Eddie Mukaaya My name is Eddie Mukaaya and I am from Uganda. I am marriage to Edith and we have two daughters Elaine 7yrs and Elon who is now 4 yrs. As a young, boy I grew up in a polygamous family with three step mothers. I had 8 siblings from my own mother and 27 step brother and sisters. Our home was like a mini school. In that setting I did not have love or affection from a father or a mother. I literally had no relationship at all with my father. There was a lot of conflict, bitterness and rivalry coming from all angles our family. The family situation progressively deteriorated as we grew up so much that each woman became her own empire with her children. However, as a blessing in disguise, although my mom was the first wife and wedded one, she was the least favored and she was taken to live in the country side away from the main family resources. There she raised us up in very abject poverty. We did not have knowledge of many basic things. Clothing and beddings were a luxury; leave alone affording a decent meal or bath. My dad only came once in a long while. Even the time he did were also marked with a lot of terror. To say that my dad
was an abusive father is an understatement. At times he came late in the night fully drunk and would beat up every one including our mom. He would kick us out of the house and we would spent the rest of the night out in the cold being welcomed by swarms of mosquitoes. Although my dad was not poor according to the Ugandan standards then he refused to pay for my tuition when I was just joining second grade. After that I got a scholarship at another school where my mom’s cousin was the principle. However, this school was about 10 miles from home. We could not afford a bike for me to commute. But I was determined I walked to and from school daily.
I stayed at that school for only one
year and the principle died. The new principle did not know my story and therefore he did not approve my scholarship so I sat for following year. To complete the rest of my primary school education (what would combine Elementary and middle school here) moved to 6 different schools. Joining high school one of Elder sisters picked me up and started paying my tuition. Its in her house that I met the Lord during my third year of high school.
However, by the God’s mercies I graduated from high school and I was qualified for a government scholarship to join College. Because of what I had gone through growing up, I prayed and desired to have a good family and I waited a little longer to get married. But when I met Edith there was no reason for waiting any longer. She accepted to marry me and we started a family together. When it came to having children she wanted a boy for first born but I wanted a girl. However, we agreed and prayed to God for a girl. It was with joy unspeakable when Edith conceived and we found out that we were expecting a girl. We started praying for her and she became a part of us. Life was good! However, at the end of the first trimester Edith started falling sick. When she was about 24 weeks she became hospitalized due to an infection in the blood. Her condition deteriorated so much that the doctors concluded that she was reacting to the pregnancy. They recommended terminating the pregnancy in order to save her life. When I was presented with this proposal I did not know how to handle it. I shared it with Edith and we agreed to pray and trust God to deliver us from this trial. But her condition was just worsening.
I was again called upon for my consent to have the pregnancy terminated in order to save my wife. But I was not encouraged in my spirit to sign on the papers. For me it was signing off my daughter not a pregnancy and I refused. I was told I had an option to save my wife but I was risking losing her at the expense of a fetus I had not seen. But I told the doctor that God alone has authority over life not me. At that I was also taken as a psychiatric patient who needed medical attention. To cut a long story short, Elaine was eventually delivered preterm at 26 weeks. She weighed about 2.5 pounds at birth. She was also born with a heart mummer. We spent the next 6 weeks in the hospital. Even after that, we were between the hospital and home until she was about 6 months. By one year Elaine had stabilized, she had put on weight and the heart mummer had miraculously closed. But she was not talking. Later, at 16 months Elaine was diagnosed with progressive severe to profound sensorinueral hearing loss in both ears– a condition that impairs one’s ability to access speech sounds to develop spoken language.
After
exhausting all the resources there was in Uganda and the Kenya, Elaine was at risk of never being able to learn to talk. On the other hand, being a girl-child and deaf carries a lot of social stigma.
This was very
disheartening news and a much harder reality we had to deal with on a daily basis. Seemingly, it was as if we were the only family with a deaf child wherever we went. Only to realize that parents do not bring their deaf children in public but leave them at home for fear of the social stigma. For us, Elaine was more than a gift and we always saw her beyond the hearing loss. And what the Lord had done so far was a great motivation and encouragement. We looked at this hearing loss yet as another hurdle we had to jump. But the chances of learning to talk were fast shrinking as she was close to the critical age of language acquisition. My wife and I always wished for a time when we could be able to talk to her to our first born; for her to hear us tell her we that we love her. I longed for a time when my daughter could ever call me dad.
But God was not yet done with us. Through a divine provision, Elaine was tested by a visiting surgeon from NYU who said that Elaine would be a good candidate for Cochlear Implants if she was in the US. We pursued this option and we were later referred to a pediatric Surgeon at Mass Eye and Ear in Boston who offered to find a donated implant and would also donate his professional services to reduce on the cost of the surgery. Subsequently we were cleared to travel to the US and we travelled to Boston in the winter of 2010 to start the evaluation. This was more than a leap of faith for us to embark on journey. Without knowing what the results would be I left Edith in Uganda with Elon who
was 12 months and one week (to be precise) and came to the US with Elaine. Upon our arrival in the US, I came to realize that speech therapy and rehabilitation after implantation is the most critical part for a child to be able to learn to talk and this takes even much longer time than the implant that I had come for. In many ways this was a huge obstacle to our vision. For we had already come so far and had essentially exhausted all the resources we had for this journey. But God had a different plan. Now Elaine does not only understand her environment, but knows and calls people by their names. She has gained leaps and bounds in her language acquisition and she has taken off with her learning to talk and developing academic skills. Conclusion:
Much as I did not indulge myself in the conventional lifestyle of my peers at college or high school, my life was ebbing away with unforgiving, bitterness, anger short temperedness. When Paul says “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice�.Eph.
for
4:13
me these were ever present. I lived with them and personalized them
well in my infancy. I didn’t know how to give or receive love. My wife and children will tell you that I am still learning and Forgiving my dad is one of the biggest miracles of my faith in Christ.
Again because of my father, I struggled with issues of trust. But God used these situations to teach me how to trust Him. I was pushed to that place where I had no option but to totally surrender to him and completely learn to dependence on GOD alone. Thank you so much for listening! God bless,