The last time we met at a bloggers event down Acacia area, unlike me, Joel seemed to be the least bothered about the sleazy Salsa dance practice behind us and the cigarette smoke almost filling the venue.

He seemed inclined to talk about Christ in the most spiritually arid platforms anyway, and that’s what made him special. Before I heard the term ‘Christ-centred’, Joel modelled it for me offline and online. His love for the words “substance” and “shadows” reflected a truly regenerate heart.

For him, the gospel was not about everything scripture says, the gospel was summarily what Christ has accomplished, for his people.

His people like you, Joel.

And now that you have gone to meet him, I am glad for the days we tapped our feet to Toby Mac music at Primetime, Makerere, the days you reminded us to ‘selah’ another favourite post of yours.

You were surely a man of words, thank God you loved the ‘word became flesh’ too, it would have been easy to associate you with arts and poetry alone, but now that you had the eternal word richly dwelling in you, what else could be superior!

Like CT Studd reminded us, “All shall soon be past, only what’s done for Christ shall last.”

Christ has promised us new bodies that will supersede the sickly ones we have down here, You are absent in the body Joel but present with The Lord, you have fallen asleep, and we choose to mourn like those with hope.

Because anyway, Our Christian hope is still lingering, why not, especially when the “sting of death was removed.” (I Cor 15:56)