Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: My name is Peter Maiko.
I have a very long name, Sewa Chirianga, to help you. It means adaptable. So I have found myself eat a lot of things while I'm here that I'm not used to, including hot dogs, which at first I thought it was dog meat until I was told no, no, no. It's the staple of America.
So I am thankful for God to be here today. Thank you, Pastor Michael and the elders of this church for inviting me and rallying around me and the mission. God has called us in Uganda as an indigenous missionary. It's a joy and a blessing to our brothers and sisters this far to pray for us and we see what God is doing in Uganda.
Before we start, I'm going to show a video. I know for sure that there are many people here that have never met me or don't know me. So the video will introduce you of some of the work we do and then I will pick it up from there.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: It's a little after two in the morning, about an hour's drive south of Kampala.
CBN News has joined undercover detective, detectives, armed police and a pastor hunting for a witch doctor accused of kidnapping and killing children.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Witch doctors believe that when you kidnap a child, you get wealth, you get protection.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Pastor Peter Siwat Kiyanga leads the search. He runs Champesi childcare ministries, a christian effort to stamp out child sacrifice in Uganda.
He describes the witch doctor's brutal ritual.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: When they get the child, most times they cut the neck, they take the blood out, they cut the genitals or any body organs that the spirits want. In a sense, it involves the child dying.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: A few hours in the trail for the killer goes cold. Pastor Peter says these gruesome crimes happen.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Almost each month and there are very few actually that survive. Most of them die.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: Clive I had high hopes and dreams.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: For Clive Rachel Casingo's three year old son Clive disappeared June 2, 2015 while playing in the backyard of their home.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: It was around ten in the morning when we noticed he was nowhere to be found.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: CBN News met Casingu the day police told her what happened to her son.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: I've never even heard of child sacrifice. I didn't even know what the phrase meant.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Detective Emmanuel Mafunda took us to the spot not too far from his home, where they found Clive's remains in this pit toilet filled with human feces.
Mafunda said the key suspect turned out to be Kasingo's neighborhood, a wealthy businessman who allegedly hired two men to kidnap and mutilate Clive's body. Believing the act would bring good luck to his new hotel project.
Detective Mafundo said the suspect paid the equivalent of $1,400 for Clive's life.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: I found it so clear how someone, because of superstition, can be able to sacrifice a three year old kid.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Child sacrifice today in Uganda is such a serious and widespread problem that the government has even set up an anti child sacrifice and human trafficking task force. Chief investigator Moses Binogar says that in addition to decapitation, witch doctors often slice the child's tongue and mix it with herbs for special powers.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: The tongue is used to silence enemies.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Mike Chibitam is Uganda's top law enforcement official, the equivalent of America's attorney general. He says superstition and the desire to get rich quick contribute to high child sacrifice rates in his country.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: The connection is these witch doctors come and tell people who want to get rich that in order to get rich, you need to sacrifice human blood.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Best friends Kanani Nankunda, George Mukisa and Alan Symbatia to be alive but bear the physical and emotional scars of their past.
The three are child sacrifice survivors.
A few years back, Kanani and his seven year old sister were attacked in the bush.
He has a ten inch scar on the back of his neck where the witch doctor tried to drain his blood.
[00:05:03] Speaker D: I fainted, and when I regained consciousness, I found my sister dead with her head missing.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Two men attacked Alan symbatia on his way home from school.
[00:05:14] Speaker D: I tried to scream for my parents, but my voice was not strong enough for them to hear me.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: They stabbed his neck, sliced his head with a machete, then castrated him. Allen remained in a coma for two months after his miraculous rescue.
Georgiou Mokisa's mother found him lying in a pool of blood after a man castrated his privates with a blunt knife.
Doctors had to reconstruct his genitals with skin grafted from his forearm. The boys say they encourage each other to look past their physical challenges.
