not Mwesezi who really caused Simeon’s expulsion from yet another job. He had been let go from his earlier job at Wampewo Secondary School where Jesus had appeared to him. People had seen John Mwesezi talking to the headmaster but whatever he might have discussed he was not sure the two had bonded over the issue of his sanity. Was he about to lose another job for doing a miracle at this Muslim school?

Tick, tock, tick, tock, went the clock at the Katwe Queen Elizabeth Clock Tower. As he stood there, an old lorry carrying sacks of peanuts turned up, zigzagging unsteadily as it negotiated a sharp road bend. Then, with a loud crash, it finally fell almost belly-up, with a loud noise of engine screaming. In minutes the lorry was turned into a twisted mass of metal and sharp wooden bars and sacks of peanuts fell everywhere. Happily both the driver and passenger survived.

   

Simeon’s little pupil’s coffee-coloured body was covered in sweat due to the hot evening sun as he struggled to help the driver with the sacks of peanuts as looters competed with to run away with some of them. The warm clothes were too much to wear any more, he tore his shirt off as the driver made a desperate appeal to the public not to steal any more of his sacks.

There was confusion all over. One thief ran off with a bag on his head shouting ‘thief to divert attention from what he was doing!’ the police turned to calm the situation down. The driver decided to reward his Good Samaritan.

After helping so many sacks up, the lorry driver rewarded Mwesezi with a sack of peanuts! Sweaty but laughing happily, Mwesezi carried it on his shoulders and sold it to a shopkeeper right across the road. He was so surprised to get so much money.

He walked into a nearby shop where he brought his so much desired camera! The happy boy then sped back to school like an Olympic runner to tell his teacher of this miracle.

Many students rushed to Simeon for these new Jesus’ things. Among them were staunch Muslims, which embarrassed the headmaster. They were soon drawing a crowd and people started to worry that Idi Amin’s secret police would get to hear. This was a dilemma for Twaha, a friend and a Muslim. Uganda had been officially declared a Muslim state. So with much regret, Twaha terminated Simeon’s employment promising to help him in other ways as a friend. Worse still, he did not pay his salary. He said there was no money on the school account.

Empty-handed, Simeon walked away, leaving Mwesezi and the other Christians somewhat confused. There were also two girls, Allen and Nambi who watched a friend, go, go and go away for good. A few books in his satchel, out of the school compound he went, the sad faces of his lovely students, fixed onto the school gate that closed with him outside. It was like a funeral. He had been discarded, as if he no longer existed, no money in his pocket, not enough even to buy his supper.

Professor Simeon Kayiwa was born in the middle of nowhere, Gomba District, in Uganda and it’s where for 13 years he lived. It seems he could not reason passed that little Gomba mentality box in order to see the all universe ruler called God. Living in a small no - where village can kill big imaginations. It’s where for 13 years he lived while attending Kasaka Primary School. From that several people who were born there, grew old there and died there but had never had a chance to travel outside the district. People of that district would long for secondary education and despaired of ever hoping to get fees to go to the university. He was lucky that his father was a teacher and his mother a hardworking farmer. His school was paid for then by his mother.

His parents wished him a good future

During Simeon’s teenage years, a heaven – promised survival of human beings sounded a far – fetched implausible myth to him. He could not buy into that. If God really existed, he thought, He might just have made Uganda and other happier places to live in on the same day, but it made no sense to Simeon all the while many hopelessly wounded people were dying daily on the streets of Kampala. While people in other countries enjoyed their lives, Simeon witnessed many perishing through neglect. In hospitals unattended to patients remained doubled up in agony awaiting release into future bliss. Uganda was a story of humanity that had lost its fight for survival, all hopes dashed…

Simeon believed there was a God while at the same time he wanted to continue drinking heavily. Drinking made him friends, it made him feel frisky, buried unwanted feelings and he would dance, speak freely and feel a real man. These happy feelings aided him to continue craving for drink and cigarettes and of course women to make him feel good and handsome. Simeon’s parents were decent and holy and did not want him ruining his life with bad habits. A man and Simeon’s family were apprehensive of what would happen if they did not get him a doctor. Simeon did not let them do this to him although truly, his thoughts were a mumbo-jumbo of philosophy, religious half-truth and emotional hurts.  Probably for lack of anything better to do, he thought, like his parents urged him, should he have tried and know God more? But no, he chose to drown his fears and anxiety to quite the bad habits.

