From the Dust

""She was dirty and dusty. Her curly hair had seen neither a comb nor water for months. In one hand she carried a package of cigarettes and in the other a solvent rag."" Young Namusisi had no home, no family, no money for school fees, and no one to love her or care for her. She survived in the culture of the buyaye on the streets, parking lots, and porches of the city of Kampala, Uganda. But one day she met Daddy Kefa and her life was changed. He took her to his children's home where she was provided for and was shown the love of Christ. Namusisi was just one of more than six thousand Ugandan street children who were rescued from a meaningless and hopeless life by the efforts of a compassionate, selfless, and godly man. From the Dust contains the poignant stories of many of those destitute children--stories of how they came to live on the streets and of how their lives were changed. Here are stories of a people ravaged by a demonic dictator, a people who had lost all sense of humanity and were struggling under emotional, physical, and spiritual poverty. From the Dust tells how the efforts of one man made a difference to so many who were groping in a dark world of sin and hopelessness. It is the story of the love of God to the lost and dying, and of how that love made a difference to so many Africans and can still make a difference to those who will trust in him. ""He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory"" (1 Sam2:8).


Kefa Sempangi is a former minister and parliamentarian in the Ugandan government; the founder of Africa Foundation, a charity for displaced children; former chairman of the National Council for Children in Uganda; and pioneer and founder of the Presbyterian Church in Uganda. He is the author of A Distant Grief (1979).

Jennifer Melvin has taught for thirty years in Christian schools and is presently teaching middle and high school English at Covenant Christian School in Panama City, Florida.