This is the backstory that Mubiru Bazirios sent me when I asked him to clarify the astonishing situation he reported to me after his brother George’s death. I’m posting it here as background for the newsletter i will send out shortly, whose contents I’ll post in the next article:

—”My names are Mubiru Bazirios, the son of Mr Ssegane Andrew, Ssegane Andrew is a son of the late Rev Fr Bazirios Nsubuga Tana. Fr Tana is the the son of the late Reuben Ssezimugumbya, the first reverend at the time when Orthodox Church came to Uganda. He taught catechism in the Pearl of Africa as being comanded by the late bishops Spartas and Theodoros, but the church didn’t help him so his children didn’t go to school.

“His son Andrew is my father, and my mother is Nalongo Maria Nakimera. We were born 6 alive and 3 died including twins. We never had what to eat, dad neither had a job nor our mam did have. Our dad was ever frustrated with no hope.

“We struggled to join school but we ever got sent back home for school charges. So we had to grow up biologically but when i reached 6th Grade, our dad started beating us badly. Jonah the firstborn ran away due to the torture, and was murdered on Ssese Island (sacrificed in a certain shrine).

“We left home with our mam because our paternal aunts had brought a[nother] woman for our father.

“We lived on street and verandahs with our mam as we go to schools for a month. When we were chased away, we could go to another at least to learn english. We survived on cooked pawpaws [papaya], beging, picking eats from rubbish, snitching and steal the food from neighbours’ kids as they were eating, our mam could also beg for us to live.

“I am the elder brother but am next to Anna. We begged people to help us so that we could get some land and build for our mother a room and not to stay outside, but it failed. We went to the bishop, but he chased us away.

“And we continued to be like slaves to people who could give us food. We went to dad to help my brothers Stavros and George and my sister Lukia, but my father’s new wife stopped him. At that time, i had to pay rent for our mam, pay school dues for Lukia, George and Stavrios, and also, care for kids of my brother Jonah, buy food, water, soap, medical and etc.

“2013, my father’s wife pierced a 6-inch nail in the head of my brother George but god helped the doctors to save him. But the doctors said he could not lift any thing more than like 5 kilograms. The step mam started to hunt us as she had promised to kill us with our mother. So we ran farther.

“2014, [my sister] Anna was bewitched and she ran insane, we suffered as we prayed to God to save us.

“One day but this year, 13th august, she killed my brother Makarios. He had 4 kids and now they are my responsibility.

“i don’t know where i can put and give them but now i am responsible for 14 kids including my 6. i have to cater for their food, school, medical, water, acommodation, including my mother because, i do not have land to cultivate or business to suport me or a plot to build for them a house. Anna, Bazirios, Makarios, Theodora, Lukia, George, Stavlos. My mam takes medical of 500,000/month [$150] but am job less…. she has never in 15 years had a full dose. I have not paid two terms for feas [because] the kids have to eat and drink, plus compulsory needs.

“Good night.”

So i asked, “Let me understand properly— How many people are you actually having to take care of (names and ages)?”

—”OK sir,
Nalongo Maria Nakimera:  my mother, she has diabetes,
Ssendija George: my brother, 18 yrs, who was pierced a nail in the head.
Namubiru Lukia: my sister, 17 yrs, S.6,
Nsubuga Stavros: my brother, 11 yrs, P.6,

Mutebi John: my son, 1yr,
Nansubuga Sharon: my daughter, 5 yrs, nursery,
Mukasa Jonah: my son, 5 yrs, nursery,
Namukasa Jacky: my daughter, 6 yrs P.2,
Mubiru John: my son, 3 yrs, nursery,
Namutebi Maria: my daughter, 3 yrs, nursery,

Naluta Thekla: Jonah’s daughter, 7 yrs, P.3,
Mugumbya Jeremia Edmondi: Jonah’s son 9 yrs, P.5, stays with his mother, but she asks school fees etc

Ssegane Makarios: Makarios’ son, 5 yrs, nursery,
Mukalazi Andrew: Makarios’ son, 4 yrs, nursery,
Ssendija Nectarios: Makarios’ son, 3 yrs, nursery,
Nankya Sophia: Makarios’ daughter, 2 yrs,

Then he added

—”My brother (dead Makarios) appeared in the dream he was crying to me while saying miserably that he died while I am just sitting and doing nothing.

“Can he be dangerous to me? Am not just sitting and doing nothing! Also i have to be with his children, now am stuck.

“He said i just sit around and do nothing yet we struggled together with our mother when we had been chased away from home by our aunts and our father, but the woman who they brought for our father, killed him with demons and that I did not save him.

“The woman promised to trace all of us and kill to have space. She spoke that when she had pierced a 6 inch nail into the head of my 2nd last brother george. Peaple tell us to hide far away to remain alive.”

Since he’s the oldest male, he’s responsible for his mother, who has diabetes— and was just evicted, by the way— and for his disabled brother, a sister, and a younger brother, as well as his wife, and himself, in addition to his 6 kids, the 2 of Jonah, and the 4 of Makarios. That’s EIGHTEEN people!

Lukia his sister brings in a little money from doing domestic labor, and George, who took the nail in the head, could work if he could find a desk job, but he needs at least to get some training before he’ll be qualified for that.

So here we are at the intersection of Christmas and desperation. Some of this money will come in, over time, if all of you continue as you’ve been doing.

But we need your help. Actually, we don’t need it—  good people like Bazirios need it.

Please be generous by contributing through Paypal:

—or by sending a check to the address on our contact page.

“Amen I say to you, to the extent you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”— Jesus.

“When you give alms, God himself becomes your debtor.”— St John Chrysostom.