Out of the Black Shadows

Stephen Lungu was the oldest son of a teenage mother, married off to a much older man by her parents, and living in a black township near Salisbury, Zimbabwe. When he was three his mother ran away, leaving him, and his younger brother and sister, in the reluctant care of an aunt. By eleven Stephen too had run away, preferring life on the streets.

To survive, he slept under bridges and scavenged food from white folks' dustbins. As a teenager he was recruited into one of the urban gangs, called the Black Shadows, which ran a programme of theft and thuggery with a half-focused dream of revolution. When a travelling evangelist came to town, Stephen was sent to fire bomb the event, carrying his bag of bombs and mingling with the crowd.

Instead of throwing bombs he stayed to listen ... what followed was better than fiction.

Title

Out of the Black Shadows
Author(s)

Stephen Lungu
Series

10Biography
ISBN

9781913278250
Format

eBook
Publisher

10Publishing
Audience

Adults, Enquirer / Seeker

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Stephen Lungu

Stephen Lungu was born in 1942 in Harare, Zimbabwe. He is married to Rachel Lungu. Stephen Lungu was the leader of a detachment of a dozen thugs from the gang Black Shadows which instigated riots and sowed chaos in pre-independence Zimbabwe. At seven years-old, Stephen was abandoned by his mother on the streets of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Since then, Stephen’s growing anger had found focus in the Nationalist Youth League which advocated the violent overthrow of the white government. A beautiful young girl from Soweto in South Africa told of how Jesus had “transformed everything.” Her words resonated with an uncanny authority. She spoke about forgiveness. She spoke of a new start in life. “I suddenly felt very dirty and shabby,” Stephen recalls. Still clutching his bombs, Stephen stumbled forward to where the preacher was speaking, even though it was still in the middle of his message. Ushers tried to escort him away, but the preacher forbade them, continuing with his sermon. And there begins the story of his life journey with God.

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