[00:05:52] Speaker D: God is helping us in many different ways. When we think about what happened to us, we just pray and ask God that this would never happen to anybody else.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: The three boys are now under Pastor Peter's care. Champisi Childcare Ministries is the only organization in the country providing long term financial and medical care for survivors of child sacrifice.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: We want to see that the life of a child who has survived is supported, that they are socially able to stand and heal from the injuries, and that they can have a life after that.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Rachel Cacigo says life without Clive will never be the same. Still, she has a message for the men who brutally murdered her three year old son.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Because of my faith in Jesus, I believe in second chances, and I would give it to them because there's nothing I can do to bring clive back. My message to them is confess your sins and come to the Lord. Because when you come to the Lord, he will forgive your sins.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: George Thomas, CBN News, Kampala, Uganda.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: I'd like you to think about the words that Rachel in the video there says, that because of my faith in Jesus Christ, I forgive the men that killed my child.
And it's a remarkable transition of a courageous woman that has full trust in Goddesse, that even in the midst of that trauma, pain and the death of a child, she can forgive. I want to invite you to courageous faith is our message today.
These two words, courage and faith, are often not put together in our journey of salvation.
When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, quite often we do not immediately realize that our salvation is a radical transformation, actually a miracle, an invitation to a radical overhaul of our lives, to an invitation to a journey of a courageous faith. The reality is the new birth, at least for me, I have realized over the years, is a journey of burdened calling, that calling to the front lines. And that calling is urgent. It's a calling worth defending. To the last breath.
Hebrews eleven defines faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things, not sin. And then we see.
The dictionary defines courage as the ability to do something that frightens us or being ready and willing to face negative situations or danger or pain. And in scripture, courage is referred to as good cheer, which means boldness or confidence in the Lord. Throughout the Bible, God commands us to fear, not to be of good cheer, and to have courage in our lives. It's the willingness to maintain our faith amidst chaos, grief, pain, uncertainty and difficulty. And I don't know where you are, because I know that in life one of those is going to come to your door, or we walk with each of those all the time. You come from grief, to pain, to uncertainty, to doubt and all that stuff.
In two corinthians 418, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but to the things that are unseen are eternal, well, we cannot see physical things with spiritual we cannot see physical things with spiritual things with physical eyes. We have to have the spiritual eyes to see the spiritual things.
And therefore, the things that we see are vanity. They waste away.
And therefore, for those that are called into a life of Christ, into salvation, into following Christ. We are spiritual people, and therefore, God invites us to a spiritual battle, to a life that is really going to be courageous, because the things we are fighting for are spiritual.
We are invited to this calling, to a courageous faith, knowing that God cannot disappoint us.
Courageous faith is confident that God cannot and will not make a mistake. Courageous faith knows that God cannot be wrong.
Courageous faith is confident that God can never be defeated.
I remember when I was here last year and I was asking for your prayer for a little girl called Hope.
Hope has the best smile, as you can see.
But Hope was kidnapped when she was two, one and a half months, no more child, playful.
And the witch doctors tied her. They put her clothes in her mouth, they put her on the altar for the whole year, and they constantly drained blood to the point that they fed her barely nothing. And when they thought that she had died, they put her in a sack and threw her in a swamp.
And somebody who was passing through, they heard a noise like a snorting of a pig. They came closer to the sack, and they found a little, tiny, lifeless baby still breathing.
And we got involved, rescued her. And she was one of the first children in our care to the calling that God called us to rescue children from child sacrifice. Hope has been in her care for the longest. She's now 17.
And last years, she's been coiling because she got spasticity. She can't talk, she can't walk. She has full time care, and her spinal cord started coiling and her body coiled that she was pressing on the internal organs and she was going to die.
And. But whenever you went into her room, she was the first to beam with joy, almost telling you, I cannot speak to you, but I know God is with me. You can literally see in her eyes spiritually that actually she appreciates that God has looked after her for a long time.
She would be yelling and crying, but she's the happiest. And when I go there to see her, my energy, my resolve, my calling is renewed, and I'm encouraged. She's my inspiration. Now, she was about to die, and the doctors in Utah said they can help her, but they said we needed $300,000 and we needed a visa.
And I was like, you know what, God? I placed this to you. $300,000. I've never heard of it, but we need it. The doctor said we can help her. The first person I walked to, I told them, hey, this is what the doctors are saying. We're going to raise $300,000. They told me, are you kidding me?
$300,000?
Is it worth spending on one child when you can help many more? But the spiritual impact of hope's life for me is priceless. I brought it to the Lord. I went to other people. They said, no, you can't.
