A Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope – UGANDA [4]
“A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross” (Mark 15:21).
[1] Simon of Cyrene helping Jesus carry His cross. [2] The successful and personable Josephine Kizza. [3] St Jude’s Family Farm Entrance.
Behind every success story, lies a journey of hardship and pain.
St Jude’s Farm in Masaka, Uganda is a big success story of a small village farm. Another moving real life story of pain and hope on our Uganda pilgrimage of that theme, the story of St Jude’s Farm is no run of the mill stuff.
The pain and struggle of Josephine Kizza, the now celebrated founder and owner of the farm, is not only the kind of stuff for an amazing story, it is real food for the soul. She is a leader in organic farming in Masaka. Little did we know that we were about to learn an incredible lesson from her leadership that is providing hope. And yet, hers is a story that first began with such painful interruptions in life that the principal actor in the story had to suffer untold agony of hopelessness before rising from the ashes to hope and new life. “Unwanted interruptions in life” became the opening key to our reflection on this visit.
Unwanted Interruptions in Life
Our minds quite naturally took us back to the episode of Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus’ cross on His way to Calvary. Imagine, Simon was on a pilgrimage of his life – to eat one Passover meal in Jerusalem! Then, by sheer historical accident (or was it?) he found himself at the wrong place at the wrong time. This man called Jesus of Nazareth, a convicted “criminal”, was on his way with two other convicts carrying, by customs, their own crosses to Calvary – the hill of crucifixion. But after all that physical torture since the night before, Jesus was by then too weak and exhausted to carry His own cross all the way. The Roman soldiers knew what to do. They grabbed Simon of Cyrene, who happened to be standing at the side watching the spectacle and minding his own business, and compelled him to carry the cross so they could get on with business as usual. With brilliant cinematic insights, and with good theological advice from his Jesuit consultant as well one would imagine, Mel Gibson portrayed Simon in The Passion of the Christ protesting his innocence and how hard done by he was to have his peace so rudely interrupted. You see, he wasn’t here for this. He was here for a holiday. Others, seeing him carry a cross like that all the way across the city to “the place of a skull”, would think he was a public criminal, at least by association. It’s a punishing hard work. It’s humiliating. It’s a travesty of justice. He’s a man of God. He’s here for a holy pilgrimage, for crying out loud! God, where are you? Do something, will you? He had every right to lament.
Simon of Cyrene has been a virtual unknown except for having been forced into helping Jesus to carry the cross from the judgment seat to Calvary. And yet, for two thousand years now and, we would suspect, for many more thousand years to come, Simon of Cyrene will be remembered and talked about by humanity even after great public figures of today have long been consigned to forgotten history. There is more. The evangelist Mark alone, and rather innocuously, tells us in 15:21 that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus. Mark’s Gospel was first written for the Church at Rome. Such a casual identification of the two can only mean that they were well known to the readers in Rome. And if we turn to the Letter to the Romans, we find Paul saying in 16:13 “Greet Rufus, eminent in the Lord, also his mother and mine.” So you see, Rufus was so well known a Christian that Paul would describe him as “eminent in the Lord”. Furthermore, the mother of Rufus – wife of Simon – was so dear to Paul that he could even call her his mother as well. Evidently, the story about this Simon of Cyrene could not be a boring tale of a grumbler, complaining for the rest of his life about that most hated and unfortunate day when he was forced to carry the cross for that “criminal” Jesus of Nazareth, that “blasphemer” of the Jewish faith. No, something powerful must have happened to Simon on the way to Calvary with Jesus. On that terrible day, and struggling together along that torturous Way of the Cross – Jesus captured Simon’s heart and converted Simon to Himself. Simon became a Christian that day. In the midst of mourning and lamentations, and of unwanted life interruptions, Simon experienced a gift of faith. What at first had seemed his day of shame had become his day of glory. His conversion was so powerful that he brought his entire household into the Christian fold. And his two sons, Alexander and Rufus, would go on to become very active and well-known contributors to the life and mission of the Church in Rome. Isn’t that a powerful story for all Christian families to learn from? And in Mel Gibson’s brilliant story-telling, the audience is treated to a cinematic experience that leaves them with absolutely no doubt that along the Via Dolorosa, not only did Simon stop grumbling, he was positively touched by the encounter with Jesus. By the time they got up to Calvary, Simon walked away with the most precious blessing – a heart of solidarity with the suffering Lord.
