Bweyinda the child pastor, 25 years later

When David Bweyinda was an ordinary four year old, he told his mother that God had called him to preach the gospel. She was disturbed by the thought that her baby just did not want to go to school. Clare Namanya caught up with him.

Tell us about your encounter with God
Due to unavoidable circumstances, when I was little, I started living with my grandmother. My mother who used to sell bananas and vegetables on the street in Busabala, Makidye Division became ill. Left with a few days to die, she asked to see me for the last time.

While there, a woman who was leaving the hospital uttered some words to us that “Mumutwale ewabalekana,” meaning take her to the noisemakers (the pentecostals) to be prayed for. Being staunch Catholics, my grandmother first hesitated but agreed the next morning. The church we went to was in Kibuye.

What were you hoping for?
At that age, I only tagged along. That day, there was a man (names withheld) of God visiting. While praying, he prophesied that in the congregation, there was a woman left with 48hours to live but the Almighty had added onto her more 15 years.

He told her to come forward and since she could, he stepped down the pulpit and went to her.

With the help of a one Dr Lamet Lumala who was then practicing in Mulago Hospital (he is still alive and can bear me witness) they cut my mother somewhere around the belly and removed a scorpion. He told us she had been bewitched and still has that scar. He looked at me and said: “Wow..what a powerful man of God. You will travel nations and God will use you.”

He then gave me money and told me to take mum home and not to give her food for two weeks. After that cutting experience, I could hardly sleep. I slept in the same room with mum and two weeks later, I got up one night and could not see our roof. I woke mum up and showed her but unlike me, she saw it and started praying that I was running mad. I saw a face smiling down at me and the roof came on again.

Are you sure, you were not dreaming?
The next day, we got a visitor who read Deuteronomy 28 (the Luganda) to me. We did not know him. The first four verses I believe are what carried my message. Two months later, I got a vision. I saw a trench with dirty water flowing at high speed.

The people in it were crying out for help but going with the tide. Therein, came a voice, which said: “Are ready to obey? I am sending you to deliver my people from witchcraft and all powers of darkness. I will bless you.”

That was when I told mum that God had called me to do His work. That was 1990 and I was four years old. Being her last child, she called my elder siblings and told them. Some slapped me thinking I did not want to study.

The preaching starts
She further consulted with pastors who told that I was going to waste away. For that reason, they refused to let me into their churches to preach. I then started in Owino Market and on the streets. My first day in the market, I looked around and there was a Hajat who sold bed sheets. I walked to her. She asked me if I wanted to buy. I said no and she shouted asking whom I was with, for fear that, I was lost.

When I said God has sent me to you, she increasingly got agitated until I told her the facts of life that she was going through; she had five children, each with a different father and was going through a lot. She calmed down and believed. Looking around, I saw a trench and remembered the one in my vision.   

My first miracle had to quote the Bible and then tell my congregation to read, only to find it exact. The Holy Spirit was upon me. That was when mum gave up fighting me. She realised that my calling was real. I spent a year preaching in Owino Market and the numbers grew each day.

And here you are 25 years later
He has surely blessed me. My greatest miracle has been of God Almighty keeping His promise. I did not go to school after that but hear how fluent my English is. I have been to over 30 nations and my testimony has changed lives.

Redeemed Churches of Uganda, my ministry, is this week celebrating the silver Jubilee (25 years). I will start with a crusade from July 29 to August 2   . The wrap up will be at Serena Hotel where my friends and I will remind ourselves of those years. I will sing my old songs and tell them my story.