“Everybody loves families. So do I. But mine almost killed me.

You see, where I grew up, in what you now call Ethiopia, there was not much money. My parents were farmers and they had a small piece of land. Too small, to support my brothers and me. I remember going to bed hungry often. When we went to town, I saw the colorful walls of the palace, and all I could do is think: Behind these gates, there is a food.

One year, when I was 7, the harvest was particularly bad. I could hear my mother cry and my father talk angrily through the thin mud wall that separated our two rooms in the hut. The next morning, my father took me by the hand and said we would go to the market. Mother cried as we left the village. I remember looking back over my shoulder and seeing her standing there, tears running down her face, with my brothers and the neighbour’s kids. That was the last time I saw her.

In town, my father took me straight to the palace. We waited for a long time outside one of the small openings in the palace walls, together with other fathers and their boys. Finally an official came out. He was tall and impressive in his colourful robe, in bright contrast to his shiny black skin. He quickly went from boy to boy and chose three. I was one of the three. I did not know what was going on, and everything was happening so quickly, my father kissed me on the forehead, the official took me by the hand and into the cool darkness of the palace. I never saw my father again.

For my whole life, and if I get to be a hundred, I will never forget the day of the operation. The other boys and I were taken to a big room where he had to take off our garments. One by one we were strapped to a table, our genitals were bound with yarn, and penis and testicles were cleanly sliced off. They put some hot tar on the wound, to stop the bleeding, they said, then inserted a metal rod, to keep it from sealing shut, they said. We cried and shouted until the pain became so unbearable that we just passed out. When I awoke I was buried up to my navel in hot sand, with the two other boys next to me. We were left for five or six days, I lost count – with no food or drink. On the 5th day, I saw the other boys close their eyes – never to open them again. I was the only one to survive the ordeal – and my mentor in the palace later told me that shows that I am ‘special’.

So now I was a Eunuch – that’s why my father had sold me to the palace. Destined to serve in the palace, with no family of my own. I quickly discovered that people would look at me funny – with a mixture of disgust and envy. Everywhere I went, up to this day, people look at me, call me names. They also make up special rules for the likes of me, since we’re not normal. We are not allowed to do the things that normal people do.

But your special, my mentor told me. We are special. We can get closer to the royal family than anybody else. The king trusts us to serve the queen, Candace. We will not run away to marry and start a family. And we will never get inappropriate with the queen or her chambermaids.

Over the years, I learned how to serve in the royal household. When to speak, when to keep quiet. How to bow to the kind and queen. They brought in teachers that taught me calculation, writing and geography. I was always intrigued about other people and territories. Do they also have people like us? Like me? Are we everywhere? I found out that, yes, Eunuchs were everywhere – they served the pharaohs in a place called Egypt, the emperors in China and the Rajs in India. If you were looking for Eunuchs, you had to look for the seat of power. They would never be far away.

So when Queen Candace needed someone to look after the royal household’s money, trading with other territories, they chose me, given my knowledge about foreign people. I was happy to serve in this capacity, but soon noticed that everywhere I went, people would still look at me strangely. Parents would whisper to their children, and I could hear “…cut off… never a wife…no family”. People also looked at me because of my black skin – children would come close to me, very carefully, and rub their little finger on my arms, trying to see if the colour came off.

And while I enjoyed the travel, learning about new cultures, I was also lonely. I, too, wanted a family to belong too. Was that wrong? Everywhere I went, governments and religions were courting the family. Family this and family that, family values, nuclear family, family church, family service, family temple. But the more I studied, the more I learnt: This kind of family is not for me. I am not wanted here. The family these people mean is exclusive. It does not have a space for people like me, people who are different, for whatever reason. And still, I wanted to belong.

So I kept searching. There must be more to life than taxes and work, queens and bathhouses. There must be a place where I can be at home, where they accept me, the freak, just as I am. Where I can be who I am, and who I want to be.

So on a state visit to Jerusalem I delayed my departure and had a closer look at their religion. The people of Israel had written down their beliefs in big scrolls, which were for sale at the temple gate. I bought some to study them, to find out what they believe. I heard some singing coming out of the temple and wanted to have a closer look, but a temple guard stopped me. “Why can I not go in?” I asked him. “Don’t you know I am a member of a royal household, on an important diplomatic mission?” Ok ok, I exaggerated a bit… “You are a Eunuch. That’s why you cannot enter”, said the guard. “Says who?” I challenged him. “Says our scripture,” he replied. “It’s right there, on the scroll you have just bought.”

