Kampala Pentecostal Church a meeting spot for young professionals in pursuit of life … and love

["You trust people because you’re courageous, that’s why, because you are grateful. It’s a mark of courage, it’s a mark of commitment. 

It’s like you and I are going to make an agreement and you are full of snakes and so am I. 

There’s lots of ways this could go sideways but we are going to put together an agreement, we are going to articulate it, we are going to try it out. 

We are going to find something that’s of mutual benefit to both of us. 

We are going to put our hands out and shake on it and we are going to stick to that. 

And we are going to risk trusting each other. I don’t think there’s any other natural resource than trust.

And for trust, you need courage not naïveté”. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson]

The way young people today navigate relationships is a puzzle - social media, online dating, swipe left, swipe right. I hope things work out. Then I think back to our days and how clueless we were, we also jumped on life with gusto with all those group outings and retreats, older generations probably had their fingers crossed too.

Some things worked out, some things didn’t.

In the meantime, in my study, Spotify lifts the carpet. My favorite music: Randy Rothwell (Hosanna Integrity – back to the beginnings); Pink Sweat$ (groovy tunes recently discovered); John Legend (an absolute no-go especially without a significant other); Amapiano and Afro-beats (the best vibes in town – those log-drums go thump-thump all the way home). 

While the music plays, I’m carried away and I land smirk in the outskirts of Bukoto.

A hot Saturday afternoon, at a Campus and Careers Fellowship (CCF) - there’s about twenty of us. We are peers (plus or minus five years), we attended the same high schools; were university students or recent graduates feeling our way through life, building careers, shaping goals and dreams, thinking about the future. 

The ties of faith bind us. We are good friends, like siblings but not quite. Loves mysteries loom over our heads and hearts – to find the right one, be found by the right one, be the right one, all that.

Laughter rises from a place of naivety, budding Christian professionals out to have good fun grounded in biblical principles or at least we are learning. We treat the young men as brothers, the young women as sisters. 

Then hearts start to summersault. 

We are not sure if this, this tag, this attraction, this draw that makes us feel a certain kind of way, that this is good, is ok. We pray, “Dear God, if these feelings are not from you, please take them away.” (Ahem!)

Friends pat our backs and respond from a place of uncertainty. We all charter unfamiliar territory.

“Pray about it”- they urge.

“You guys look good together”- they affirm.

“Tell her”- they encourage.

“Wait for him to make the first move” - they caution.

“Man! She’s spoken for” …

It’s tight.

Spinning and spinning through murky waters. But “What would Jesus do?”  Christian romance 101. Was it okay to take a second glance? Was it carnal to spend extra minutes in front of the mirror, touching up that makeup in case brother Michael looked your way?

We were certain, we were uncertain. We had pastors to guide us, may be one or two married friends (who mostly looked like unicorns. We could not comprehend what they’d done). Our parents chattered a different course, did they love each other or were they sticking it out for our sake?

We were determined to do it right - God’s way. But how? “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known…”  I Corinthians 13: 9-12 

Once the young lady wore a graduation cap and was conferred with an academic degree, the guy got on bended knee and asked for her hand in marriage. Mpozi how long should one date? Six months? Two years?? 

He’d worked three years, had a descent salary, good prospects with his employer, he was ready to make the commitment (shaky knees and all). She wanted to make a home, she was ready, or at least she thought she was, even though she constantly checked in with her friends for reassurance.

Couples sprouted like mushrooms after the rain, you’d catch glimpses through café windows. They’d take romantic walks to the old taxi park. Engines raved for hours in the church parking lot before she’d be dropped at her parent’s home. 

Then it got quiet. You’d look around, wonder if you missed something, a clue, a hint gone unnoticed. Thoughts would dissipate in the merriment of the next fellowship meeting; everyone happy to gather again. Thoughts would return later as you analyzed the days conversations, as the taxi collected all the potholes on your way home. 

Big questions: How will I know? How do you know someone? How do you get past the heart flutters to the real person? What are their habits? What is their faith like under duress? What about their family dynamics? What are their non-negotiables? How do they handle money? How does one explore these principles and values outside of relationship? Can you walk away when the alarms start to sound? Is there grace to accept faults? Can one differentiate between weaknesses and plain bad manners – poor upbringing? Is one trapped the moment one says, “I think I like you”? Is it the same as “I do!”? 

I Corinthians 13 begins to look like a hard paper.

A guy opens his home for yet another CCF meeting. He has a large enough compound, with a music system that shakes the house. Limit X gets heads bobbing, we do the shuffle. 

In the vein of leadership, the men take charge, sort the muchomo guy, he delivers a sizzling marinated goat stuffed with rice pilau. We dig in. Talk about school, about hopes and dreams, share prayer requests. We read scripture, listen to sermons and talks. We are a family of believers, a little clueless but we are headed in the same direction, so it’s good.

The wedding meetings begin.

One chairman makes rounds in the church overflow, in pockets of restaurants on Buganda Road. The church choir is glued to the pulpit each Saturday morning.

Couples climb off the wall like the green bottles in that nursery rhyme – “And if one green bottle should accidentally fall, they’ll be one green bottle standing on the wall.” 

You get the strange feeling that you might be the last green bottle up on the wall. A look below is not too comforting some of the bottles in the grass cracked. Maybe safer staying on the wall? 

Again, there is no manual, just prayer and belief that there will be light enough for the next step.

Roads divide further on this memory trail but I must return lest I get lost. 

I wonder again how today’s young people chart these waters – being “blue ticked”, “ghosted” and then ati now they have “options”. Owaye!!!

I walk through the neighborhood. The trees have shed their leaves – they are now bare – not as pretty. I remember spring and all the flowers that came with it – gone; Summer and all the green shade from the suns glare – gone; Fall and its beautiful leaves – gone; It is winter. The trees that survived the seasons have naked branches, but their roots run deep, having a source of nourishment fortified over years. When spring comes, there’ll be budding again. 

Life I guess is a series of seasons.

“And for trust, you need courage not naïveté”