The phone was ringing; it was 2:56 AM … the words had to be repeated several times before I could comprehend what was being said-”Papa, Papa, this is Patrick, sorry to wake you Papa, but Pastor Joseph passed away in the night !!!” The rest of the conversation was short as Patrick and others were hurrying to go to the village. Apparently Joseph had become violently ill during the night; and by the time they could get him to a hospital, he was gone.
From time to time you have the rare privilege of meeting and working with a person of extraordinary spirituality; one who has learned how to walk with God closer than most and who served Him with an uncommon humility. From the first time I met this little African man (he only stood about 5 feet tall) – I thought I had met Jesus in skin.
Pastor Jospeph Sekyanzi, a humble servant of the King of Kings, a man who, because of the bigness of his heart and his love for Jesus, took in kids who were abandoned and gave them a home and loved them and raised them as his own and taught them to love Jesus deeply. On the day of Joseph’s death, I was told that the children never stopped singing, praying, and worshiping – these children are truly amazing!!! (more…)
No record of exactly how many children we were helping, of which children went to which schools, who he may have owed money to, what he had promised to whom, who had been paid for what, etc etc. So when my friend died, tons of information died with him. So, the week was a sort of triage treasure hunt filled with one surprise after another, which then called for one “battle field decision” after another. The challenge was to discover and reconstruct all of the above, get all of the children back in their respective schools, with all of the supplies they needed (which had to be figured out and done in a matter of a few days!); and then, before departing, make sure there was a transition plan in place that would get us through the next three to six months in a reasonably stable fashion.