And then I said, you know what? If I don't have the money, God has it. Let's pray. And I was here to ask for your prayers. And I'm here to report to you that after many months of visa applications and seven deniers of visa, because the embassy even thought that we don't have the money, you don't have enough money to look after her.
I walked into the office of the senator in Utah.
I petitioned them, and Hope was given to a humanitarian payroll visa, meaning she came to the United States without getting a visa to receive treatment here. And God paid the price. So thank you for your prayers.
Thank you. God answered them because you courageously joined in a mission that almost seemed impossible.
And then when we reached the hospital, they thought, you know, we have the money. When they looked at her, the doctor said, peter, we have never seen anything like this. The hospital is going to offer this surgery for free.
It's because people of God courageously came together and prayed the same time I was in Australia, I was here to ask for prayers for two children, two boys that I have known dearly. These are one of the bravest heroes for me. I have seen fight battles of pain.
There is no pain I have gone through, actually, when you measure one of the boys, he was sick for his genitals were completely mutilated and he needed reconstruction. It's a long story. And another one, visas were waited for one and a half years because of COVID And they all came together. And I was able. I was able able to take the two boys to Australia. And they're getting their surgeries there as well. Thank you for travailing with us in prayer.
One of them is back and the other is still in Australia.
And I heard as I was leaving him, I said, I'm going to leave you here. I can't stay here for all the many weeks that you need to go through surgery because he needs about three, four surgeries before they fix him. And he told me, don't fear.
I'm here and God is with me. He was encouraging me and I've worked with him the journey of trying to forgive those that attacked him. And he says, yes, God, I have forgiven them.
Reading scripture, acts, chapter 21, and 22 backtracking. Paul goes to Jerusalem, and we see the events that unfold. There is a prophecy. Agabus the prophet prophesies and demonstrates how Paul will be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem and be handed over to the Gentiles.
Paul is urged not to go.
Don't go. There is a prophecy. You're going to be bound, you're going to be beaten, you're going to be killed.
Listen to what Paul replies. What are you doing?
Weeping and breaking my heart.
Paul asks for I'm ready not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord. Paul says they could not persuade Paul to abandon the call of God on his life, even if there was a warning from the Holy spirit, from the prophet. He was arrested, he was dragged out of the temple, bound in chains, taken away in the barracks.
And then he gives an EpIC, powerful TestiMOny of how God has moved in his life. Paul gives us a description of his transformation. This is who I was. I am Jew, born in Tarsus. Was ONE of you. Pharisees of pharisees, pretty blameless, persecuted. This way.
I caused death. This way.
I was delivering to prison men and women.
I tortured people.
This is how my life was. And now it has changed. On the road to Damascus, it begins to explain the salvation to these people. This is how my life has BeEn changed completely. Now, you might ask the question, wait a minute, all the atrocities PauL did, and you, like, you know, saying, well, I'm actually not too bad, you could say, right?
But who can be saved?
Everyone.
And God invites us to that transformation. But then that transformation is an invitation to actually a radical transformation, to stand firm and be courageous in faith, because our salvation is actually not just living life, it's an invitation to a bold proclamation that might be inviting you to this beating or mocking where you work or where you are. It's not actually, you know, it's all even days.
And I'll show you those rocks that you see. That's champisi. That's our village.
Our church is called Rock Hill Church. And next to us is a rock hill that witch doctors used to use to sacrifice children and initiate people into witchcraft.
The first time I went to visit it, literally from about 100, 200 meters from our children's campus, the Lord convicted me to, you cannot have this place close to you when we are trying to do the work of God. These witch doctors had scared the owners of the land, and they told them, if you don't surrender your land, you're going to die. And so they feared the witch doctors. They ran away and left their land.
And so when I found out that they owned this land, but the witch doctors had stolen it away from, I went to them. They said, we will sell you the land if you will deal with the witch doctors. I said, okay, no problem.
So I went and sold my car and bought the land. It was just for the sake of buying the land so that the witch doctors can go where?
The next week, over a hundred witch doctors came with machetes and sticks to attack us. But they were attacking a group of people who were gathering to stir a church. We were about 35 people, and they came in a wrong time. In January, usually the first two weeks, we have what we call a prayer altar. We gather together, we pray over a village day and night. And so all the 35, 36 people were together in prayer. What a wrong time to come to attack.
