Adapted from A Distant Grief by Kefa Sempangi, copyright 1979, Regal Books (Ventura, CA 93006). Used by permission.

Despite the growing shadow of Idi Amin, Easter morning, 1973, began as a most joyous occasion for the Redeemed Church. The sun had just risen and the sky was empty of clouds when the first people began arriving at the compound where we worshiped.

They came from almost every tribe, from the Baganda, the Basoga, the Banyankole, the Acholi and the Langi, the Bagweri and the Bagisu. They came from as far away as Masaka, a town eighty miles southwest of Kampala. There were old men with walking sticks and young women with babies on their backs. There were small children with flowers in their arms. There were doctors and lawyers, businessmen and farmers, cotton growers and government workers. Only a few had traveled by private car or taxi. Most came on foot or rode bicycles. Others crowded into lorries so lopsided they seemed ready to collapse at any moment. But however the people ...