The beautiful thing about Simon of Cyrene is that he is so much like us. In life, we too, have often been “unjustly” forced by circumstances and by people into doing things we rather not do. We too, have suffered interruptions, some of which have resulted in unforeseen and heart-breaking life changes. We too, have legitimate lamentations. We too, have unfinished symphonies in life. On this trip, we get to hear the real life story of Josephine Kizza – her past struggles and lamentations over a painful episode of life-interruptions and her present day joy and hopefulness.
The Background
John and Josephine Kizza, a happily married couple, were school teachers in Kampala. Paid poorly by the government, they gave up their teaching career in 1982 and started a trading business, buying and selling beans and other products. They were doing very well for themselves when war intervened in 1986. Like all wars, it led to a failure in agricultural production. John and Josephine had no income and were threatened with poverty. They came to Masaka to visit John’s parents. When it was time to return to Kampala, they found to their horror that the route was completely blocked, the Katonga Bridge having been destroyed by the rebels. Now, they were stranded indefinitely in Masaka – another unwanted major interruption. They were worried about their apartment. But there were even more pressing issues at hand: where would they live in Masaka and find some means of livelihood? John felt compelled to return to his parents’ house, but Josephine vehemently refused to do so.
Having lived on their own in Kampala all these years, and having been independent professionals – first as school teachers and then as business man and woman, she just couldn’t return to the old, traditional, oppressive, patriarchal customs that were practiced in the traditional village household of the parents of her husband John. In that traditional household, as a woman, she would have to wear the traditional long dress all day long and every day. As a woman, she would not be permitted to shake the hands of her father-in-law. As a woman, whenever her father-in-law was at the front of the house, she would have to make a detour and enter the house from the back. And the list of prohibitions against women went on and on. Gender prejudice was suffocating. Village life might still continue largely unchanged, but Josephine had long moved on to an independent, professional, and blissfully different modern city life. She just couldn’t live through that kind of life in which she couldn’t breathe properly as an equal human person, and for an indefinite extended period of time. So she insisted that on returning to Masaka she would live on the 3.5 acres of farmland which John has inherited from his grandfather. But there was no house there, so they made a make-shift shed under a tree. There was no bed, so a neighbour gave an old worn out mattress that had no cover. She had no companion for the night, for John must return to sleep in the father’s house, so they procured the consent of a neighbour to let one of their teenage daughters keep her company. There were no cooking utensils, so they borrowed a cooking pot. And for food, she had one tapioca root. That was all she had for her first day and night in an empty farmland. Those were some harsh details “in the beginning” – a pretty “formless void”.
And then what? How would they survive? How would they make a living? Half-heartedly, they started to till the land and plant some vegetables and survived their days on a farm that was hitherto left to fallow. They had to grow food as the war continued. They had to struggle just to survive. But this hopelessness would be temporary, they thought. They would just wait for the war to blow over so they could return to Kampala and begin again. Eighteen months later, when they were finally able to make a trip back to Kampala, they found to their dismay that all they had in their apartment were looted. There was nothing to salvage there – neither in the residence nor in the trading business. Their only option was to return to their 3.5 acres of land and to begin to learn to do some serious farming. In the midst of all that chaos, unwanted life interruptions, and lamentations, there was a comprehension, albeit hesitant. There was a way out, albeit far from clear. “The heavens,” so a Chinese saying goes, “do not exterminate all human options.” Yet the situation was pretty hopeless for John and Josephine who knew nothing about serious farming. Still, they did not give up. They couldn’t give up. They had to struggle on, knowing that to struggle was to have life. And they turned to God. They named their farm St Jude’s Farm – hoping that the saint of hopeless cases would help them. Every day, Josephine was down on her knees “praying hard” for the intercession of St Jude. Her only hope was in God. John and Josephine had no alternatives but to take their daily walks with God. Like Abraham, when things looked so bleak, they didn’t have a clue how things could possibly work out well in the end. But, like Abraham, they too, “hoping against all hope, believed…” (Rom 4:18).
