Desperate times, stubborn dreams

Joab Sonko heard neighbors screaming, one night after 7 — the state imposed curfew. He tried to ignore the cries. More than that, he tried to stay quiet as fellow Ugandans were beaten and tortured nearby.

Even the slightest noises from Sonko's house would have brought troops storming through his front door next. They could be tortured in their home, beaten in the streets as neighbors peaked through cracks in their make-shift shacks, raped, killed, maimed or taken away to hidden camps, never to return.

"At night my dad had to put a dark shade over the light so they wouldn't know we were awake," Sonko recalled while sitting on the second floor of a south Fort Myers condo. "Then you'd hear people screaming, '(ital)Apana wuwa. Apana wuwa.(end ital)'"

He pauses for a moment, searching for an English translation.

"It means 'Don't kill, please' in Swahili," Sonko continued. "'Don't kill, please.' They would scream it over and over."

That was 20 years ago, before Ugandan dictator Milton Obote was overthrown.

Sonko, now 29, has churches of his own in Uganda. Called Excel Africa Ministries, it focuses on educational programs in Kampala. Someday Sonko hopes to grow the effort from two churches in the capital city to a multi-nation effort aimed at improving all of Africa.

Right now, he's studying at the Fellowship International Training School, a south Fort Myers church-funded program that brings people from around the world to study topics ranging from theology to agriculture to business administration.

This is yet another step for Sonko. To teach. To liberate. To empower his people.

• • •

After his parents split when he was 13, he returned to his childhood home to stay with relatives. He found that Ugandan troops had raided the village several years before, and his friends and family were hiding out in the wilderness.

"The land was devastated and the people had been hiding in the bush for six years," Sonko said. "They stayed on the run. They were constantly moving because they were being hunted down by the soldiers."

Without parents to pay for primary schooling, Sonko farmed to offset tuition, growing enough crops to feed classmates numbering nearly 1,000.

He'd be in the fields by 5 a.m. picking vegetables and off to class by 8:30. After school it was back to the fields before going to his dormitory for a shower. He'd study when he could and sleep when collapsing was inevitable.

Grueling summer days taught Sonko to appreciate hard work and to excel under adversity, a trait that surely helped him survive when he moved to Kampala during the Liberation War in early 1980s.

He still talks about his work in farming terms.

"You plant and establish things and they grow," Sonko said of his ministry. "It's really being a pioneer."

Sonko is quite the pioneer in Uganda. He's well-read, speaks English, has traveled to study in Britain and now the United States. He's also writing a book he calls "The Power of a Dream," which he hopes to see published in the next couple of years.

Although he was born Sonko Phinehas, his Florida classmates know him as Joab Sonko. Family names are given first in Uganda, followed by middle name. Ugandans are given a third name in adulthood that becomes their first name.

His family gave him the name Joab about 10 years ago. According to the Bible, Joab was a high ranking military leader under King David of Israel.

"I always refer to him as the warrior who can go back and fight for Uganda," said Anesh Kurrian, a native of India who now lives in New York. "But he's a nice guy, so it's a spiritual warfare."

Kurrian is one of Sonko's three roommates at the Beach Walk condos in south Fort Myers. All four have lived there since March and spend almost 24-hours-a-day together —whether in the classroom, at a Chinese buffet or on day trip to the zoo.

Settled on the couch, Sonko returns to his favorite subject: his ministry and the empowerment of his people.

"First you must get a wife," Kurrian said, laughing. "Then you can get fat and go on with your ministry."

"Yes, yes," Sonko replied. "That is right. I'm not getting too fat."

• • •

Students in this summer's session have a lot in common, says Anthony Spero, director of the program. Most are from poor countries where jobs and cars belong only to the rich. They know a lot about war, AIDS, hunger and loneliness. Many have lost parents or their entire family and consider themselves lucky to be alive.

"We had a guy here who was afraid to talk to his roommates because he thought they would kill him in his sleep if he made them mad," Spero said of a former Rwandan student. "I had to tell him that no one was going to kill him or even hurt him. He was afraid that I was going to kill him if he made me mad."

Nearly all of Africa is faced with poverty and violence, he said. Rwanda, however, is the worst of all.

"Their mothers, their fathers are killed right in front of them," he said one morning after class, a wooden clock shaped like Africa sitting above his desk chair. "Africa," it says, "the Land of Promise." "If I'm going to be lax with some of the students, it's going to be them. It's going to be the people with that life, because I want them to know that the world's not like that. That you don't have to live in fear."

Spero, 63, spent decades preaching in New England and Washington, D.C. He also oversees more than 100 ministries in Africa, he said.

The program has graduated nearly 300 students since the doors opened less than a week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Several hundred people apply each year and more than 30 nations have sent students to the school. Application process isn't arduous — a few recommendations count for a lot. The biggest hurdle for applicants, who all have religious backgrounds, is getting out their country. Passports and visas are reserved for citizens with a reason to come home: Nations like Uganda want to make sure no one leaves Uganda for good.

Spero doesn't want that, either.

"We're not here to let them claim stakes in the United States," Spero said sternly. "They have to go back after six months. That's it."

Students pay for a round-trip plane ticket and bring extra money for shopping or visiting the zoo. Some bring a few hundred dollars, others a few thousand.

