MAGAZINE
Taking it Easy, With HIV
By JESSE MASAI 
They say that in Africa , it does not rain – it floods. These days, it is also being said that on this continent, it is not cured – it is healed. Perhaps nowhere else is the latter better illustrated than in Nairobi , the Kenyan capital.
Friday morning and everyone in East and Central Africa 's busiest city is on and about. But on a leafy knoll near the official residence of the First Family, stands the imposing Nairobi Pentecostal Church , into which several people are streaming for a mid-morning miracle service. Reverend Samwel Mukabi, the visiting Ugandan minister, has everyone waiting for the hour of ministration. Near him, sprawled in wheelchairs and long benches, are Nairobi and Kenya 's sick, looking askance at him and the God they believe will set them free today. Testimonies from those who have already had ministration at an earlier session flow in, fast and neat.
“God has healed me. I will no longer need a kidney transplant or dialysis. Continue to give thanks to God for your situation. He wants to use you for His glory,” says Joyce Mwendwa, one of those testifying.
Jane Oyagi, a breast cancer victim, comes next.
She says: “I have had a mastectomy. An infection then developed, associated with that condition. I have also lost one of my legs. I was so inspired by Reverend Mukabi's confidence the other day. My pain has started subsiding following that day's meeting. I have come again so that we finish the healing that had begun flowing on that day.”
When he finally comes on, the mood in the Church - one of the largest in Kenya - is already set. “I am convinced that when God saves a life from a terminal illness, He has a bigger intention. It's bigger than just eating ugali (a popular Kenyan dish),” he says.
And he adds: “When God comes to touch your life, He means much more than you are expecting. He is a God of second chances. He certainly answers prayer when His people call Him.”
Reverend Mukabi should know about God and the certainty of His power to grant second chances, having himself been allegedly healed of the deadly HIV/Aids. “I got it the right way – sexual intercourse,” he tells the congregation, teeming the Church from every end.
“I went and looked for it but thank God He has healed me. How much more your own situation? God heals Aids because I know. I walked with it for seven good years. I have gone through stuff my dear. I would be mad to stand here and say God is going to heal you, but look, I heard Him say it. Be still and know that He is God. Settle down. Take it easy. Relax.”
In his matter-of-fact but light-hearted voice, he continues to outline his seven-year travails with the killer disease – from his time as a watchman at a Church in Uganda to the influential minister he now is.
“Don't give up just because the doctor has said so. I was written off severally. People said all kinds of things. I ceased to look forward to my birthday. All the sings were there. The stigma was just too much. But look, here I am,” says the father of four, who – to much mirth - now says he and his wife are warming up for another baby-making marathon.
He continues: “Your condition came to work for God and good. The Aids I had has taken me around the globe. Your condition is taking you somewhere. I know good preachers of faith. But it's different when someone has gone through it. I walked the walk for seven years.”
The man who, a few years from now, would like to head both Uganda and the East African Federation, then bemoans what he considers to be the circus surrounding the HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa.
“We looked for generational curses even where there were none and broke them. We have been wasting valuable time on non-essentials. We give the devil so much attention for nothing. Remove your eyes from circumstances and focus them on God. He touched me,” he says.
He then recounts his journey towards healing, including a false start he had after a miracle crusade rub by a visiting preacher back home in Uganda .
“I woke up to a tearful, painful morning. I had sores all over. I suffered for two more weeks. This had apparently become one of those many unanswered prayers from me to God. I decided not to seek healing from anyone else but God Himself. He asked me to shut up – to cease wailing and talking about my condition. I doubted alone. I wondered all alone,” he says.
After the two weeks, things got even worse – six more months of pain, each whole day and night. “That time allowed me to know He means business. He made me realize HIV/Aids is just another disease. Having had my time with product merchants and such other con-persons, I was coming to faith afresh,” he says.
He continues: “I came to realize that God's blessings for me depend not on what is happening around me but what is happening in heaven. I prayed for myself and He just healed me. He killed all the parasites in my blood. No one who had known me could believe it until they had a look at my blood test results.”
And he adds: “I am not going to die of HIV/Aids. It might sound arrogant but He is my faith. I will die of anything else but the disease.” And he has words of counsel to those convalescing: “Don't be self-centered when you are sick or in difficult times. Pray for and help others in similar situations.”
He also cautions against myopia, telling the story of a Ugandan lady who had supposedly died of the killer disease but whom God had brought back to life through his ministry.
“Afterwards I met her. I then asked what she wanted to do with the new lease of life God had given her. All she told me was that she did not want to die as painfully as she had just a week before. A week later and she was dead again, of course painlessly, in line with her request.”
The congregation bursts out into an uneasy, prolonged laughter. And he is not yet done.
“If you build a house which only your salary can pay, you rob God of His glory. Nothing can stop God from doing what He wants to do. If an imperfect man like myself can love a woman till she cries, what can our perfect God do when we trust Him?” he asks.