Michigan Brings One of Ours Home Saturday

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When Michigan takes the field Saturday in Lincoln, they'll have
one of ours, Number fifteen. Co captain linebacker Ernest Houseman
of Columbus. We remember as a freshman he started seven
games for Nebraska and then transferred to Michigan. You should
know he didn't run from but two something, principally a
locker room where God was a little higher on the

(00:21):
depth chart. His young life journey is the kind usually
found in Hollywood, straight out of Central Casting, a story
of hope, faith, a little bit of luck, and the
love of a remarkable Nebraska family. Ernest is the twenty
third child of Paul and Olive from the tiny village
of Arukila, Uganda. That village and that country are among

(00:43):
the most impoverished places in the world. Disease, from malaria
to dysentery is everywhere. When Ernest was born, many Ugandans
had contracted the AIDS virus, which was without the vaccine,
a death sentence. The mortality rate rivaled bubonic plague, the
Black Death of the fourteenth century. When he was two,

(01:05):
Paul and Olive got it, so Ernest's only hope was
to get out nine thousand miles away in Columbus. Bob
and Teresa Housman, educators and devout Christians, had tried desperately
to adopt a third child. When the last attempt had failed,
she went to church and cried out for God to
please stop torturing us. Either get us a child or

(01:29):
pull this yearning from us. Well as true believers can attest,
God never says no. His answer is either yes, not yet,
or I have something better. A friend introduced the Housemans
to a minister named Peter from that very Ugandan village.
They met, and Peter shared with them the need to

(01:49):
adopt the doomed children of this dreadful place, and in
particular he knew of a two year old boy who
would be God's I've got something better. But the Almighty
tested the strength of the Houseman's through lawyers and agencies, travel, diplomacy, setbacks,
and waiting. They exhausted their life savings until one day,

(02:11):
three years later, Bob made one last twenty seven hour journey,
bringing Ernest, now five, into their family. It saved his life.
A God the Father placed him in their loving arms
with an unwritten warning, this ain't gonna be easy growing
up in Columbus. Ernest noticed he was different, walk into

(02:32):
a store, a restaurant, a classroom, and nobody was like him.
Remember just enough of Uganda to know it was really home?
And how is it that he none of his siblings
were so fortunate to be rescued. When Ernest met the Housemans,
he was disabled. A botched injection back in Africa clipped
a nerve, leaving one of his legs paralyzed. The Housemans

(02:56):
provided advanced physical therapy just so he could walk and
then run and jump. As he evolved into an elite
high school athlete, he earned ten football scholarship offers, even
though thanks to the leg, one of his hips had
grown crooked again. The Housemans were there, providing for a
daily trip to Omaha for special physical therapy. But what

(03:20):
about the whole in Earnest's heart? Could the Housemans fill that?
They introduced him to culture in the arts, piano lessons, literature,
and poetry, and each time he asked, they fed, not
discouraged his curiosity about his native country and the family
so far away. Miraculously, Paul and Olive got the aid's
vaccine and survived it, which only made Ernest Hausman more

(03:43):
earnest to return and give something back. Understandably, most adoptive
parents would worry, what if he reunites with his real family,
where does that leave us. That's when the Housemans also
taught Earnest the power of the world and we your
American family loves you, and you should return to Uganda

(04:07):
and them with no guilt. He did this spring to
the tiny Spartan village came football star Ernest Housman, and
not just to reunite, but to make a difference. He
and some fellow Nebraskans found a spot, picked up heavy tools,
and with the strength of a linebacker, started twisting into
the clay near Uyukla. Twenty five feet later, clear cool

(04:31):
water sprouted out for the first time, ensuring the villagers
had clean water, clean water to finally drink. Surrounded by
family that stretched nine thousand miles, Ernest Housman was finally
back home.