The fellowship program pays for two meals a day and offers free living quarters at the Beach Walk condos. Spero said the program costs about $250,000 a year to operate, money that's raised by the Fort Myers church and a non-denominational congregation in New Jersey where Spero preaches occasionally.

Sonko heard of the fellowship through other pastors in Uganda.

"It's a miracle," Sonko said. "I believe about three percent of visa applications get approved. It's a miracle that I got a passport. It's a miracle that I got a visa. Not many people get to leave the country."

Sonko said most Ugandans dream of moving to a westernized nation with jobs, affordable homes and political stability. He wants to stay in Uganda, or at least central Africa, and bring the modern world to his home lands.

Both Sonko and Uganda have flourished since rebel forces took over the country in the 1980s and halted decades of military rule. Politics there has evolved from dictatorships to the verge of a full-blown democracy.

Today, the Ugandan government pays for schooling for four children per family. The government is also supportive of Christian churches, a big change from how religious groups were treated under past dictatorships. The economy may be as stable as it's ever been, and the newest generation — those 20 years old and younger — expect a bright future, he said.

"Good things are happening now," Sonko said. "It's not where some of the other countries are, but it's gotten much better in the last 20 years."

Still, life expectancy is a modest 43, and the average income of workers there is less than a dollar a day. There's more than 25 million people living in the country. The top exports are cotton and coffee, and the coffee industry nearly collapsed after a severe drought a decade ago.

• • •

Physically, he's small in stature with short hair, wire-framed glasses and a wide, brimming smile. Mentally and spiritually, he's a giant. His eyes nearly bulge from their sockets when he talks about the future of Uganda, his ministry or his personal dream of a prosperous and peaceful homeland.

It's not just Christianity that Sonko wants to spread. He knows the country needs industries and universities to grow. While in Fort Myers, he's also going to local farms and visiting with business leaders to get a practical look at food and finance. Although religion is popular in Uganda, what the people there need most is a job, a house, peace, hope, Sonko said.

"My vision is to teach, educate the people and empower them with skills," Sonko said in a fellowship classroom during a mid-morning break. "There are lots of children with genius abilities and they can't realize that potential if they don't have schools."

For now, he has three more months of classes and many more nights of debates and storytelling with Kurrian and others. He reads a lot. There's a small television set in the living room, but it's hardly used. A family from the church loaned Sonko a DVD of Speed Racer to help pass the time. The video, however, has sat idle on the coffee table since he brought it back to his temporary home.

The rest of his spare time is spent riding a Gary Fisher mountain bike around Fort Myers. He said riding gives him a chance to think about where he's at now and where he wants to take his ministry.

What happens after September?

"I have a sense of openness for what can happen," he said, strolling through the school parking lot on his way back from CiCi's Pizza, where he lunches most days. "But this," he said, stretching his arms wide to take in the scenery in Fort Myers. "This is the easiest it can get."

From an American's eyes, it may be hard to understand why someone with Sonko's skills and smarts would stay in Uganda, when his drive and devotion might yield more tangible gains in other, less desperate places. Why stay where the kids next door starve and generations die before their time?

"I kept seeing myself in their eyes," Sonko said of Ugandans.

His mother and two siblings have since died of AIDS, an epidemic that's one of the top causes of death in all of Africa.

• • •

Ten students stepped out of a white van, looking more like an eclectic reggae band than a group of ministers. They walk inside CiCi's.

Azarias Hakizimana shuffles to the front counter. He didn't place an order or ask for help. He just stood there, seemingly glad just to be in a peaceful atmosphere.

"Move over Azarias," Alicia Joseph said. "Let someone who can speak English place the order."

"One, two, three," Joseph counts her fellow students, "nine, 10. We have 10 people for the buffet."

Joseph is the social giant of the group: A television journalist in the British Virgin Islands, Joseph's family is from India and she is a devout Christian with ministries of her own in the Caribbean.

"Do you want to eat?" she asked Hakizimana.

His reply was quiet, nearly a whisper.

Sonko and the 14 other students in the program will complete their studies in September. Then it's back to home, whether it be the British Virgin Islands, Rwanda or India.

"I want to tell my story to help people who are going through similar things now," Sonko said, forking a piece of pineapple and a banana pepper and dipping it into his Thousand Island dressing. For Sonko, there are no food rules, everything is ready to bend to his whim. "Everybody has a dream, and everybody should give themselves a chance to live that life. I want to live my dream, to help others realize their potential."

Sonko strolled to CiCi's drink station and creates his favorite American concoction: half Diet Coke, half Hi-C pink lemonade. He doesn't like ice, which is a rarity in Uganda since practically no one has refrigeration.

"What can I say? I'm adventurous," Sonko said with a laugh.

Most days, the $5.99 buffet seems like a waste on him. American diners makes repeat trips, filling up plate after plate with pizza and pasta, while Sonko barely finishes his small plate of food.

He talks about Uganda, where he is seen as religious leader who can help guide the country into a prosperous era. Such growth would entail multi-party elections — which are in the works now — peace and cooperation between the various tribal groups and jobs in urban areas.

"People come to town (Kampala) looking for jobs and they're not there," he said. "It's very desperate. They get angry and we have lots of crime and youth gang groups."

He pauses to reflect on his classmates. They've lived through a lot. And they have some of the same dreams.

"When human beings are desperate they do the same things, no matter where they live."