Andrew’s parents died from HIV/AIDS when he was just a very small child. He has a photo of his father, but he cannot remember what his mother looks like. He does not know in what year he was born and so all timings in this story are estimates. He thinks that he is now nineteen.
Anyway, back to the story; his grandmother took him in. She was not strong enough to protect Andrew from his father’s brothers, who wanted him dead so that they could take his inherited property, since Andrew was an only child. At seven years old, fearing for his life, he climbed underneath a large truck and hid in the storage section built into the chassis, until it reached a big city. That city was the capital and he had ridden precariously for almost eighty miles on dangerous roads.
Andrew found his way around the city, but felt the brunt of the competition among kids on the streets. It was hard to break into the pecking order. Eventually, a boy befriended him and took him to the city drains, where they slept at night. He remembers that after many months they heard a very loud rushing sound one night higher up the drainage system. It was a flash flood from rains somewhere in the city and they were violently flushed out into the main channel going to the lake. They were found unconscious with human feices filling their mouths. People fished them out, thinking they were dead.
He was a very unhappy boy and couldn’t settle anywhere, being shunted from one area to another by bullies on the streets. When he was eleven years old, he tried to commit suicide. He took a rope to the shores of Lake Victoria to try and hang himself from a tree. The place he went to early in the morning was a landing sight for fishing boats and a fisherman, thinking he was coming to steal something, chased him away. He tried again some time later on another section of the lakeshore. He climbed the tree and stepped onto the branch to tie the rope, but the branch snapped off, plunging him to the ground, breaking his wrist in the process. He wrapped a cloth around his wrist, but he couldn’t make a third attempt until it had healed. He showed me the wrist and it definitely was a bad break and an unprofessional mend. Clearly, God had plans for him to live.
From around twelve years, Andrew joined a gang of street boys who taught him how to pickpocket, and they would also break into houses and steal gadgets to sell on the streets. By this time he was also an habitual smoker of marijuana. One day they entered a house illegally, not realizing there was a security guard asleep outside. Andrew was the designated lookout. The guard woke up and shot his friend in the chest while climbing back over the wall. He died instantly. The gang blamed Andrew for their friend’s death and were ready to kill him. Andrew continued with the gang, but shortly afterwards he was arrested and taken to a notorious “rehabilitation centre” for children, well known to be a prison for unwanted street kids. Andrew somehow managed to escape from the “prison” and ran to Mbarara, fearing that his life in Kampala was at risk from the gang and the police. By this time he was about fourteen years old.
Not long after reaching Mbarara, Pastor Willy had started his tours of the streets, visiting street kids, sharing his testimony and offering a better life for those who wanted to try. Andrew was suspicious of Willy, seeing him very thin and assuming that he was about to die of AIDS. In fact Pastor Willy fasts and prays a lot and is naturally slight of build. The name of the church also put them off, “Holy Spirit Fire Church”. They thought they were going to be burned alive, since that had literally happened to a congregation just a few years prior in another part of south-west Uganda.
Despite these irrational obstructions, Andrew took a
step and entered the church property to see what was going on. He began to live
there and gradually humbled himself under the Word and saw it changing him. He
went on missions with Pastor Willy, and even some Missionary Ventures
teams. He began to perform songs about
the change God was making in his life.
He started preaching to others on the streets and is now a fiery
evangelist. He tells me, “I am now a
responsible person; working praying and preaching.”
Pastor Willy recently gave him a loan to buy a motorcycle. He is now has a motorcycle taxi business, known as “boda-boda” (literally border-border, meaning “A to B”). He has now moved out of the church and into his own room in town and is gladly tithing. His mudguard says, “Yesu Naamara” (Jesus is enough) and “God is able”. There is no doubt that Andrew understands and stands by these two statements of faith.
Andrew went back to his village to share the Gospel with his grandmother, who accepted and believed. She died recently, happily knowing that her grandson is alive and transformed by Jesus. Ironically, all Andrew’s uncles are now dead and buried on the same land. There are over ten graves he says. Andrew has been given back his father’s land by the local authorities and he intends to return to the village of his birth and plant a church. What a wonderful story of extravagant, redemptive love from Father God, who never took his eye off his son, Andrew.
Missionary Ventures is involved with the education of the younger boys at the Trust Children's Centre. Young men like Andrew need our prayers that God will continue his transforming work in their hearts, and give them that special opportunity they so desperately need to live meaningful adult lives. Not all children survive the cruelty of street life, but those who are kept by Jesus go on, with a glorious story of redemption following them throughout their lives; Andrew being one of them. God is still rescuing people from destruction, giving them hope and a future.