Success attracts both barbs and bouquets

“Do good; hit the freeway.” That’s my translation of a popular Kiswahili adage that says tenda wema nenda zako.

But, sometimes, before a do-gooder hits the freeway, he could be whacked with sticks and stones from the very people he was trying to help.

That’s what happened to Pastor Sammy*, who was a friend of mine. When I say pastor, I must add that I am skeptical when it comes to some pastors. Not every person who calls himself a man of God is a man of God. There are shepherds out there who turn their sheep into minced lamb. But Pastor Sammy was the real deal. He was a servant. He was called. He had sacrificed a lot in the name of helping others, especially orphaned boys.

He started by renting a deserted home, where he put an orphanage. With time, it grew, especially when several institutions helped to put up buildings. By the time I met him, the home was already established and running efficiently.

Sent from heaven

I met Pastor Sammy when we were founding KENWA. Many orphans and vulnerable children were living in the cold, because landlords denied them entry into their late parents’ houses.

Some even insinuated that the children’s parents had left behind several months’ rent arrears, which they demanded for. These landlords wanted nothing to do with destitute children.

Three such children were in my care. I was looking for a home for them. As fate would have it, I was introduced to Pastor Sammy by a well-wisher of KENWA, who was also touched by the plight of the three boys.

These poor souls were sleeping in the cold. Meanwhile, their dead mother’s body lay unclaimed in a mortuary for over three months.

Mountain-moving faith

Pastor Sammy said he would help. He took in the boys.

This strengthened our working relationship. We constantly met and helped each other on several matters, especially resource mobilisation. (That’s NGO-speak for raising funds).

Pastor Sammy never wrote funding proposals, which are the staple of many not-for-profits. He had this unshakeable faith that God, in His own capacity, would provide for their needs. I think in some ways, God provided: I linked Pastor Sammy with an institution that gave him monthly food supplies and also pledged to educate some of his boys. My pastor pal continued in his ministry.

He never thought his success would provoke malicious jealousy. But it did. That’s the thing with success: it attracts both barbs and bouquets.

The State versus Pastor Sammy

In a seemingly-isolated incident, four boys from Pastor Sammy’s home accompanied a woman fundraiser on an overseas trip.

However, Pastor Sammy was surprised that on returning, the boys did not return to the children’s orphanage.

They instead went to live in an apartment in town. Moreover, they even changed schools. It turned out that the fundraiser, with millions in the bank, wanted to run the home. However, Pastor Sammy was the big impediment to her plot.

Little could have prepared my good pastor for what was to come. One morning, he was served with a warrant.

“Report, without failure, to the police station, to be interrogated about accusations of sexual harassment.”

Pastor Sammy had no clue that the fundraiser and the four boys had conspired to accuse him of sodomy.

Death sentence

Pastor Sammy was stunned. In court he was speechless. He could not answer when he was asked to take a plea. He just stared at the prosecutor. He was however given some time, rushed to hospital and later discharged the same day. That day, at home, Pastor Sammy refused to speak to anyone except his eight months’ pregnant wife. He told her he was being fixed. 

Pastor Sammy died in his sleep that same night. No one knows the findings of the postmortem. No one was interested. But for us in the fraternity, who really knew Pastor Sammy, we knew he would have given his life for his children. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what he got after the betrayal: a death sentence. 

A widow’s pain

“How could they do that him while he went hungry so that they could have food to eat?” Pastor Sammy’s widow keeps lamenting.

She is very bitter that the children the pastor tried to help are the one who killed him. And she has every right to be. I could be dead wrong, but I can bet my last cent that Sammy was a pastor. He wasn’t a shepherd that feeds on his sheep. Too bad he didn’t live to tell his side of the story.