Book Review: A Distant Grief

A Distant Grief is the story of Kefa Sempangi who founded and pastored a 14,000-member church in Uganda. He described in firsthand detail the suffering and persecution of Christians during the 1970s and 1980s at the hands of Idi Amin. In addition to the post about confessing your faults to one another, a number of other lessons stood out as important for me.

First, Sempgani was able to identify with the people of Uganda because of his own poverty but when the people elevated him to a position of power he was no longer able to identify with their suffering (p. 24).

Second, an observer told Sempangi that “You pray to indulge your own desires. You center on your needs or the needs of the brethren, but you do not center on Christ.” Along with his brothers and sisters in Christ, Sempgani determined to “…make Christ the beginning and the end of all [their] expectations. [They] determined to have no hope except that which was derived from Scripture. [They] learned that prayer was not a platform for self-expression but a self-emptying process” (p. 44).

Third, a brother from the church warned: “Brothers and sisters, I fear there is too much brokenness here [referring to authentic repentance]. We are walking too much in the light. We must remember that the devil will not stand for this.” He was silent for a moment. Then he trembled, and he spoke these works, “It is a frightening thing to be a child of God” (p. 45).

I could list pages and pages of amazing words of wisdom and stories from Ugandan history, but instead I’d like to challenge you to read the book for yourself. I am told that I may have the opportunity to meet Dr. Rev. Sempangi and pray that I find the right words to bless him for sharing his testimony.