From Fear to Freedom: Christopher’s Story

Apr 1, 2020 1262

From Fear To Freedom: Christopher’s Story

Christopher is a 19 year old, Senior 6 student at Merryland High School in Entebbe, Uganda, where I am currently volunteering as a part time worker. He was baptised during the school’s 2018 annual Week of Spiritual Emphasis.

Chris hails from a well to do family. His father is a General in the UPDF Army of Uganda and his mother is a successful businesswoman in Kampala. Chris is the first born in a family of four children and therefore carries a big burden on his shoulders to set a good example to his siblings. Chris had not attended church before until he joined the Merryland High School where church attendance is mandatory. Therefore, his understanding of Christianity largely depended on what he would be taught at the school.

A few weeks into my ministry in this school, Chris was brought to my attention by his class teacher. The teacher, Mr Runda John, expressed his fear that Chris was becoming some sought of a religious extremist. According to the teacher, the boy had shut himself off from social life at the school. After his baptism, Chris narrated, he had been introduced to intensive Bible studies and specifically into the books of Daniel and Revelation. The idea that God would send to hell all those who did not keep the law properly as taught by his Bible teachers had terrorised the young’s man’s spirit so much that a number of other teachers had begun to complain about his newly found faith.

Christopher no longer went to spend time with his peers at school. At home, his father, after noticing the strange change in his only son, had threatened to transfer him to another school in effort to keep him away from the new religion that was beginning to forge him into something he didn’t want in his home.

He confessed that he had finally discovered the true Gospel.

I begun doing Bible studies with Christopher 3 months ago. I started with the books of Daniel and Revelation, that he had been studying, and sought to draw out the themes of God’s love as opposed to terror. I noticed that he was holding onto perfectionist beliefs thanks to his teachers, so I took him back to the book of Genesis and then to Romans and showed him the seriousness of the fall and what it takes to restore man to his rightful state. Every week I would meet with him in my office where I would try to teach him about the grace of God.

Although in the beginning Christopher was defensive, by the grace of God with time he humbled himself and started weighing out his legalism against the Gospel. But this was not until I gave him a copy of the book “Jesus Only” which, to my surprise, he finished reading in just three days. It was jubilation when he came to return the book in high spirits. He confessed that he had finally discovered the true Gospel.

Christopher is now a changed man in his understanding of the Gospel and he is not ashamed to share the Good News with his fellow students. He sends his gratitude to GNU for making it possible for him and others to discover the true message of the Bible. He says “I am no longer a slave to fear” thanks to GNU.

– Pr Bonifresh Muhollo

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