Growing up Ugandan came with its few challenges. Bearing many tribes, obviously there’s tribalism and an element of supremacy in various spaces.
One of my dad’s cousins, married into the tribe of Buganda. Her husband is so obsessed about his tribe, such that when my cousin (whose parents were both from my dad’s tribe), married a Muganda man, he was loudly happy about the marriage — as though he’d acquired a prize.
Well, my father was from western Uganda — hailing from a tribe of the Banyoro. My mom is from the North East — a tribe of the Itesots. They met halfway as they worked in Buganda, fell in love, and we happened.
Coincidentally, since English is the official language, they must have found middle ground. Growing up in a neighborhood speaking Luganda, we had not opportunity enough to fully explore either of our parents’ first languages.
We identified as Baganda, though it was nasty how those that belonged mistreated kids from other tribes especially in school. A prominent eastern tribe of the Basoga has been dissed the most. So many from there studying within the central always denied it or felt embarrassed owning up to it.
This morning, God reminded me of Moses. He was raised by Egyptian royalty, and so by default, he could have thought he was of Egypt. Hebrews however says when he came of age, he refused to be called Pharaoh’s son. He identified as Israelite (typical of us acknowledging our histories), and then I heard God say,
“Once you acknowledge that you are Israelite, perhaps, then, and only then, can I send you to set them free! Deny that, and you’ll spend the rest of your life praying for a purpose, and yet it’s just a ‘tribe-acceptance’ away.”
If Moses didn’t accept his fleshly identity as Israelite, perhaps that chosen nation would have been slaves longer than 400 years. Thankfully God’s word doesn’t return void. Maybe God would have raised another man to fulfill what He promised Abraham.
Well, not everyone is happy about where they come from; but whether you suffered or not, I believe that if indeed you believe in God, your tribe(s) are not a mistake, and they all play a role, somehow, in God’s grand scheme of things about you!
Us hating where we come from isn’t any different from a typical African hating their skin shade. It isn’t different from Jonah avoiding Nineveh and yet it wasn’t supposed to be avoided. It isn’t any different from a man who believes they are supposed to be a woman: These all point to the lack of the fear of the Lord, for if you believe God made you fearfully and wonderfully; that includes your heritage, sex or background!
To gag at your history is to claim that God isn’t God; that He didn’t know what He was doing when He aligned you to that genealogy. It’s no mistake! All of it is God ordained. And perhaps, perhaps like Moses, once you accept all of it, … who knows … you’d be a whole tribe’s redemption! if Joseph forgot about this, he’d have let his family die of starvation, and they would not have multiplied to become mighty.
This applies to cross-national borns as well. If you’re half Nigerian and half American, half German and half French, You’d be a whole nation’s redemption … or two, in a way that might not be obvious, but is crucial in God’s kingdom. Don’t deny one side and cherish the other, for if the other wasn’t, you wouldn’t!
This crosses over as well to Egypt signifying the heathen, and Israel Christians. Don’t be lukewarm. Let people know you’re esteeming the reproach of Christ rather than the riches of Egypt. For in the end of it all, one kingdom will rule us all.
Heaven and earth shall pass away. Earthly tribes and nations shall pass away. You must then be found alive in the force that will last the test of time, if you want to still claim yourself among the living of things. This applies to your soul, while the former applies to your flesh/body.
But until then, first things first …
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