I was in primary five and Simon was in primary six when mom got a job as a cleaner in a secondary school, a church friend had taken her there. The school job would provide more money for school. Simon was joining his last class of the primary level, which needed money. I was a smart kid in school and I impressed teachers with my performances. I would miss school for a month and still come back and top the class. This was a gift that God has placed in me. I wrote a math paper in primary five and got 96%. This impressed our math teacher and he bought me a school uniform because I had none. This was my first school uniform and the excitement of now feeling that your a complete student. After classes, we started going to help mom with sweeping the school since it had many classes. Simon got done with his primary level in 2008 and this was a year when mom started aging. She couldn’t do much of the sweeping work. She could have a lot of back pain. We committed ourselves to do all the sweeping of all the jobs that she had and we asked her to stay at home because she was all we had left.
Sweeping For Money
With the money from the sweepings, Simon was able to join his first class of his secondary level. I was in primary seven by then and I had won the attention of the director of the school who made me study my last primary class for free. I was to study for free and that made us save money and Simon was able to go to school. The only thing we promised ourselves was that even if all of us do not go to the next level , one would go and save the rest of the family. We lost the job at the school because the administration had decided that the kids do the cleaning themselves. We didn’t know where the money for Simon’s next class would come and where my next education lied. We had to leave all that in the hands of the Lord.
During my primary seven, I really wanted so much to understand the world outside. At that age, after my primary level, I spent a lot of time going to other people’s houses to watch television. I did this as a hobby. I had thirst to understand the life beyond my otherwise simple, lonely and humble upbringing in a single confined room. I knew less about the land of the free and the home of the brave. I got to know about the Statue of Liberty at that time- which is one of the places I really want to visit some day. It was during this period of thirst for knowledge that I got familiar with the word ‘Mzungu’ it was an African word to describe a white person. We only knew that every mzungu was an American. We didn’t know that there were other white people who were not Americans.
I asked myself what white really mean. The white people were not as white as the papers we write on. When you heard children shouting ‘Mzungu Mzungu’, you would be sure that the whites are on board. You then be sure that you were going to have a sweet (a piece of candy) a photo taken, and the good scent of the white skin.
Protective Dad
It was one afternoon when we got to hear that noise from the kids. Simon and I ran to join the kids. A group of whites had come in the village. We ran in order to get a sweet because a sweet in the shops would cost you carrying a 20 liter jerrycan from a well. Simon was very stubborn and immediately connected with the group. I, being shy, stood at a distance. Simon connected with a one Mzungu who had the same confusing white skin. Simon later learnt that he was called Charlie Brewer. He had not come for adventure, not for fun, but because he was a protective dad. He was a cowboy who had come to protect his daughter Lashae Bowen. Her thirst to know more about the Lord had increased and she wanted to go wherever God would send her. She was invited by her Aunt Shauna and Uncle Justin, who had adopted a son in Uganda . She wanted to go but she had to talk to her parents first because she was under her parent’s roof and not done with high school. She was then sent on the trip with her dad and that’s how Charlie ended up in Uganda. Charlie came to take back his daughter by being a cowboy in Uganda. Simon then connected with him. In the middle of their movements around the village, Simon got his only childhood country boy photo and gave it to Charlie before their departure. This photo must have spoken a lot to him.
Mzungu Cowboy – African in White Skin
Sometimes we see things and have the desire to know more about them. I watched movies which had the Statue of Liberty, the Capital Building and other important buildings in America and always have the desire of wanting to see and know more about them. Charlie must have felt the same. He must have got the desire to know more about the country boy with his ‘and me’ slogan. The Mzungu, the cowboy, the protective dad layer became a ray of hope, a source of joy, a definition of love and an African in white skin.
Trusting The Lord
When my primary seven results came back, I had passed and the school awarded me with Ugandan Shillings 300000(about $100). This gave us hope to enroll me to the next level of education. I used the money to buy scholastic material and a uniform. Simon was already in his second class of the level. We didn’t know where the schools fees would come from. Mom told us to go and only trust in the Lord for provision. We thought we would only resort to these usual days of going to school and being sent back and then go right back. We didn’t know where school fees would come from because there was no source of it at home.
When you hear many quotes, they speak to your life. The quote ‘when you’re up to nothing, God is up to something ‘ was a strong quote . And then I get to remember the biblical Isaiah saying, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
These two were speaking directly to us. When we were up to nothing, God spoke to Isaiah and had promised that he would make a way. And he did. In Lashae’s own words, “The rest is history.”
This could be the beginning of our journey in high school and the next chapters of our life. We received a visitor at school who said he had a message for us. He was sent by Charlie who paid all our school dues . He promised that he would take care of my education and he did. He became our dad and made sure we went to the best schools we didn’t think of joining. He became faithful with helping us, introduced us to his wife -Jenay Brewer and we became family. God has come to our rescue and gave us clear visions of our life. We began a life of hoping for a better life tomorrow.
Hope Is Found
These are the ways I see how God has was real to me and how he continues to be good to me. He is as faithful as he says so. Sometimes I look at myself and think; if it really wasn’t the grace of God; where would I be? I walk in the community I grew up from everyday, and ask myself, where will all this people find hope? Then, I remember my life and I come to the conclusion that; the Hope is there and it has never changed because that Hope is found in Jesus Christ. He’s showed me unconditional love and acceptance. When I thought of a biological mom, who is not there anymore, God said: I, the Lord makes it happen. He brought me a mom from a black skin and a mom from a white skin. How much more do I need to ask for. Sometimes I sit down and wonder, when everyone and every friend hugs their biological parents and wishes them a happy Mother’s Day or Father’s Day and I feel sadness . But God continues to give me the courage that he is the Father to the fatherless and Mother to those that do not have. He continues to remind me everyday that he has put people in this world to love me for who I am, and to prepare me for who I am meant to be.