They began with two piglets, one male and one female [Doesn’t that smack of Adam and Eve again, one man and one woman to get the ball rolling?], given by John’s father and in two and a half years, they produced 45 pigs. Proceeds from the sale of the entire herd were used to buy an eight-month old German heifer (a cow of special German breed). That marked the beginning of high yielding, high quality, specialized and higher priced agricultural production at St Jude’s. With some money saved, Josephine, with the consent of John, went to attend a course on compost-making and organic farming in Kampala. That proved another important break for after that course, St Jude’s started organic farming and Josephine’s husband became her “first student”. A few years later, lecturers from the UK who conducted the compost-making course in Kampala came to St Jude’s on a follow-up visit. They liked what they saw, knew the potential of St Jude’s contribution to agricultural extension services which have largely failed in Uganda, as it always does in war-torn countries. A scholarship was put together that enabled Josephine to do a degree in specialized modern agricultural technology in a UK university. On her return, working hand in hand with her husband John, she began to transform their farm and went on to make serious contributions to enhanced productivity in rural farming in Uganda.
Integrated Sustainable Organic Farming
In 2010, the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government reported on crop failure in Uganda as follows:
“The 1978-79 war and subsequent political turmoil in Uganda led to a failure of agricultural extension services, leaving peasants to farm with archaic methods. This led to soil impoverishment, failing crop production and severe environmental degradation. A growing population and traditional inheritance practices led to land fragmentation and further soil impoverishment. During the 1980s and 1990s the country was ravaged by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, further reducing the capacity of families to farm. During this period coffee failed due to severe wilt and prices on the international markets collapsed. The effect of these events was to exacerbate poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation. The most vulnerable groups, women, widows and orphans were the most affected by the situation.”
Meanwhile, from two little piglets, Josephine has transformed the farm into a booming organic farm. At St Jude’s, they have gone on to successfully use the land for intensive, integrated, sustainable, organic farming and to build up a reservoir of practical wisdom and technical expertise in this specialized field. Now, St Jude’s could contribute to society in a big way, helping rural farmers to enhance their yields, to conserve resources, to boost their diet, and to protect the environment at the same time. They then went on to win European recognition for authentic organic farming, and so to export dried organic fruits at greatly enhanced returns.
Many neighbours came to learn. So John and Josephine decided to turn St Jude’s into a learning centre. St Jude’s Farm became St Jude’s Family Project and Rural Training Centre for Sustainable Integrated Organic Agriculture. St. Jude’s Family Project has been training farmers in modern Integrated Organic Farming (IOF). The IOF training programme offers 75% practical skills and 25% theory. Practicals are offered in the 17 projects at the centre. These include poultry, fish-farming, bee-keeping, mushroom and vegetable growing, compost, biogas and storm water harvesting. Some 200,000 farmers are reported to have received skills training in IOF from St Jude’s. The training staff provide effective support through follow-up visits to the trainees’ village communities.
With the personal visits of President Museveni, who applauded Kizza and calling her “Muzuukusa” (one who awakens), and who on his second visit brought his entire cabinet with him, St Jude’s has become a ‘presidential model’ for small-scale farmers in the country.
We cannot go into the technical details of what St Jude’s farm is doing or has achieved. These details are available on the web for any reader who may be interested. Rather, our interest is to take a step back and capture some points of reflection on what we saw, heard and felt.
Josephine’s Three Rules
In her briefing, Josephine Kizza said she insisted on three rules for every trainee to observe.
[1] Develop a culture of learning. Be open to learning from others. Always look out for better knowledge, better skills, practical wisdom, and improved technology. Learn without ceasing. The Quaker Service Australia has come in to give valuable assistance.
At the time of our visit, we saw an American university student and a Japanese university student on research attachment at the Centre, as well as an Ethiopian-American lady professor sharing her expertise in Uganda and surrounding African countries.
St Jude’s Farm, it is plain for all to see, is a sheer repository of theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom, blended with a strong business sense. Here is such an amazing success story that Josephine could very well sit back and bask in glory. And yet, she continues to show an insatiable appetite to learn from others – the first key to her success. “Send us your experts in any field of agriculture. We welcome them,” we heard her say with conviction.
[2] Develop a culture of saving. She insists that every farmer must learn to save. We whispered softly to each other: “She’s a Chinese!” But seriously, she is helping to promote a culture of responsible living – saving in order to be able to go on and do better and more important projects in life.
