Nov. 7 would have been Billy Graham’s 106th birthday. He passed away in 2018, but the impact of his Gospel ministry can still be seen around the world.
Growing up in war-torn northern Uganda in the 1960s, Odongo Geoffrey Keronga’s childhood was riddled with trauma.
His mother—one of his father’s seven wives—attempted to murder him as a baby before leaving him on the street where a local woman found him. The woman took Keronga under her wing until he went to live with his father during elementary school.
His father died several years later, leaving the young teenager homeless. He lived on the streets, sometimes spending his nights sleeping up in the trees to avoid wild animals below.
His high school classmates noticed his living situation and started calling him “jungle boy.”
At age 15, the teasing and mockery at school became too much for Keronga, who decided to stop going to school.
“Life was very tough,” he said. “I thought, ‘Why should I suffer?’”
Wanting to end it all, he planned a fishing trip in which the boat would conveniently capsize.
As he was about to carry out his plan in the Nile River, a school friend came by and begged him to come to a movie at school that evening. The movie was in English, and since Keronga could speak the language well, his friend asked if he would interpret the movie for his classmates.
“The news about the movie did not excite me,” Keronga said. “I was thinking that since I missed my chance to commit suicide, what now?”
He reluctantly agreed to go to the movie, which turned out to be a Billy Graham sermon about the Good News of a relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Keronga started listening with genuine interest as the evangelist talked about the abundant life that Christ offers everyone who trusts in Him.
“I was feeling guilty of my intention to commit suicide,” he shared.
He remembers Graham saying that God was inviting him to leave behind his sin and choose to follow Christ.
Getting emotional, Keronga managed to finish interpreting for his peers, but his friends laughed in disbelief when he responded to the invitation to trust God for salvation.
“I gave my life to Christ during that sermon,” Keronga said. “They didn’t think I was for real, but I was very serious.”
He stayed that night at a friend’s house. The next day, his friend invited him to go to the church that had shown the movie at his school.
Keronga continued going to that church in the years ahead, serving the congregation as an interpreter.
One of the elders began to mentor him and gave him a place to live. His relationship with the Lord grew stronger through the discipleship he received there.
“God started doing wonders in my life,” Keronga said, reflecting on the dynamic change Jesus made in his heart.
After he finished high school, the same elder paid for Keronga’s Bible college education, and he became a pastor. Soon after, God put it on his heart to start a home for vulnerable children in Uganda.
“A passion for helping orphans and vulnerable children would not leave my mind,” Keronga shared.
“I lived that life once,” he said, reflecting on his days on the streets. Without God’s Word, he said there’s no hope for their future.
In 2011, he founded Acres of Hope International, a Christ-centered orphanage in Nebbi, Uganda, that provides food, shelter, medical care, and education to at-risk children.
“God [gave me] that passion,” Keronga continued. “People ask me how we get the resources—I know it’s from the Most High God.”
“The presence of God is there.”
Jesus Christ changed Keronga’s life, and He can change yours, too. Hear more from Billy Graham in these Classic sermons on YouTube.