Everybody, Always

many of the problems we have turning into the men we want to be are the
same.
After one of my meetings with Kabi outside of his cell, I asked the
warden if anyone had come to talk to the inmates about what Jesus said
our lives could look like with Him at the center. At first he waved me off,
but then, as if I’d done a Jedi move, he said he’d let Kabi talk to them.
A couple of trips later, Kabi and I stood, holding hands, in the
courtyard of Luzira Maximum Security Prison with my son Richard and a
few other friends. I listened while Kabi told three thousand dying men
about the new life he had started with Jesus. I know what many of them
were thinking:
Wait, this is Kabi the witch doctor. The evil guy.
Jesus?
Him?
Unbelievable!
Kabi spoke for thirty minutes. Honestly, I’ve never heard anyone hack
the gospel message worse than Kabi did that day. His message was
garbled and halting, and he barely got anything right. By the time he was
done, I wondered if I even believed in Jesus anymore. But here’s the
thing: every guy in that place knew who Kabi was and what he had done,
and more than a few knew I was the guy who put him there. Our standing
in the courtyard together, not as enemies but as brothers, filled in all the
words Kabi had messed up about Jesus. This is the story Jesus came to
tell in your life, my life, and Kabi’s life. He said He would turn us into
love if we were willing to leave behind who we used to be.
When Kabi finished giving the best-worst sermon I’ve ever heard,
hundreds of guys started walking toward us. Kabi picked up a water
bottle, as did a couple of our other friends, and he started baptizing the
other prisoners. At first, I was thinking, Wait, you can’t do that, Kabi!
You hardly know anything about your faith, you know almost none of the
doctrine, and you’re a killer too. But while I rattled through all the
reasons he couldn’t, Kabi kept splashing water over the heads of these