Cross Central Church at Surfside was packed on Tuesday night for a concert by Ugandan artist Exodus, who blew everyone away with his music and the testimony of his life.
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Exodus, who has won countless awards and has played in front of thousands in his native Africa, was joined by Pastor Alfred and John Paul, all three of which were rescued from desperate poverty and turmoil caused by civil war in Northern Uganda by Australian missionary Irene Gleeson, who died in 2013.
“Mama” Irene Gleeson was a Christian woman who sold all she had and moved to Uganda in 1991 to help displaced children, including those abducted by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda and rescued and helped thousands in her time there.
She was even labelled Australia’s Mother Theresa and awarded the Order of Australia medal.
The Irene Gleeson Foundation is still going strong and Tuesday’s concert, organised by Batemans Bay psychologist Danny Graham, was held to raise money for it.
Pastor Alfred spoke of the love all three have for the memory of “Mama Irene” and about his path from a child soldier to a pastor.
Exodus told the compelling, harrowing and yet triumphant story of his life.
His mother had to work as a prostitute to afford to send him to school, and she died of HIV when he was just 10.
He was then placed into the “care” of his father, who constantly told him he was not his son and rather the child of a prostitute. He beat him and threatened to kill him if he did not get out of his house. He smashed a lamp over him, turning the white shirt he was wearing red with blood.
Seeing no way out of such a wretched existence, Exodus drained the fluid out of some batteries and drank it in a suicide attempt.
“I was expecting to die but didn’t even get a stomach ache,” he said.
“If God has a plan for your life you can’t even kill yourself.”
He left and joined a similarly displaced group of fellow youths on the street and risked his life every day, stealing to survive and scavenging from garbage dumps.
Exodus found refuge in the form of a church, where his excellent singing voice made him a valued member of the choir. Little did he know this would lead to perhaps the darkest episode of his life.
“Knowing I had not parents or protection, the preacher sodomised me,” he recalled to the shocked audience.
He then escaped and was taken in by Mama Irene, and his life was turned around.
“Mama Irene was awarded the Order of Australia and made an honorary citizen of Uganda, but these meant nothing to her,” he said.
“What mattered was that she had helped the children for Jesus Christ.”