Is God Korean?

I’d like to think that I am a pragmatic person and a level headed thinker just like my fellow columnist, Joseph Kabuleta who rambles on about sport in the back pages of this paper is. Kabuleta, just like I and a number of people out there, we do not subscribe to the word ‘miracle’. My understanding of the word miracle is: ‘an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God’.

Now if you asked Kabuleta what the chances are of our football team - The Cranes reaching the final of the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil, without hesitation, he would say “zero.” Or perhaps I have stretched the bar too far? So let’s say The Cranes emerging victor in the final of the next African Cup of Nations. Again, and without hesitation, Kabuleta would say “zero.”

Kabuleta does not waffle on about miracles, because as we know, miracles don’t happen. If anything, a miracle is a myth, something that floats about in cyberspace mixing with various elements of the abyss and serves no purpose.

But suffice to say, there are some misguided people who believe in miracles and those people happen to be the ardent church goers. Such is their belief that there is even a Kampala based church that has been named Kampala Miracle something.

Are you still with me? Let’s carry on. The millennium had passed without a glitch despite prophecies telling us that clocks would stop at midnight on the year 2000. Planes would plummet out of the skies because their on board computers would not be able to decipher what comes after the end of the year 1999. Bank computers would go haywire. Basically the world would be a mess.

Then, I was working with WBS and despite what was said, the preserved world order continued.

There was a South Korean preacher in town and he was holding a mass prayer at Nakivubo Stadium. And for the life of me, I can’t really remember his name though I must say he looked more of a kung-fu fighter than a preacher and he didn’t have the savvy of TD Jakes, the charm of Benny Hinn nor the grace of His Grace, Archbishop Luke Orombi. When he took to the stage, he was all over the place, much like a plate of spaghetti. And because he obviously didn’t know Luganda, he had an interpreter by his side to do the needful.

It was a mass crowd – full of believers and worse, it was a live show, beamed to the masses at home. As I sat inside the outside broadcast van watching the proceedings, I notice a surge towards the front by people with disabilities. They were there, the blind, the wheelchair bound, the limbless, they were all there.

Something was happening or about to happen. And it did happen. At 8:00pm, the mass came to an end. What a relief, I can now go home. But there was more to come from South Korean Preacher. It was that time, the time for miracles to be performed.

Through Interpreter, he called for the disabled to come forth, feel the healing power of God and get cured. This I had to see.

And onto the stage they went and South Korean Preacher would lay the palm of his hand on their forehead, say a few words after which, they would fall to the ground in the most violent way and start thrashing and withering about. When the thrashing and withering came to a stop, they were ‘cured’. Standing up, they thanked God and walked away.

Perhaps miracles do happen I thought to myself. Next on stage was an 18 year-old boy who had been born blind. Born blind? It was chicken feed for South Korean Preacher who went through the rituals with him. Blind Boy then fell to the floor screaming, kicking and lashing out that he had to be restrained by South Korean Preacher and Interpreter. Had something gone wrong? Was God vexed that South Korean preacher was taking all the kudos and not he – God?

And just like that, the screaming, kicking and lashing stopped. Blind Boy gingerly stood up and looked down at his hands and felt them. He was smiling because he could ‘see’! Thanking South Korean Preacher, he walked off the stage – just like that! I literally had to get his story so I followed him back stage where I found him perched on a crate of empty Coke bottles and eating a bun. “What does it look like to be able to see for the first time” I asked. The reply was swift and in Luganda and went along these lines: “What do you want with me?”

Again I asked him what it was like to be able to see and he retorted that I should leave him alone and added that South Korean Preacher had also blessed him with the art of being able to do kung-fu.

He was born blind and now he also knows kung-fu? Funny! I didn’t give up with my questioning and persisted. Next and without warning, he adopted a kung fu stance and just like in the movies, he was screaming and uttering gibberish. It was so comical that before I could get over the first bout of laughter, he had struck me on the head. The next kick got me in the stomach and spewed up the popcorn and Coke that I had been feasting on all afternoon. And to round it all off, the blow fatale got me on the nose and I went crumpling into a heap in the goal area of the pitch and bleeding profusely.

Seeing I was incapacitated, Once Blind Boy, but No Longer Blind Boy took to his heels. For somebody who was ‘born blind’, he certainly knew his way round the stadium, including the small crevasse in the fence into which he slithered and into the dark of the infamous Kirussia stand while shouting out in Luganda that: “The Korean is God and he has blessed me with me with kung-fu!”

Miracles? Like I said, I am a pragmatic person but perhaps there is the need to be open minded but however if President Barrack Obama calls and tells me that his daughter Sasha, is now of age and wants to go out for a night on the town and there is nobody he can trust not take advantage of her except me, TB then, and without a doubt I will believe in miracles. I just won’t take the Korean at his word!