We realized that they were mobilizing. So I told the people, we are under attack.
All of you go. When you come back tomorrow, come with a weapon.
Bring a stick.
If they attack, we won't attack them. But if they attack us, we'll beat them and pray for them in that order.
Well, they didn't come. The police helped us and they disappeared. But they tormented us every week for almost two years, throwing witchcraft articles. We were under spiritual attack, you know, a lot of chaos. Eventually we have. God has won the battle, and we have a big cross on top of that hill. And that's where our church, we hope, is going to be built. And that land has been redeemed for the Lord.
But then, of course, the church started. And the picture you see in that man we are baptizing.
The guy on the left with a bald head is the first man I saw. He was a witch doctor.
I introduced him. When I went to him, he gave his life to the Lord. And the lady, you see, was one of the ladies that held the biggest shrine in our community.
And I was literally just there to witness a witch doctor baptizing a witch doctor.
And then the next day, we had a service. That's our church right now, where we fellowship from. But we used to meet at the community hall when we gathered for the very first service, a lady from the community who had been known for years, 15 years, who had possessed. He was a lunatic. He used to move naked and move with dirty stuff. Lost his mind, her mind.
I was ready to go and preach my first sermon in Champissi.
And these new christians, they have come to the Lord, and we are seeing God work. And I was sitting next to the door, and this lady, I hadn't known her yet. It was my first time in church. But the community knew her, that she gets mad, she can throw stones, she can beat you. They feared her, children feared her. So I was looking this way and I was seated like this and looking this way, and this lady comes from that side, puts that dirty stuff on my barbone straight, goes into my neck and tries to strangle me. And she's shouting on her voice, stop buzzering me, stop buzzering me. I have never met her. She was so strong.
And because I was seated like this and I'm trying to fight, I turned in the back and everybody had run out.
And then one of the guys called Robert, we call him cockroach. He's a cockroach, really.
He comes in the window, says, pastor, are you all right? And I'm like, I'm not alright. Come and help me.
And even that moment, the fear came. But this lady, eventually we were able to hold her, prayed over her. She gave her life to the Lord and she was set free.
So as we continue to rescue children, I want to show you this video why it is important that this is done, because these are God's children and we do it with a conscience. And the calling of God is that no one should kidnap God's children and take them to evil.
And so we're involved in rescuing children from ISIS as well as child sacrifice. And I want to show you just a video of a child who had been kidnapped from her mother, two children, for a couple of months.
And this is what their reunion.
They just cried. There were no words to explain the reunion of a mother from a child that was from ISIS. And the next video is a child rescued from a child sacrifice. The same picture, the reunion, the coming back home.
And the Bible tells us that in heaven there is celebration when somebody comes back home.
So we are convicted to continue to rescue, because we know we are rescuing God's children.
Paul says, this is my new purpose. It is to preach the gospel, to preach Jesus Christ crucified. Before he even begins, he's arrested. And I know for sure this is going to happen to us. And we are invited to such difficult situations. It takes courage to walk by faith.
It takes great courage, whether you are in Uganda or Chicago, to live by faith, to live a life of a Christian.
It takes great courage for Ollie, for.
For Paul to preach the gospel. He was persecuted for it. He knew for it. In fact, everything that's going to happen for us is prophesied. It's in the Bible that it's going to come. It takes great courage for Peter to live in unity for the sake of the gospel. It takes great courage for Lydia to be generous for the sake of the gospel. It takes courage for Noah, Noah to build the ark. Are you okay?
What?
We cannot fall in the misconception that following God just happens. No, it goes beyond that. Easy. It takes courage to follow the will of God. It took great courage to walk in Jerusalem fully knowing that the prophecy is against you, fully knowing that the chains are waiting for you. This is Paul.
Before I came here, I was just coming from Australia. I had gone for four weeks to take two boys for surgery.
I had to do it.
And then I came back for one week, and I was living to come here for another four weeks. And I've never been away from my family for that long, so I knew I was going. I usually sit with my family. They pray for me. They know I tell them where I'm going, and I keep them updated. And as I was leaving, I know I was dragging my feet and my son runs to me. I had given my son an audio bible. He's six years old, almost seven. He runs to me and says, daddy, be courageous.
