I talked about in my podcast last week. As promised, I will also talk about his story there. However, I figured it would be a good idea to write about it here. Alright, here goes.

Johnny is my brother. Wikipedia defines a brother as “a man or boy in relation to other sons and daughters of his parents”. I have three brothers that would meet this definition- Noah, Isaiah, and Malakai. Regardless, I also define a brother as someone who knows you as well as your biological brother might. In other words, a biological brother who isn’t biological. Does that make any sense? Oh well. Anyway, Johnny is one of the two people in this world whom I would define as my brother, the other being Josiah Kegg.

Johnny was 18 months old when he was abandoned. His father took him to the local hospital, gave him a cookie, and left him. Johnny finished the cookie and waited for his father to get him. After six hours, he began to cry. Eventually, people took notice of the crying child and began to ask around. Nobody could find Johnny’s father, so they took him to New Hope Uganda, a ministry that helped abandoned children. New Hope became Johnny’s home. He lived in New Hope’s “Baby House” for over a year. When he turned three, a young, single woman named Grace Nasaka adopted him. Grace had no husband to help parent Johnny, so my father stepped into the role of father. From then on, Johnny was one of the family. Because he is older than me, he was adopted by Grace just as I turned one. Because of this, Johnny has basically known me since I was a baby. We have grown up together, and now he is a teenager. He turns 18 in August, is (to his chagrin) shorter than me, and absolutely loves soccer. He was the captain of New Hope’s high school soccer team last year, and he is a fantastic player.

What have I learned from my life with Johnny? Well, from an early age, I learned to NEVER think of people with different skin color in a different light. In fact, I didn’t even know there were different skin colors until I was about seven years old. I learned that anybody can be your brother, no matter what color, age, or race.

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