The Rugumba's Updates

Having spent close to 3 weeks in the USA, Vena and I just came back home last Friday. I went on the weighing scale and I had added on about 8 pounds (around 4 kg), which is common. Every one is giving me compliments on how fat I look, which in Uganda, is not an insult but a compliment, especially from an elderly person.

Monday, I resumed my normal work out schedule, and late on Tuesday night, Vena and I were returning home from the gym, when we came across the scene of an accident. Six people had already died on the spot. It was a head on collision of a truck that had hit a boda boda motorcycle and a small school van loaded with kids. Police had not yet arrived and dead bodies were laid in the middle of the road by people who tried to cut out and save those that were still living. Large crowds surrounded and some were busy looting things from the truck.

We met a lady who stopped to see what had taken place like us, but only to find that the van carried her two youngest daughters. She saw her 7 year old’s dead body and was moving around in the road helplessly and lost consciousness. Vena and I got her in our car and took her to her home, as others helped contact her family to come and help her. Having spent a few minutes at the home, she could not settle and wanted to know where her youngest was. We had heard reports that some were rushed to a nearby hospital, and we drove there with her, only to find that her daughter was not there. We also heard reports that she had been found dead and that the body was being brought to the police on a police truck.

At this hospital, we met another child that was being referred to a bigger hospital and was in the same van. She was a daughter to the owner of the school that had lost 4 kids in the same accident. The daughter was in a comma, with little hope of making it, and we found a van to rush her to a bigger hospital. The driver’s leg was broken, and I sent for our truck to take him to our national referral hospital. We drove the mother to the police, where she saw her dead baby on a pickup truck and later took her back to her home.

It is hard for me to take all this in. On Sunday, I shared about the story of Job, and my message was about having courage amidst trials and temptations, just like Job. I tried to answer the question why do bad things happen to good, godly people. This message came alive to me when the mother at the end made the same statement in Job 1:20. The Lord gave me these kids, and He has taken them away.

I was encouraged by her faith and am thankful that we were able to help at least. I spent time and prayed with her teenage son who had survived and seen most of this. I can’t imagine what she is going through losing her 7 year old and 3 year old at the same time.

Please pray for her that she will know that God is with her in spite of this present situation, that God loves and cares for her, and has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. Pray that her faith in God stays strong as I found out she is a believer. Pray that God sends people to her to encourage her.

Pray for the burial and funeral. Isaac has gone to help bring the bodies to their home from the mortuary.

Pray for me and Vena as I had a sleepless night trying to get this all in my head, and also pray that God will lead us on how to continue encouraging this family.