We're going to be praying for you.
He made me weep. I hugged him. I left.
And then the next two weeks, I talked to him and he told me, daddy, I'm carrying your photo in my bag. I look at him. I miss you. Now when you come back, you and I are going to go somewhere for week.
So I told them, but what about your sisters?
They're like, they can spend time with mommy.
They have so many things to do, their hair, their nails.
I have six children, five boys, five girls, one boy.
And he says, but I asked him, what are we going to do when we go for a week? Says, you know what? Get me a skateboard from America.
I don't know where he got a skateboard. I don't think. I don't know where he got the idea of a skateboard. I am frightened to see him ride bicycles because he falls all the time.
And then a skateboard.
But he encouraged me in the moment to see that.
So in acts 23, as we read it, Paul, and looking intently at the council, Paul said, brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.
And the high priest Anais commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall.
Are you sitting to judge me according to the law. And yet, contrary to the law, you order me to be struck. Of course, Paul had told them that he was a Roman at that time. And they were shocked. And so they were acting really against the law.
What a hypocrite.
Those who stood, he said, would you revive God, his high priest? And Paul said, I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest. For it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. Now, when Paul perceived that one part was Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of a pharisee. It is with respect to the hope and to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.
It is with respect that he is on trial. And when he had said this, dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees. And the assembly was divided. You know, God goes be ahead of the courageous pursue of our faith.
Note that Paul. Paul's courage to follow the will of God made his conscience clean. He stands before the most powerful at the time. And he is saying, my conscience is clean. Whatever you do, my conscience is clean.
I have obeyed the will of God. I have done the things God has called me to do. I have said what God has told me to say. I am comfortable where I am with God. I have given my talents and treasure. I have served where I need to serve. It's always a place for me to go to check my conscience, where I am, as a follower of Christ, where I am.
Am I in the middle?
Am I here?
Or am I this way? Am I where Paul was not really following, persecuting the church? No. We are nothing. And so we are here or here. So he's absolutely here. His conscience is clean. I am sure that this is what God has called me to do. And I am going to do it. I am a preacher of the gospel, where they will stone me or where they will not. I am a preacher of the gospel where I will be killed or where I will be not.
He is confident, he doesn't care.
And I think it is a good place for us to be. To be reminded that.
That conscience needs to be checked for us.
And now, over the last year, for example, last year in Uganda, we had 2530 children missing.
And KCM was able to get involved to rescue about 283 cases of children trafficked to ISIS and sacrificed.
Can you imagine if we have a lot of other people that can get involved in supporting and rescuing these children? How many more we can we continue to rescue?
And we have a clear conscience that God has called us to do that.
Obviously not with our own anger, but knowing that we are following God.
And one of the things that struck me, there was a witch doctor who sacrificed a child and a father who gave their lives to the Lord in prison. And God has transformed them. And right now we have about five witch doctors we go with in the communities to go and tell others, sacrificing children that you don't need to sacrifice a child to get wealth.
God loves you and God can transform that. And these five so far we work with have been transformed, just like Paul and just like us. And they are on the field and God desires us to continue doing that because we know it is for his glory.
We provide medical care and emergency shelter. Right now I left 126 children rescued from trafficking and child sacrifice in our care and they need your prayers for that. We continue to lobby government.
I think one of the most assuring things for me is when we share the gospel with these children and how they are transformed by the gospel.
I want to invite you to a bold call for you to pray for us and kindly partner with us, even when we are too far away to support us.
Sign the petitions and there will be some cards for you to sign. If you would like to partner with us, you can leave us with information and we can send prayer points because we know that prayer works.
Let me pray.
Heavenly father, thank you for this day and thank you for your love for us. God, we know that you have called us to a bold faith to exercise, to follow you boldly and to serve you with all our hearts.
Lord, if there are people here that haven't decided where they are, their conscience and they want to follow you, annoy you and commit their lives, that they are completely transformed by the blood of Jesus and saved. Lord, may you convict them, may you rescue them. May they make a decision for the glory of your name.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
