The Story of Mama Abraham

WOW – Women of Worth
Partnering with Jireh Women

The stories of life transformation when the spirit of Christ enters a person are even more dramatic. These same beads are assisting in that process. Let me tell you the story of Mama Abraham, the transformation in her life, and how beads are helping her transmit that same power of transformation to war traumatized people of northern Uganda…

Roselyn Alum was raised in the war ravished region of northern Uganda. Religion meant little to her; the spirits of alcohol meant more and she became a brewer and drinker of liquor. Nothing prepared her for the day her husband, 2 bothers and 8 other close family relatives were blown to pieces in an ambush by rebel soldiers as they were burying her sister. As she fled running from the scene she was suddenly transported into the air by a blast of noise and light. Pain screamed through her body and blood poured from an empty eye socket and a nearly full term baby girl that seemed to explode from her body as she miscarried. She had stepped on a landmine. Shards of ammunition cut throughout her body. Three days latter she woke from a coma in a hospital. The pain in her body and her heart was so great she wished she were dead, yet the blast had miraculously saved her life from the tortures of the rebels. For many days she could hear people speaking to her but she could not communicate with them. At one point she was taken to have her leg amputated but the doctor on seeing her condition waved her away as one that would die soon anyway.  It was a living death, but gradually she was aware of a presence with her, bringing comfort and strength, an irresistible presence which she clung to. Ever since, knowing that presence, Jesus Christ, has been the focus of her life. She emerged from the hospital months later, still in constant pain, but a different person, a woman of great faith – so much so that she had been given the name Mama Abraham.

I first met Mama Abraham two years latter in 2000, when a friend invited her to our home cell. She was then living wherever she could find shelter. Her main objective to being in Kampala was to find a doctor that would operate to remove the dime size shard shown by x-ray to be lodged in the middle of her brain. Even though she took drugs for the pain, there were periods where it caused so much pain that she would lie immobile for days on her bed. She begged and pleaded and prayed to be released from the pain. Doctors refused to operate for fear of killing her in the operation. I was with her the day a doctor sat down with her, opened the scriptures and began counseling her with the word of God. This was her cross to bear, he said, so that through this weakness God would be glorified. From that day onward she refused to complain. She became a fighter, a defender of her faith and an exhorter to others. No longer would she be dependent on others. She found things she could do with her hands. She actively participated in WOW, building up others in their faith as she shared her triumphs and struggles, Finding a community that loved and cared for her, she attended WOW meetings regularly, learning and putting into practice both what she learned in Bible studies and in practical life-help demonstrations. She roasted and sold peanuts, she made and sold tie and dye cloth, she learned more than what she already knew about mending clothes and began tailoring…and she soaked herself in the word of God for her strength and her sanity from the pain.

Not only did she begin living independently but she found the whereabouts of her 2 sons and had one came to live with her (the other was eventually abducted by the rebels) taking in 4 orphan children of her dead brothers into her one room home as well. When making necklaces was introduced, she patiently used her one good eye to thread each bead. Without depending exclusively on me to find a market, she explored the city and found her own customers. When I introduced making beads from paper, she took the idea and perfected it. From the selling of her paper beads is where another miracle started…. 

What I have told you so far is not an unusual story. Many women in WOW have similar stories to tell. The difference is the example Mama Abraham has been in  the stewardship of hard earned money she has attained. A two room house, new clothes, a better diet….she could have spent it on all those things, but no, she sacrificed those things for a vision she had and stuck to it. This past August, David and I took a trip to see the fruit of her labor with beads. A seven hour car drive north of Kampala brought us to the IDP (Internally Displaced Peoples) Camp that is her home village. She had organized more than a dozen local churches to come together for a week of pastoral training and outreach into the community to launch the beginning of a church. All from her earnings with beads she had purchased nearly two acres of land for her vision of building a church and Bible college. “There are churches around but they don’t really know what the Bible says. I want them to know doctrine, to really understand what it is saying,” she says. So for the 5 day conference she rented the community hall and bought food to feed men, women and children the noon meal each day.  Word got out on the radio – she doesn’t know by who - that something extraordinary was going on in Pader IDP Camp and the meetings became packed. By the end of the week 255 people came to faith in Jesus Christ and 84 people were baptized, 9 of them pastors! A church and school has begun, without a building yet, but with the faith of one little bead seller in her big, big God, nothing is impossible! In fact, because of the recent peace, many people are now leaving IDP camps to go back to their home, which means that this church, which still has no walls, has two offspring from people wanting to be discipled in their new location.  Oh, I get excited!!

Sarah Adams
Uganda Co ordinator