UZZEL'S STORY
NAIROBI CHRISTIAN CHURCH
POSTED ON 08TH MARCH 2010
Compiled by Dennis and George Khisa
In March, 2009 I was seated in my workshop as usual repairing a radio. A shadow distracted me and as I looked up, I saw a young man at the door. He looked at me hesitantly and said cautiously “Uncle Denis!” I was taken aback. I could not recognise him even though I tried hard. I responded that I was Denis, but said I could not remember him. He told me that he was Uzzel, but that did not register either.
“Uzzel Wenani, son of Violet Wenani” he continued. For a minute I was dazed!! “I kept telling myself that you must be somewhere in Kayole and I will find you. I have been looking for you for the last three days”. But even as he spoke, my mind went back ten years earlier and I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.
One early morning in 1999, I arrived at Violet’s modest house in Soweto Kayole. She was very frail, having suffered prolonged illness that had resulted in her request to be taken upcountry to her parent’s home. In her heart she felt that she may not recover and had resigned to the will of God. But she did not want to leave her family or the church incurring huge expenses on her account, she wanted to travel home while she could. It was a hard decision when members of the church in her family group agreed to her request and raised funds to hire a vehicle to transport her with her family the nearly 500km.
It was a tough journey, but violet was a brave woman. She was more concerned about the welfare of her two little boys, Uzzel then aged 10 and Augustine only aged 4 years. That journey remains deeply edged in my memory it was in Uzzel’s own words a fateful one. Only three hours into the journey, Violet went to be with the Lord. It was a trying time for her children and myself, but as God would have it, he had led us to a vehicle whose driver’s heart he had prepared for this role. He was very supportive in safely taking us home to Violet’s family.
When I came back to Nairobi, several days later, it was a sad time. I really wished I could have come back with the boys but their extended family had insisted that they stay. It was heartbreaking to leave behind those two little boys, knowing that their mother would have wanted them to grow up in the church. Violet always made sure her sons were at church. Even while she was ill, she made plans for her sons to be picked for church. The impact of this on her sons was evident when after 10 years of being away from the church; they could still remember disciples by name. Uzzel shared how together with his younger brother they would remember disciples and their Kids Kingdom teachers such as Peris.
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