MY BIRTH:

I am Christopher Besweri Kaswabuli and was born in Uganda on November /11/ 1936 at 5:00 am as the only child to the poorest parents in Uganda  Mr. George William Kibumba and Maliza Kadondo in a remote village of Nsinze  Bubago, Namutumba District, eastern Uganda in Busoga. Iam a musoga by tribe.

Shortly after birth my parents separated in marriage which led me to dwell in two homes.   The poverty state in which my family was is that we did not even have beddings to cover ourselves. My mother crafted a long banana fiber mat of which one side was used to sleep on and we folded the remaining part on to ourselves as a cover. My mother used to keep a fire burning in a hearth place to keep us warm throughout the night.

There was a severe famine that fell in the year 1941-1944 which was nicknamed, “Soya Bean” because people survived on this type of bean. My mother who could not afford this one day went a long distance to the wilderness to look for wild yams. These yams grow deep into the ground so on this occasion mother narrated that she dug a dip pit in order to reach it.

So as she had collected what she could and was tying up the bundle of wild yams, a group of buffalos were passing by and one of the male buffalo saw her and she also did. She knew her life was gone. She immediately jumped into the pit where she had dug the wild yam. The beast trampled the cloth underfoot the piece of cloth she had left on the surface of the pit, folding it up! The buffalo remained on the surface charging and running back and forth.

She cried for her life and that of her only child.  She imagined if the buffalo killed her what would happen to her son?  After some long spell of time, when she detected that the buffalo had gone she came out of the yam pit and collected her cloth plus the yams she had got and set out to return home. Upon returning home she found when I had cried and she was looking very miserable and looked exhausted.

I looked at her and was wondering what could have happened to my mother. She dropped down what she had on her head and picked me up and we both cried. After about fifteen minutes, She narrated the ordeal of her encounter with the buffalo in the jungle and we embraced each other, both of us in tears and praised the Lord for having made her survive the horrible beast.

I attribute my uprightness in upbringing to the two verses which my Mother repeatedly told me when she was teaching me, reprimanding me and guiding me, “Pro 9:10  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

And another scripture is, “Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD  your God has commanded you; that your days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with you, in the land which the LORD your God gives you.”(Deut 5:16)
Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in our   Lord: because this is right.
Eph 6:2 Honor your father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise) Eph 6:3 That it may be well with you, and you may live longer on the earth.

She repeatedly recited these to me. In the year 1943, there was an outbreak of small pox disease which killed very many infants of which I also got infected by the same illness and as I was at the verge of death and my mother having lost hope for my survival   cried to God and said, “My God, if my son dies, I am also going to die.”

God saved me from death! The God who knew me long before, saved me for what He knew would be of great virtues to His people. My mother and I surmounted very many incidents of issues which threatened our lives by death but our living God made us survive.