Trinity of faith, works, and testimony

That is precisely the tight package that I came away with. The overwhelming conviction that faith, works, and testimony constitute an inseparable trinity in the life of the practicing confessor.

It was the heart-moving summary of everything that was said, sung, and preached by so many voices at my late mother-in-law’s send-off on Saturday, September 30. The message was loud and crystal clear. 

The homestead was the very one where, four decades ago, my mother-in-law to-be, in her prime, together with my father-in law to-be, Rev Othniel Okalebo (RIP), gave me solemn permission – in a rich ceremony of ritual, colourful spectacle, song, declamations, and feasting – to be born as a son in their family. 

On Saturday, September 30, at a spot 68km on Mbale-Soroti Road, namely, Mukura Trading Centre, for the umpteenth time, I turn at right angles to the right onto the ‘panya’ road to the village of Kaler that belongs deep in my inside.

I am in the company of three of my family members in the car. The family member driver additionally activates his Google map voice navigator. 

Only 100 metres onto Kaler Road, we climb our way over the raised and disused railway; and we drive past, to our immediate left, ‘Mukura Memorial Secondary School’ – erected by the central government in horrible remembrance of the 60 innocent young men who were in 1989 roasted to death in locked locomotive wagons by over-zealous military elements of the ruling regime. 

Another 3km on, our Google voice navigator announces, ‘You have arrived at your destination.’ During the formal Anglican order of service, numerous warm tributes to Toto Egulansi Okalebo, one after another, are paid by fellow believers across the entire spectrum of spiritual shades (Balokole, Bebafu, Bazukufu, Baptist, Born-again, Catholic, Charismatic, Evangelical, SDA, etc.) – including lay-women, lay-readers, clergy, Bishop Michael Okwii of Kumi Diocese, and Rtd Bishop Charles Obaikol of Soroti Diocese. 

Particular highlights are Toto’s evident and manifest faith as a saved Anglican; her good works as exemplified by her leadership roles in the Mothers’ Union and Terudo (Teso Rural Development Organisation); and, especially, her strong testimony of a life lived in the light. 

On faith and works, we are challenged to recall St James’s admonishment to believers to balance the two, as faith without works is dead! ‘Show me your faith and I will show you my works,’ he challenges – and ridicules those who wish a starving fellow believer to go well and to somehow suddenly find his stomach filled!

Ah, but what does it mean to have a testimony? At this point my spirit sits up within me! And my brain goes racing to my high school days long ago, to my S2 class at Nabumali, and my classmates and I having a fabulous time studying The Four Gospels in One Story in contemporary English. We were especially enthralled by two stories: those of the healed former blind man who challenges his intimidators; and the woman Jesus talks with at Jacob’s well. I still regard these two as great all-time examples of testimony.

In the story of the blind man who gets back his sight, he fearlessly confronts his legalistic detractors with, ‘Whether the man who healed me is “a sinner” or not, in the sense you people understand that term, one thing I know; that whereas I was blind, now I see – do you dispute that?’

And in the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, after Jesus tells her she has had five husbands and is presently living with a man who is not her husband, she abandons her water-pot and goes running to town, crazily calling out, ‘Come, see a man who has told me everything I ever did!’

Toto Egulansi is earnestly credited by all the speakers to have practiced a balanced trinity of faith, works, and testimony. Fare you well, Toto.

Prof Timothy Wangusa is a poet and novelist. [email protected]