Four years after the death of Simeon’s mother he got a visitation. He was a temporary Literature and Art teacher at Wampewo Secondary, a dirty little old school near Kampala City. That is where he was awakened by God’s voice on 22^nd December, 1977.

“Wake up. Read Isaiah 60. Go and bring my people back to Me. Tell them, I am the greatest power in all heaven and earth. Tell them to leave witchcraft and come back to me. I will be with you wherever you go, to perform miracles and wonders, by which people will know that I sent you.”    

Simeon picked up the dusty forgotten Bible which his father had given him when he joined Makerere University and read chapter 60 of the book of Isaiah. Jesus’ name began to occupy his mind.

He was not used to leading people. He had led nothing before except at Secondary School. The only thing he was leading now was a few teachers and his classes. And he was sure they were not led too well. But think of millions to come! His people, He had said! Simeon was still a young man, a Darwinist, barely out of his teens, and had no audience waiting to listen to him.

The words of his aunt

The world was lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, everyone carnal. People had no spiritual life in God. So they had no works of God in their churches, no miracles. Kome bus stage was marked by a red anthill near an old man’s home, the late Sembatya. In a Uganda with so much bloodshed, the Kome village and the Gomba district were striking noticeable as characterized by many old men and women who were still alive. They were all poor. Government soldiers had nothing to steal from their houses. So, there was little else reason for them to be attacked. So, Sembatya too was alive. Simeon remembered him very well, a man who smiled a lot, with no teeth in his mouth! He knew him since a boy because of a little shop nearby which they frequented. It belonged to an outstanding stammerer called Mr. Emmanuel Mulyabigambo. Sembatya used to tease him. And Mulyabigambo, looking at his smiling teased Sembatya back!

Simeon was sort of the lost sheep of God that made his father and maternal aunt, Mrs. Sonko had been worried. She was one of his late mother’s best friends. She was one of his late mother’s best friends. She was like their mother, because she and his late mama were intimate friends. So, he decided to tell her his story which his father knew nothing about. At that time, a core member of the church at Kasaka, would have none of that. So, he had not told him about it.

Simeon had seen Jesus and he told her what He said to him. He had begun to perform some miracles. He had given him His divine power. And what a strange story it was to her ears! He was amazed that she believed him without any reservation.

But her sister in Kampala had not believed him. When he told her of it she told him he needed to see a doctor.

That conversation was too high for that deeply religious aunt of his. To her faith meant:

“Never say you saw Jesus on earth anywhere. It is impossible. God cannot do it? You will see Him in heaven, don’t worry! But in this country many people had lost hope in God and had no interest in biblical quotations. To her faith meant: “Never say you saw Jesus on earth anywhere. It is impossible. God cannot do it? You will see Him in heaven if you like.

Her daughter being a doctor, she had probably heard of a mental health problem called delusion of grandeur. It may develop from exaggerated emotion. Maybe due to stress or inferiority complex. So, in defense of the mind against low self-esteem and depression one develops a new feeling. He says He is God or develops other false beliefs that he is a genius, has wealth or possesses superior qualities. So for Simeon to say he had seen Jesus was too high for her to believe.

Very honest view, but it was not high for Mrs. Sonko.

“My son I hear no lies in your voice. You are going to be a very famous person. But for the moment, keep it to yourself. We are in a dark, dark country. It is suicidal these days to talk about Jesus.” (Dictator Amin had banned Christian faiths).

