Not Quite Finished

A Modern Day Job

I first met Wycliffe when we moved to Nairobi. We tried to access the southern part of Sudan from Khartoum to work with the Dinka people, but due to the ongoing civil war (the second of two 20 year wars) that was not possible. We tried several times, with a lot of promises, yet in the end none of the promises came though. Because our daughter was already going to school in Kenya and we found a great school for our son, the move was an easy one. It was going to require a lot of travel in and out of southern Sudan and at the same time there would be many benefits for our family.

One of the first things we did when we found a house to live in (in Runda), was to seek out a gardener/gate man. Our property had so very many beautiful plants, trees, and flowers that it was going to take someone in a full-time position to manage all of it. Since we had been to Nairobi numerous times and had attended the Parklands Baptist Church each time we got to know the pastor and assistant pastor there. Simon was the latter of the two as well as the one in charge of their missions programs. 

In a conversation with him one Sunday I mentioned our need for a gardener and he immediately popped up with Wycliffe’s name. He gave us a summary of his background and told us a bit about his family. It was all very encouraging. That very same week we had our first meeting with Wiki and were very impressed. He was quiet (I liked that) and quite studious with the Bible. It was an easy hire – especially knowing that Simon knew him, and if anything went sour there would be an intervenor who would help us out.

In his early weeks with us Wiki turned our property into a beautiful and picturesque landscape, and it stayed that way the whole time we lived there. He was faithful in attending his church (a plant from the Parklands church) and helping them to grow. We often had some great spiritual conversations that always helped me grow in my cultural understanding of how a foreign culture looks at passages differently than we westerners do. Wiki would always help me with my Swahili speaking – especially after coming out of Sudan. Because the two languages have a lot of similarity I would often switch in the middle of a sentence and not know it.

During our first year there Wiki’s wife was pregnant with their second child when some serious issues arose and they took her to a government hospital – where they did very little, if anything, for her. We all thought that she was going to die if she stayed there so we quickly arranged for them to transfer to a private missions hospital where she finally got the care that she needed. They wound up saving her life. And that was just the first of a string of incidents that this modern day Job went through.. 

In 2006, after our son graduated secondary school, we made the permanent move to South Sudan. I built a home for us in the bush about 1.5 hours up the road from Akot where we had established the base of our work there. As we were planning the move Wiki came to me one day and said he wanted to go with me to be a part of the mission work. My first response, and several more after that, was “no”, that is a very tough place to go and you have a wife and children that you cannot leave. But Wiki was insistent and persistent and continued to make it known to me that he should come along. Well, after much prayer and a few months of his constant questions, we worked out a plan for him to join us. 

He was going to have to come by bus, from his home in western Kenya through Uganda and up through southern Sudan (where a really bad guy named Joseph Kony was leading a band of rebels at that time). It would take him about three days, all kinds of paperwork, and a lot of patience to reach us. Well, that first trip did not go as any of us had planned. Somewhere in Uganda, the bus they were traveling on was hijacked by bandits and they stole everything that Wiki had with him – clothes, computer, money, etc. I can’t remember how he even made it up to us but on the date he was supposed to arrive he didn’t show up. Two days, then three days, concern growing, prayers being lifted up more often, and still not even a word from Wiki. About five days later he makes it to our compound and tells us the incredible story of his journey (of which I have only written a paragraph). At that point I’m thinking that he is just going to ask me for a ticket back home and we’ll never see him again. How wrong those thoughts were. 

But this is only the beginning of his story in southern Sudan. 

Then there was the time, a couple of years later, when Wiki needed to go back to see his family in Kenya and once again, the bus he was on in Uganda was overtaken by bandits. Somehow Wiki managed to escape from them and headed off into the bush of Uganda. He spent several days wandering around, trying to find his way to a border crossing into Kenya. No food, no water, no nothing. But miraculously the Holy Spirit guided him through that maze of bush and he eventually made his way home. 

One time while I was away from our property in South Sudan, Wycliffe had his motorcycle right beside his house. Our compound was fenced in but thieves some how removed the wire and stole his bike during the night. People knew who it was (we traced the tracks to the house), as there were not that many motorbikes in South Sudan at that time, but the police never did anything to return it to him. He then had to use a bicycle to go the 5 km into town.

Another time when Wiki’s wife got sick with a breast cancer infection he had to sell more than half of his land around his house to pay the bills. That turned out to not be enough so he wound up selling the motorbike that he owned at that time to pay the mounting bills. Turns out that was still not enough and we intervened to help them finish up the payments.

Then there was the time in 2012 when Wiki’s first-born, Helen Grace, was about to graduate from university. He had only been living back in Kenya for about a year and a half. Helen was studying to be a secondary school teacher when she contracted meningitis, a very serious malady and one that requires immediate medical care, and passed away while on oxygen. As we were living in a different country at that time, the news of her death was very sad to us. To Wiki and his wife, their firstborn and only daughter dying was a crushing blow.

When Corona happened all over the world, things were very bad in Kenya because there were no meds there for the virus. Wiki and his wife’s oldest son contracted the virus and he went into the hospital where there were many others. After a few days he died and Wiki sent us a message about it (Again, we lived in another country at that time). As they were taking his body home to bury him they got word that a second son had contracted the virus. We quickly sent them some funds to get the second one to a hospital that had the means to care for Corona and by the grace of God, he survived.

Just this past year his youngest son was attending college in western Kenya and living in the dorms there. There was a group of youth who were Satanic worshippers and they kidnapped four of the college students. Wiki and his wife did not know this at the time it happened but once it was revealed they began looking for their son. One day, about five days later, they found him in the middle of a road, badly beaten and very near to death. It turns out that their son needed to have emergency brain surgery – which lasted twelve hours – for him to survive. He made it through the surgery and is today back in college. Some of the reasons we are praising God for that (and there are many more reasons) was that two of the kidnapped students died at the hands of their captors. Another reason is that God provided in an amazing way through friends of ours that have been on our prayer warrior team for years. When Wiki told me how much he still had to pay the hospital (thousands), a day later our friends called and asked me if there was any urgent needs that I knew of. I said there was one and told them the story of what happened. When I asked them how much they wanted to give it was the exact amount that he told me was needed. Literally to the dollar.

Then there is this past week. Wiki’s wife had a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital by an ambulance. She managed to survive and was recently released but while Wiki was at the hospital caring for her, his motorbike was stolen from outside the hospital! That makes two stolen and one sold. And I’m not making this up!

As I type this Wiki is still caring for his wife, who has not fully recovered yet from her heart attack. She is still unable to speak with any clarity and Wiki is quite busy giving her all the attention she needs.

All of this story happened to a man whose faith in God, just like Job’s, has never wavered. Yes, he has often asked the “why me, why now” questions to his Master, but his faith in the Almighty has stayed firm and the rocky foundation that he lives by has seen him though all these experiences. This is a man who left the work in South Sudan when we did in 2010, and went back to Kenya and planted a church that he still leads today. He even planted a second church which is still meeting today. A man who has never had more that a few dollars to his name, yet has watched God provide at every crossroad. A man that I’m sure God is building a mighty fine mansion for in heaven. Maybe he’ll let me stay in one of his rooms…