Monday, November 6th 2023
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” – (Gal 3:28).
One day while at school a teacher asked a little girl called Dora to name her tribe and clan, just as everyone had. Dora had no idea. Later back home she asked her parents her tribe. They told her to go back and tell the teacher: “Tell them your tribe is Oweishemwa -Born Again; your clan is Okujunwa- Salvation; and your clan taboo is Ekibi-Sin!” The little girl hurried back to class and told the teacher, the same, which made everyone burst into laughter at her innocence.
This girl was the daughter of Erica and Geraldine Sabiti (later the first African Archbishop of Anglican Church in Uganda), who as were many brethren of those days (Abalokole) had their home always filled with people from all the tribes of Uganda. This is why Dora had been so confused.
When he became Prime Minister of Uganda and was asked to share memories of his upbringing, Prof Apolo Nsibambi, happily recalled that at their home headed by Simeon all tribes including many from Rwanda were ever welcome. President Godfrey Binaisa whose father Rev. Anania Binaisa was an evangelist who travelled as far as Sudan to share the Gospel of Christ often shared to this writer that he grew up seeing all tribes visit their home, a common staple for Believers those days.
Today we live in times of tribal and racial divisions, a stronghold that affects even some followers of Christ. Yet might we pause and look at the example of the brethren of the East African revival who by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour (Okulokoka) their old fixation with tribes gave way as they embraced a new tribe of believers in Christ.
For to embrace salvation is to be transformed in the image of Christ: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor 5:17). Believers in Christ are a new tribe: “For Christ has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentile into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us” (Eph 2:14, NLT).
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, in being born again the old has gone and the new is here, and may you help me live this new life triumphantly, this I pray in Jesus’s name.