In regards to this second rule, we are reminded of the story of Fantasia Borrino, an American singer who was in the news recently for financial troubles in her life. She is from all accounts a very nice person and easily taken advantage of. At 25 years of age, she is a single mother who was poor and unknown three years ago, but rose to wealth and stardom after winning the American Idol. She needed to know how to manage her sudden wealth, to say “no” to relatives and friends who swooped down on her and began to live off her. In no time, she was at the brink of bankruptcy and the newly acquired house in which she lived was up for sale. She could use some help from those financial gurus who come on Oprah Winfrey’s Show, or she could patiently learn the empowering and liberating culture of saving from Josephine Kizza. While some of her woes were caused by hangers-on, the bottom line is a failure to live a culture of saving, a point worth stressing in that it is all too common everywhere. It is not just in America that there are people who live irresponsibly by “eating next year’s corn” before planting it. It is good to see that Fantasia is fighting back by booting free-riders, insisting on a work-ethic [“those who do not work shall not eat”!], and keeping expenditure under a tight rein – truly the only recipe for sustainable living at any level.
[3] Develop a culture of family-involvement. Josephine knows too well the tendency for men to leave the farming work to women. She is not on a crusade to get rid of the lazy-bum mentality. Like Sr Mathias in our previous post, Josephine knows that the best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women and girls. But in her select field of agriculture – which determines the basic survival of family units in a poverty-stricken economy – she is a visionary who knows that for a family agricultural project to succeed, two things must obtain. First, it has to be family-based, so that the whole family must sign up for training. Second, African women deserve help to be relieved from being virtual “beasts of burden”, so that men must be brought into the family farms to work alongside their wives. So St Jude’s Training Centre insists that the husband joins the wife as trainees.
A remarkable female leadership
Josephine Kizza, as founder and director of St Jude’s Farm, is a leader in organic farming in Uganda. She has demonstrated a remarkable leadership by a woman in a culture that is still very patriarchal. We see in her a form of feminism which is as effective as it is unobtrusive. She embodies a female leadership that has much to commend it.
It is a leadership that is not merely a reaction to outdated structures in our cultures, but is rather a spiritual leadership as well that embodies a deeper care and responsibility for where we are all going. Her story, her work, her life, conveys a message that not only challenges the status quo, but uplifts everyone at the same time. And as she empowers the women, she does not embitter the men, but makes the family a winner. She is neither loud nor superficial in reacting against sexism and limiting cultural constructs, but her ways are forward looking, constructive, practical, work-oriented, and winning. Her quiet spirit is saying: Let’s get on with doing the necessary hard work intelligently, so society will do better! It is that spirit that makes her important to the people around her.
In demonstrating a remarkable leadership, Josephine Kizza had the support of her husband. In her, the old adage is rewritten to read “behind every successful woman, there is a man”. It was a touching moment during her briefing when, for a very brief moment in public, she allowed herself to recede into her private emotions, looked a little forlorn, lowered her voice a bit, and said pensively that she wished her husband, John, who passed away a few years ago, was around to see all that St Jude’s Farm has now become. That flitting revelation of intimate relationship between husband and wife gave special credence to the term “family” on the sign board to St Jude’s Farm.
[1] Day and residential training on sustainable farming. [2] Variety of communal projects for youths, women and farmers. [3] President Museveni of Uganda visiting St Jude’s Farm.
Other points of note
While the three rules highlighted by Josephine speak much of her spirituality, other points in our observation impress us deeply as well.
1. A healthy work-ethic
First comes to mind is her work-ethic.
Sheer hard work is a hallmark in every success story, and Josephine’s story is no different.
Any visitor to St Jude’s can see that she is a gifted person, but we are all reminded of the Parable of the Talents and learn from her the truth that a gift at the end of the day is nothing without hard work. She knows all too well that to some person, hard work is only pain; to her it is an opportunity to create something of value. “We have seen people achieve a lot because they work,” she encourages the rural farmers. They must work the land as families, hence the title “Family Project”.
2. A farmer’s discipline
Hand in hand with her hard work is her perseverance and discipline.
This model farm is a living monument of the power of human perseverance. Josephine’s courageous perseverance coupled with her innate talent is so humbling. She knows that farmers do not go far if they have no patience with what they grow or rear. From her life experience, she teaches convincingly that greatness is not a function of circumstance, but is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
Her focus and discipline reminds us of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 38th Governor of California, when asked about his secret of success, replied: “Keep your eye on the ball.” Focus and discipline ought to be the the rule of the game, wherever we may be and whatever we may have chosen to do in life.
