This report was done following a telephone conversation with Thomas on 2nd February.
When I spoke to Thomas, he was at home in their house in Jinja but was going to Koboko that night for final prayers for his son, Taban Emmanuel. Taban was brutally murdered recently while carrying out ministry in northern Uganda. He was working with poor people in an agricultural area at the time. He has since been buried in Jinja.
There has been no progress or resolution of the murder. There is an investigation underway, but the key person needed to provide eyewitness evidence seems to have disappeared. Apparently they saw the criminals carrying Taban’s body following the murder.
Thomas said “generally we are hurting, especially me, I get broken every day. I cannot imagine that my son, so loving who does not wish to see someone mistreated or suffering, has died in the hands of murderous people, died in the field and in our efforts to transform the lives of the poor. I have many questions in my mind which continue to pain me. Thanks to Bright Hope for being with me in this unbearable hurting moment."
He told me that Joyce was okay, but in his words, “more stronger” then he is. Every day he feels the pain of the loss of their son and is heartbroken by it. He is aware that the Holy Spirit is with him but knows that he cannot bring him back. Taban was 30 years old when he was murdered. He graduated from university in 2015.
Thomas said that the churches in Koboko wanted to support him and Joyce, particularly because he had taken such a responsibility and had such an impact in the northern Uganda area. I have attached photographs which have come in from Thomas of the ceremony and celebration of Taban’s life. Thomas expected approximately 500 people for the gathering, and it appears from the photographs that many people came to offer support and care. This ceremony took place some weeks after the actual burial and Koboko is several hours by bus north of Jinja.
Thomas greatly appreciates the fact that Bright Hope has stood with him, but he had no idea that there would be so much suffering around the loss of someone so close to him.
To cap it all off, Thomas has also been in hospital with malaria, typhoid, and ulcers, and was only released the week before I spoke to him.
Uganda has not yet fully opened internationally again and there has been a huge amount of suffering in the country. Thomas says that the situation is not improving and that many businesses have closed. Many institutions are also really struggling and only just surviving. Even though things are open again everyone is required to wear masks in closed places. The same goes for schools and other institutions so this is making life very difficult.
No members of his church or ministry have had COVID. The difficulty is that there have been members who have been sick or have died, or have had to isolate, and he has wondered when some of them have died, or had to isolate, whether possibly they had COVID, but he simply cannot tell. They have certainly lost two or three old people, but it could have been simply natural causes.
The vocational training money has been received and applied to the support of the vocational training students who are doing well. He finds the vocational training students to be a really good group of people. He told about those presently or recently in medical training. There are two in training at present. Of the graduates, one South Sudanese refugee is working in Dubai, and one other (Simon Taban) is working in a refugee camp in South Sudan (Juba). There is another graduate working in a medical hospital in Jinja (Nancy Agino who I think we have reported on previously). Another graduate (Wacol John) is working in a technical medical area (I think a laboratory) and Susan Abai is nursing. He says that their graduates always get a job. This is a great testimony.
Thomas did not mention the loan programme during this conversation. Previously he had indicated that there were still some remaining members, who were being faithful and were making repayments. It might be appropriate to possibly look at a small amount of reseeding funds for this loan programme but I will endeavour to get an updated report on this in the first instance. I did, however, indicate to Thomas that we would inevitably be looking at changing to a table banking programme here rather than continuing with the existing process. It may be reseeding into this to get it started though once there has been some training.
I still see that there is a really important role for Thomas in promoting Foundations for Farming. I am hopeful that he will continue to do this training once he moves through the grief process. He is certainly starting to talk about that.
There is so much insecurity in Uganda at present. Neither Thomas nor Joyce have a job (Joyce lost her job with the American ministry organisation in Jinja where she worked). Joyce opened a small shop just at the start of the pandemic in a very humble part of town. Because of the lockdown all businesses were closed and there was no way that the business could profit so it is currently not doing very well. However, schools are starting to open, and things are slowly improving. Her business needs capital but there is no profit in the business at present. She does employ a worker though.
Thomas still has lots of ideas about growth and business, particularly in the agricultural industry and working out some form of partnership arrangements. I encouraged him that it was good he was thinking about possibilities for generating income. I did say to him that if he was going to be doing business then there were probably some things that would make a difference. These are things like ensuring that, if there were contractual arrangements, the people who were entering into those arrangements paid in advance. He has been taken advantage of so many times and is actually a very soft-hearted person. I think he is inclined to give the benefit of the doubt and has been taken advantage of. He freely acknowledged that with me.
Thomas interacts a lot with hurting people. He made a comment about the previous trauma training that he had done (UGA04f). He is presently doing some ongoing training and is now finding that some of the training is benefiting himself. He had no idea of the depth of pain and hurt that could be experienced as a result of trauma, and it is helping him to minister more deeply to hurting people.