By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service

KAMPALA, UGANDA (ANS – October 12, 2016) – A Ugandan pastor was one of the fortunate of Uganda who, during Idi Amin’s brutal eight years of misrule, was able to escape Amin’s terrible killing machine which left an estimated 300,000 Christians dead.

In an interview, Bishop Dr. Lamech S. Lumala, a former dental surgeon, and now pastor of Showers of Blessing Church in Kampala, Uganda, shared with me his miraculous escape from death from the man who called himself His Excellency,President for Life,Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of theEarth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.

Having co-authored the book, Uganda Holocaust (Zondervan) with Ray Barnett, I was fascinated to learn more about Dr. Lumala’s time during that dark period of the vicious dictator, which began in 1971 and ended in 1979, when he fled the country after being driven out by Tanzanian forces.

How He Escaped

“Yes, it is true that during that Idi Amin era, which was a terrible time my life, I just escaped from being killed,” he said. “Amin had sent soldiers to the clinic at Masaka Government Hospital where I was working, but fortunately my secretary acted quickly when she saw them and told them that I was ‘not in.’

“She then told me that Amin’s soldiers were after me and so I escaped through the back door and I went into hiding for two weeks. By God’s grace, some negotiations with my friends took place, and the local governor said he would give me protection and that I would not be killed.”

I asked him why the soldiers were after him and he explained, “Idi Amin was after all those people who were educated and well-off, so being a doctor, I was one of those who were to be persecuted and killed.”

Providentially for the Uganda people, Idi Amin overreached his power when he attempted to annex the Kagera province of Tanzania in 1978, and this led to the Uganda-Tanzania War, and the eventual demise of his regime. Amin fled to Libya, before moving to Saudi Arabia in 1981, where he died in 2003.

Dr. Lumala said that at that time of his near death experience, he wasn’t a believer, but then his eldest daughter Juliet, and other children in his family, along his wife, Peninnah, “got saved” and they all prayed for him.

“It was back in 1986 when I was invited to an evangelical meeting and, during that gathering, the POWER of God came upon me just as it came upon Apostle Paul on his way to Damascus,” he recalled. “At that moment, the Lord said to me, ‘Lamech, your ways are not My ways.’ It was then that I raised up my hands and I cried out to God and I gave my life to the Lord. From that day my lifestyle completely changed.

“I had worked for the government for 10 years and then I had set up my own private practice back in Kampala City on Martin Road near the Kampala Moslem Mosque for nine more years,” he continued. “After my conversion to Christ, I was very thirsty for the Word of God and day and night I studied the Bible, went to conferences and Bible schools, and the Word of God just sunk in me and I got into the presence of God.

A Visitation from the Lord

“Then one day I had a visitation from the Lord. He came to me with so many angels singing wonderful Handel’s Messiah type of music. I had never heard that type of music in this world anywhere, and they were singing that ‘the king is coming, the king is coming!’

“So God then lifted me up and took out my spirit like a little kitten in his hands and spoke things to me and called me into ministry and then pushed my soul back into my body. And, from that time, I've been trying to see what God has for my life.

“Then one day, God told me: ‘I want to show you My Supernatural Divine Healing power. You have been healing people using your head knowledge, but now I want to show you My super human divine healing power.’”

He said that not long after this, he was invited onto the BBC to give a talk about spiritual divine healing power.

“On the program, I talked about it with another pastor, now called Proposer Simeon Kayiwa of Namirembe Christian Fellowship, and I knew that many of the listeners remained skeptical and then the Lord said to me that these people needed to see ‘documented proof’ of these healings to know it was for real,” he said.

So Dr. Lumala, who I had met at medical conferences in Brisbane, Australia, and Sofia, Bulgaria, organized by the World Christian Doctors Network (WCDN), which is comprised of medical doctors who believe that God still heals today, but also that miracles should be “provable with medical evidence,” said that he is now a great believer in divine healing, but he also says it is important to chronicle those miracles with medical evidence.

“Today, the Lord is working many miracles,” he told me. “I've seen so many people being healed supernaturally. I’ve seen the lame walk and have got the documentation of that. On one occasion, there was a student in City Hill College at Mutundwe, who had paralyzed legs. I prayed for him and immediately he got up and walked.”

But, he says, that one-day, healing became really personal for him, explaining, “My wife Peninnah contracted breast cancer, and while we were in America, they analyzed it and did a mammogram and we discovered that the cancer was for real. During the night, we had a visitation from the Lord who woke me up at 3:00 AM to tell me to start praying for her while she was sleeping. As I did, I immediately saw a vision. It was something like a yellow light jelly moving from her body.

“She later testified that she was feeling something enjoyable moving in her breast. And then she woke up and asked, ‘What is happening Lord?’ She felt that still voice of the Lord telling her, ‘I'm operating on you. You are now being healed, and so from now on go and pray for other people so they too will be healed.’ She did just that and so many people have since also gotten healed completely.”

Dr. Lumala told me that after Peninnah had been completely healed of breast cancer, she went on to enjoy another ten years of “very good health,” but sadly “went to her glory” on June 19, 2014, after an attack of Malaria. “My wife had an anti-malaria injection and her blood pressure dropped badly and within three days she died of Sepsis. RIP.” [Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection injures its own tissues and organs.]

So now, this former medical professional is continuing to see God’s healing power at work in Uganda and other nations that he goes to, including in America.

New Hospital

At this time, Dr. Lumala is in the United States and is working on an important fund-raising project to get $200,000 to buy a new hospital facility “built by my prosperous cousin, Gerald,” and which is located at Gombe Kyadondo in the Luweero Triangle, an area north of the capital Kampala.

“This is a place where Idi Amin killed so many innocent civilians and, even today, people there are in desperate need of medical care,” he added.

Dr. Lumala told me that “any donations or grants from well-wishers are welcome” and people can contact him at his e-mails: lamechlumala@gmail.com , or showeersofbles55@gmail.com .

You can also phone him at +1 617 331 9900 or +256 772 449410, and if you wish to deposit your gift for the hospital, please go to A/C 4744 8801 0111 5226 -- Bank of America. Lamech Sejobyo Lumala.

Note: Several people have testified about how God has healed them through Dr. Lumala’s ministry. They include: Oyado David Calmax (davidcalmax@gmail.com ), and you can read his story at https://www.facebook.com/lumala.lamech/posts/131650679170281 8. Another is Ikenna Aranotu, who recently attended a service in Long Beach, California, where Dr. Lumala spoke and ministered. (You can read his story at https://www.facebook.com/lumala.lamech/posts/131531276848888 7.)

In conclusion, Dr. Lumala says that is grateful that his life was spared during the horror years of Idi Amin so he could “get Salvation” and then help bring new life and healing to others. “Glory be to the Lord Almighty,” he said.

Photo captions: 1) Dr. Lumala (right) with friends. 2) Cover of Uganda Holocaust. 3) Peninnah, the late wife of Dr. Lumala. 4) Dr. Lumala on his travels again. 5) Entrance to the new hospital. 6) Dan Wooding and Ray Barnett on the road in Uganda with Tanzanian soldiers while researching their best-selling book.

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for more than 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren, who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He is the author of some 45 books, and has been a full-time journalist since 1968. While still based in London, Dan Wooding was a senior reporter for two of Great Britain’s largest-circulation newspapers, and was an interviewer for BBC Radio One and also for LBC, the capital city’s main commercial talk station. Dan now has a weekly radio show and two TV shows all based in Southern California.

** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net).