We have the distinct impression that any farmer coming into contact with her cannot do anything else other than to do something seriously worthwhile with their occupation. No other response is appropriate.
3. A respect for the soil and the environment
Concerning the problem of soil-degradation, Josephine’s favourite slogan is: “Feed the soil so that it feeds you.” We must learn to put back, she insists.
Acutely aware of pollution, she insists on “organic” farming to ensure environmental protection. Her insistence on “organic” farming has been paying handsome dividends and she wants rural farmers to benefit from that.
4. An intelligent land use
She demonstrates how a small parcel of land may be used intelligently through “intensive” and “integrated” farming. On her 3.5 acres of land, she trains farmers on 17 different projects.
In this regard, another slogan of hers is “intelligently work towards maximum output on minimum input”.
5. Starting the day with a smile
Josephine has a beautiful and contagious smile she constantly wears on her pleasant countenance. Another slogan from her says: “Be happy to start the day with the blessing of a smile.”
6. A spirit of gratitude
Her spirit of gratitude has propelled her to “return to society what she has received from society”.
Josephine practices the teaching that “to whom much is given, much is expected”.
She sees Uganda changing, albeit very slowly, and she wants to play her part to help “develop the people to become self-reliant and confident”.
So she gives back to society in the best way she knows, by teaching farmers the right skills of enhanced agricultural production, and by empowering women and girls to help themselves and their children. Her Centre has on its visiting list thousands of women and their children whom they know are the vulnerable ones. In Ugandan as well as the neighbouring Tanzanian societies, which are both ravaged by HIV/AIDS, her staff work with local authorities to identify AIDS children and find women to adopt and help them locally. Also for the children, the Centre provides apprenticeship projects. The women are asked to not only render protection for these children, but to also support them by giving them some paid work. Some of these children can now go back to school.
Concerning the vulnerable women and children in society, Josephine’s slogan is: “We do a little, but our success is great.”
Now, she is helping farmers to organize in organic marketing, to sell as a group.
7. A strong dose of faith
We can say a great deal about Josephine Kizza’s incredible story. She had set a relentless goal and her accomplishments were driven by will and powered by resolve. She now offers an inspiring story of struggle and triumph. And she has an uplifting message for everyone, regardless of one’s station in life, of the things that one can achieve through hope and hard work. And yet, saying all this and more would be missing a crucial factor in the whole equation had one left out the element of faith.
Josephine Kizza stands tall with an indomitable spirit that refuses to let pain and darkness, which are inevitable in life, to have the last word. Underneath it all is a strong faith in God. She epitomizes a clear principle of Christian living: look backwards with gratitude, upwards with confidence, and forward with hope. The world has much to learn from her leadership that is providing hope.
It was a great privilege to see her holy work.
In our pilgrimage to Uganda, it was particularly meaningful to hear directly from her, to feel her journey of pain and hope, and as Christians to learn to walk that journey of pain and hope in our own lives. In her own words: “For us it was a long and painful journey and just when we were beginning to see our effort bear fruits, my husband John had a stroke. He lived on for five years and died in 2007. How I wish he was here to see all this. But I am happy that our children are grown up and have chosen to go into agriculture as well.”
After hearing her story, none of us dared to ever say that we could not try to rise above any difficult circumstances in which we might find ourselves.
From a hopeless case, Josephine said, “you will agree with me that St Jude’s Farm is now filled with hope.” Instinctively, we realised how hard and long she must have been praying to God through the intercession of the saint of hopeless cases. When Monica, a young Ugandan woman in our group who runs the L’Arche community in Masaka, said to Josephine that she so admired her and wished to become like her, Josephine replied in stunning simplicity: “My dear, you can have all this and more because you are still so young. But first, you have to learn to bend your knees.”
And when the group, led by Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, blessed Josephine Kizza and prayed over her, it was transparent that this woman of great faith, whose life is a combination of prayer and labour, was visibly touched and grateful. On our part, we left her farm even more grateful to her for a precious lesson in the way of God – the way of pain and hope. The Bible tells it. Josephine Kizza lives it. We are humbled and in awe; and deeply grateful for this privilege to see, hear, and feel it.
Copyright © Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh, November 2010. All rights reserved.
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