I looked up the verse he had given me (Deuteronomy 21), and it said “The eunuch shall have no place in the congregation of the family of God.” Wow. I was shocked. Why would they single me out? Just because of my genitalia, or rather non-genitalia? What have I done to be rejected like this? I continued reading and it talked about children born to unmarried women, how they – and their descendants for 10 generations – can also not be included among the Lord’s people. Wow. That excludes quite a few families that I know in the royal household. What a religion! How unforgiving! How judgmental! How unfair! That’s not one family I want to belong to.

But still, I was intrigued. So in the chariot, on the long way home, I continued reading the scrolls, wondering what they might mean. It was on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, a desert road, when my manservant, who was also driving the carriage, shouted back to me “There is a man standing by the roadside, Sir.” I opened the curtains which I had closed against the glaring sun and to protect my delicate skin and saw a Jewish man, maybe in his early 30s, handsome in a rugged way with his beard and all, standing by the roadside.

I had the chariot stopped and for a second we just looked at each other. Then he saw what I had been reading, a scroll with teachings from someone called Isaiah, a prophet, and he asked me “Do you understand what you are reading?” Very funny. I laughed: “How could I, unless someone local helps me understand? Hop in, I give you a ride, and see if you can explain this to me: I was just reading this passage:

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep before his shearers is dumb. He did not open his mouth. Justice was denied him. He has been cut off from the land of the living. Who is going to declare his posterity?

Same here – no posterity, also cut off, in more than one sense. But tell me, uhm, what is your name?”

“Phillip”

“tell me, Phillip, who is the prophet talking about? Himself? Or someone else?”

That was all it took to get Phillip talking. He spoke about how the predictions from the scrolls had come true, about how he met this Jesus, the Son of God, and followed him, and how his family suffered because he had walked out on them to join this ‘new’ family, and how Jesus had given his life for all people and had been crucified, only five weeks ago, and on the third day had risen from the dead. Wow!

But I was still wondering about the condemning words in the old scroll that the temple guard had pointed out to me. Are they no longer true? “Read a little further in the scroll that you are holding”, said Phillip. And he pointed out a passage that said, “The days will come when the foreigner will no longer say, the Lord will separate me from his people. The days will come when to the Eunuch who loves me and my house and my covenant I will give a name which shall be better than a thousand sons and daughters and will be remembered.”

I had to stop reading – tears filled my eyes. But Phillip spoke, full of enthusiasm: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled. Jesus has broken down every barrier and reinterpreted the entire meaning of the family of God. He had made a whole new family, and it opens doors and it knocks down walls in the family of faith like we have never seen nor heard.”

I was filled with joy! Finally, a place where I can be accepted, where I am loved – just as I am!

Overwhelmed, I looked out through the curtains and saw something blue shimmering in the desert sun. Surely not…? I opened the curtains and yes, it was an oasis with a small lake. Quickly, I turned to Phillip: “What prevents me from getting baptised, right here and now?” Because he had told me about the cleaning ritual of baptism. Peter thought for a minute and then he said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

I looked at him and said “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God….Stop the Chariot!!!”

We stepped out into the desert sun and walked over to the small lake, where my manservant watched as Phillip prayed over me and baptized me. I felt so – NEW! Changed! I wanted to turn around and thank Phillip, but he had suddenly disappeared. Where did he go? How come he had been on the desert road to Gaza, alone, walking?

I don’t know. But I have a suspicion that God had something to do with it. I went on my journey, but now it was a different journey. I was full of joy, and I read all the scrolls I had bought from right to left, top to bottom. I wanted to learn more!

When we finally arrived at the palace, I told the younger Eunuchs about this Jesus – and that he loves them and that he wouldn’t look at them funny, that he does not think that they are not normal. That in His family we are welcome! Yes, even people like us!

Phillip had told me about what they were doing to spread the word, the ‘good news’ as he called it, to all people. How you cannot just sit there and keep it to yourself – how we need to get involved, share the message, help others, spread his love.

And ever since that day, in the small lake in the desert by the road to Gaza, things have changed. When I hear people talk about family values, about protecting the family, I think to myself: How small your family is. Mine is much bigger. And probably happier.”

Amen.