29. Stephen

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Sometimes it’s worth hanging around after an interview. It’s then that people relax and a really interesting part of their character or a really astounding part of their life is revealed. That was the case with Stephen.

Stephen Kasumba is an extraordinary man from the get-go. I’d heard a lot about him from others before meeting him so was keen to speak with him and hear his story from his own hands. But then, through no-one’s fault, some interviews just don’t go well. Sometimes it’s because of a poor Internet connection. Sometimes it’s because of language differences. In Stephen’s case, just as I opened with the first question, a chain saw started up right outside the window and didn’t stop till the interview drew to a close. It was perfect timing.

Through a screaming interpreter, I learned that Stephen was the fourteenth of nineteen children! He was born hearing in Entebbe, Uganda where he went to school and grew up happy and healthy. But he never really felt ‘right’ with his life. 

Something was missing. 

A friend then invited him to church. He went and for the first time in his life, he heard the gospel and gave his life to Christ. He grew in his faith, found a job with World Vision through a sponsorship program and began to work in the Buwama villages of Uganda. Stephen found himself in a very good place in life.

Then tragedy struck. 

At the age of 34, Stephen lost his hearing. With that, he also lost his job because they didn’t think a deaf man could do the work. That’s when Stephen met Rev. Bulime who brought him into DMI’s Immanuel Church for the Deaf in Makerere, Kampala, and the Deaf community where Stephen learned to sign. He became a passionate mission worker for the Deaf. That was 2001.

Since then he has married, had six children and begun working with DMI. Stephen has been the rock of our child sponsorship program in Uganda. Working closely with Jenny Reid in Australia who oversees our global child sponsorship program, they have built it up to see dozens of children come under sponsorship in the region.

Stephen’s work with DMI is impressive. 

He serves as a pastor in the church where his two daughters Mildred and Millicent also serve as interpreters. He has worked as Treasurer of DMI in Uganda. But Stephen is a dreamer and this world needs more dreamers. His vision for DMI in Uganda is much, much bigger than the current reality. He wants to see the sponsorship program grow. He wants to buy land to build a school for the Deaf and a place for ministry and to develop farming and other commercial projects that foster self-sufficiency amongst the Deaf. I can sense Stephen’s excitement and frustration equally as he shares this with me. There is so much to be done, there are so many possibilities, and there are so many Deaf with untapped potential. It’s as though Stephen can smell it and see it and taste it but it’s still all out of reach.

I end the interview thanking Stephen for sharing his life and his vision with me. Those watching on the sides start to wander off and the roaring chain saw stills. Stephen relaxes. He mentions, casually, as a vague afterthought, that he once had a vision. 

I ask him to share it.

In 2001, he fell desperately ill and hospitalised with Meningitis. After days of growing weaker and sicker, he found himself suddenly looking down on his own body and the friends and hospital staff who were trying to revive it. As clear as the day, he tells me, an angel of the Lord stood beside him, spoke to him, lead him to the gates of judgement, and posed him questions which cut at the very core of his life. 

Stephen would later send me a full written account of this experience. The angel restored him to his body with the charge that he was to go back and teach all people about the love of God in Christ. I ask Stephen why he hasn’t shared this extraordinary experience with more people. Why does it come as an afterthought and not as a featuring testimony? “People don’t know what to do with it,” he shrugs. “Some things are just too confronting.” Besides, his call is not to convince people he had a vision but to teach people about the love of God. Stephen has been faithful to this call to this day.

What an amazing testimony. Sometimes the greatest things in life come when you don’t expect it. Everything else is just noise.

If you would like to know how you can support Stephen and his vision for DMI, any of the kids or teachers with DMI, or help meet any of DMI’s needs, please click on the donate button on the top right of the page, or mail to info@deafmin.org 

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