The L-rd has very clearly had His hand on Stanley’s life since before he was born. This is evident from the many times the enemy has tried to kill him, beginning in the womb. His mother, Stellah, was seduced by the head master at her school when she was around 14, which is all too common in Uganda. He was transferred shortly after this, so we don’t know if he would have married her or not? This was around 1990 so people didn’t have cell phones and easy ways to communicate, and in the village of course no one had home phones.
A single mother in that culture doesn’t have many options without an education and even though there are many single mothers they are looked down on and so are their bastard children. They basically have no hope of an education or of owning land which is as important there as it was in Bible times. She tried three times unsuccessfully to abort her baby, and ended up having to drop out of school. Her father offered to raise the baby and educate him but she seemed to feel responsible, or maybe she thought she would never have a chance to be married if she didn’t quickly take whatever offers were out there, as the average Ugandan man will absolutely not raise another man’s child! The man she married was decent at first and very proud of Stanley, but when he took a second wife about 6 or 7 years later the new wife somehow realized that Stanley was not his and made sure the stepfather was aware.
After this the stepfather became quite abusive to both Stellah and Stanley. He refused to pay for his education after first grade and also tried kind of regularly to kill him because he wasn’t his son. It’s reminiscent of Saul constantly chasing after David in order to end his life. Stanley often ran to his grandparents’ village for safety, but he wasn’t able to stay there as his stepfather used him to take care of his cows and other menial labor. The last time when he was alerted that his stepfather was coming to kill him, when he was around 10 or 11, he had to run away naked and on an empty stomach. He headed in the direction of Tororo, although he had no idea where he was going. Along the way he came across a woman washing clothes and stopped to help her in the hopes that she would give him some food as payment. She was grateful for his assistance but didn’t offer him a meal. When she asked if he was going to town he thought ‘why not?’ even though he had no idea where town was or what it was like. She told him he needed to be clean and clothed so after he washed up she gave him a man’s shirt that was much too big but at least it covered him and he set off for town.
Young Stanley
As he was walking along he prayed to G-d with tears to lead him to wherever He chose to take him. Stanley didn’t really have a relationship with G-d at that point but he had been raised in a Catholic family so he knew that there was a G-d and that we could pray to Him.
Soon after he resumed his journey he passed a man pushing his scooter as it didn’t have enough juice to make it up a steep slope. Stanley helped him push it and get it started again. The man asked if he was going to town and offered him a ride, which Stanley was grateful to take, although he ended up only going to the outskirts of Tororo. Just riding on the scooter was a great adventure for him!
There were some women walking along where the man dropped him off who spoke Jhapadola, also known as Jhap, which was the only language Stanley knew at the time. They were discussing where they could sleep and decided to go to the hospital as it was free to sleep there. He tried to follow them as it was getting dark, but when they got into town and passed a cinema he was fascinated by the sounds of the movie and lost sight of them in the crowd. The movie ended shortly after this and all the people came out, pushing past Stanley. Just then one of the movie goers, a disabled man, dropped 2000 shillings on the ground, which was quite a large sum. Stanley quickly picked up the notes and for some reason returned them to their owner. He says he was afraid that someone would beat him if he tried to buy something with such a large sum. He hoped, and even asked the man, for a small reward, but he only thanked him in Kiswahili which was lost on Stanley. For his part he apparently didn’t understand Jhap even though it’s one of three local languages spoken in Tororo, as well as English.
Uganda is on the equator and it gets dark very quickly there, so by this time he really needed to find a place to sleep and hope for better things in the morning.
However this is where The L-rd intervened for him! A Ugandan man named Wilberforce and a foreign woman were standing nearby on the street for some reason and had seen him return the money to the disabled man and were quite impressed as they could see that Stanley was just a poor boy. Wilberforce speaks Jhap and called him over. He asked him where he lived and if he had a family as there are so many street children there. Stanley told him that he didn’t have any parents and gave him a brief summary of his adventures getting to town. Not having a father does count as being an orphan in that culture, as well as in Scripture, and his grandfather had died when he was about 7 so he had no male protector/provider in his life. His mother and grandmother couldn’t do a lot for him, although they did their best and he is very grateful for all the sacrifices they made on his behalf.
Wilberforce and the foreign woman were moved by his story and impressed by his unselfishness and felt they should help him somehow. They knew Emily and her heart for orphans and decided to take him there. He had never been so far from his village or in a large town like this in his young life, and Emily’s house was like a mansion to him. He had no idea that people lived in places like that and he was fascinated by electricity and indoor plumbing, which he had never seen before. His feet were in bad shape from his long days of cow herding, as well as being shaken out of a mango tree by his stepfather at one point. Along with being fed a good meal there were several white women helping to wash his feet and fussing over him. Of course foreigners were extremely fascinating to him also. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he was in heaven even though he ended up sleeping on a mattress on the table because Emily didn’t have any more beds!
This is how the L-rd brought him to ACTS for Messiah but this is only the beginning of his story and how G-d equipped him with such a big heart for the downtrodden and uniquely prepared him for his vital role in our ministry.