Simeon saw tears in her huge white eyes, which was as if wishing that his mother had not died 4 years back. “But”, she almost quietly sneezed “Hmm,” and said “the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death the light has dawned (Matthew 4:16).

So his aunt told him he had to keep it to himself, because the president wanted everybody to be Muslims; if not, nothing!

Speak to the mango tree

During the days of civil unrest after the overthrow of Idi Amin, the Namirembe Christian Fellowship met in a flimsy compound surrounded by papyrus reed fencing. It was certainly not the strength of building materials and design of fortification that led so many people to shelter with them for security. Professor Simeon often did not know how he was going to feed everyone. Even the water supply was uncertain. Local militia would often shoot at those who went to the wells to replenish supplies and as for running water out of a trap, that sophistication of infrastructure had long since been sabotaged. Everyday some Good Samaritans would volunteer to risk their lives to fill a few jerricans. It was in the altogether more ramshackle accommodation.

There were around four hundred and fifty of them living in these conditions. They had at one time only a meager supply of fish, which was passed its best and well on the way to rotting, and a quantity of old, stale maize which he was extremely grateful for, supplied by the local Anglican Bishop. Many of the children had diarrhea. They had no medicines, no hospital or medical help available. They had to look to God for healing as the only recourse left to them. What was needed were not sweet words from the preacher, but the hand of God demonstrating the power of His will. The whole of Uganda was overcome daily by what you may call ‘the gates of hell’. It would look as though God had totally abandoned our country to the worst excuses of evil.                           

Buildings were on fire all over the city, resembling the very appearance of hell itself. The rule of the gun was supreme. Any right-thinking person was incensed with anger at the wanton destruction forced on them by ignorant soldiery working out their frustration on the other people’s property, all so a few vain men could exert their authority and call themselves Head of State.

One afternoon, Professor Simeon went to see how people in the Fellowship Hall were coping with the rotten fish, mouldy maize flour, an army of mosquitoes, the sleepless nights from lack of bedding and noise of gunfire. Though he thought the meagre food and lack of facilities very poor hospitality, these people were amazingly grateful for this level of luxury. Tears flowed freely in that place, his too, as he looked at the sorrowing group of people of God had entrusted to his care. Professor Simeon met the eye of one mother. Her child had not eaten for thirty hours. The water they had allocated for washing she regarded as too precious to use for this purpose. She had boiled it in a small saucepan and was giving it to her baby for lunch. They both could not bear the pain in each other’s eyes and looked away quickly. Those eyes seemed to tear at him with such intensity; they reached through space as a direct prayer to the Almighty. He went outside to pray.   

   With such urgency his prayer went something like this,

‘Do not expect me to wait, O Lord. I am not knocking at Your gates and waiting for permission to speak. I’m sorry; I have to burst in to tell You these ordeals of mine.’

Professor Simeon heard Jesus speak to the innermost part of his heart. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move. He didn’t stop to analyse whether it made sense or not. He knew it was the voice of Jesus using His authority to loose a blessing over His suffering people. The voice was shaking and breaking the foundation of the gates of hell. It was the voice of He who is the A to Z of life, the beginning of history, the Master of the future, even of Uganda’s future. He prayed on.                                    

‘Stop praying, speak to the mango tree,’

He commanded him.

There was a large mango tree, owned by his neighbor, just outside the compound, which hardly ever fruits. They had not seen any crop from it in years, and even later since thing had settled down it had again reverted to a purely decorative state. Anyway, he spoke to the tree, ‘Listen to the Word of God, produce mangoes!’ He declared.

There was not a mango in sight at that moment, but he was praising God for mangoes as if they were a reality you could touch or feel.

A week later the tree was covered in white flowers. It was as if the tree had heard his words and was smiling encouragement at him. Another week and there was ripe fruit. His hungry people ate and ate. It fruited regularly until the war ended in 1986. It has not fruited since.