Child of Grace

"You did not choose me,I chose you!"

My mom was born a normal healthy baby girl but by the age of Seven, she had become deaf. It was life altering for her. She became the subject and object of abuse by her own family. She was labelled a “curse to the family”. This was back in the 60’s when African traditions were still strong. She was often beaten by her own mother for no reason. She was bullied by her own brothers and sisters. She had 5 siblings. They made her cook and clean and wash their clothes while they sat back and did nothing. She was a real life black Cinderella. There was no school for her-she looked after cattle and did all the odd jobs around the house while her mean sisters sneered proudly and skipped off to school.

Her father was a polygamist who split his time between the two wives living in two different homesteads. He was also working as a chief for the new government after Kenyas Independence from the British in 1963. So he got around quite a bit on government business and meetings. That’s how he heard of a mission school for the deaf. He dropped her off there.

The school gave my mom a respite from her tormentors. Kind missionaries taught her sign language, basic reading and writing and how to use a Type writer. She had found an escape route. When she graduated from her basic courses, she wasn’t homebound. Her ordeals in the hands of her own flesh and blood were still too fresh in her mind. So she turned and fled to the big city. Nairobi.

In Nairobi, she settled down with my dad and I was born shortly there after. She had barely started to cozy down into the role of dutiful housewife when the bottle got the better of my dad. They split up before I could walk or talk. I ended up in the village with my grandma as mom started looking for work. She took me back to Nairobi when I was five. We lived in a tiny one roomed house and I went to Toi Primary School in Kibera slums.

Through a missionary however, my mom was told about the African Children’s Choir. I can’t sing to save my life- but I ended up in it. Something about mom and me being “too needy and poor to turn away.” I was 8 years old and sickly. I was malnourished, tape worm infested and had gum disease.

Life changed for the poor slum boy quick. Before I could spell aero plane, I was sitting in some monstrous Boeing KLM plane with 25 other excited kids flying to the West.

Slum boy was going to America. And it wasn’t for two weeks or even a month. It was for 18 months! And we hit more than 40 States in the process too! Talk about living the good life. I was a little rock star on stage alongside all my better singing choir members. We had eager ‘mzungus’ fussing over us all the time and they cried as they were moved by our stories and plights back home. We were treated like royalty. We met the big wigs too. We went and sang for George Bush the First at the White House, met and sang with most of the big gospel heavy weights at the time. From Sandi Patti to the Gaithers, to Acappella and Dino. To George Whittaker and the winans to singing a song especially written for us by my favorite worship music artiste- Michael W. Smith!
Yeah, if I can say it myself-we rocked!

We flew back to Kenya and after catching our breath for a few months and reassuring our parents and guardians that we were all well -after eating all the mzungu food, we were off again! We flew to Northern Ireland, then Taiwan. Then Seychelles and Singapore and even Malaysia!

After gathering plenty of air miles over the course of four years, The African Children’s Choir finally decided I had done enough globe trotting for my age so I was put in School and the grind started.
During the holidays, I lived in the slum with my mom. We lived in several of them-Kawangware,Mathare,Huruma. I wasn’t just a globe trotter- I was a slum hopper too! Mathare made the biggest impression on me. We lived there for about eight years. I saw a lot of ugly in that place. Some of my child hood friends got swallowed by it. The guns got them. Or the drugs or the booze or HIV/AIDS. Something always gets you there. Gangsta Rap got me.

DMX, Tupac, Biggie, Mobb Deep and Mase were my long distance mentors. I listened to everything they had to say on my little walkman on cassette tapes. I could rap along to almost all their songs word for word -by heart.
I was now in High School and slipping fast. My friends were doing marijuana and sneaking out of boarding school at night,
I was just beginning to contemplate trying some of these deviant stunts when one of them was shot dead in a failed robbery attempt during school holidays. That sobered me up and I abandoned any dreams of emulating Tupac or Biggie, but gangsta rap had its grip on me. I started attending and participating in Rap battles at a Night Club. I started nurturing this selfish and wild dream- make it as an MC, get out the slum,help my momma and live the “good life” –like I had seen in America. But God had other plans. And they didn’t involve a rap career.

My mom got sick to the point of death shortly after she had just quit a stressful and low paying job. She was bedridden and coughed up blood-and everything else she tried to eat.She couldn’t even keep a glass of water down. We were dead broke with no money for food, rent or medicine. The Landlord’s agent kept coming to harass us-demanding the rent from me while my mother was smelling like death on her bed. All the gangsta rap had me fantasizing about having a gun, I probably would have shot that irritating agent if I had one then. I had never hated and loathed a face like his. I was hungry,angry, terrified and hopeless. I had no family to turn to. I am an only child. There, in that hopeless desperate estate, God found me-again. The prodigal child who had confessed Christ at age Nine in the African Children’s Choir was broken and hopeless! I turned to God and cried! This was on the 18th of April in 2003 “You can’t take my momma God, not her, I could never survive without her! No, God, no, please! I will do anything, Lord please!
I was willing to Blackmail God for the life of my mom.

He graciously heard me and He answered. My mom healed miraculously with no drugs or a doctor’s appointment in a matter of days! We could not explain it. A few weeks later, she got an even better paying job than her previous one!
During the same period, an old family friend dragged me along to my current church– Emmanuel Baptist Church-and I was so drawn to God and His word which was so powerfully and truly preached there. This all happened in the same month! April 2003. Things started looking like they were coming together. It felt like God was smiling down on us again.

My sponsors, African Children’s Choir got in touch soon after all this and started talking about my college prospects. I was sponsored through college soon thereafter and before you could say globetrotter, I was on a plane to England for a six-month internship with the BBC in Cornwall! I had a blast there! Ended up back stage in Hyde Park during the Live 8 show in London and was even shot as an extra in an Africa Slavery Docu-drama! At this point, I had wizened up to an important fact. Someone was in control- and it wasn’t me!
I came back home and got a job almost immediately with a very huge media company here as their chief reporter for their two Radio stations.
Three years later, I walked away from the job-convinced that a life of chasing politicians, bending the truth and witnessing corruption on a day-to-day basis was not for me. Someone was calling out to me for something greater and bigger than a steady career and comfortable life. It was God’s Spirit. The Holy Phantom was stalking the corridors of my heart and I didn’t even know it!

Two months after I walked away from my job, I was asked to volunteer as a chaperone with the African Children’s Choir- and like they say, my heart was stole!

God awakened a passion for kids in me that I never knew existed during this period of my life.

So I took off again- for the West. This time, I was all grown up. I got to re-live my childhood through the eyes of 23 beautiful children. And it was a blessing. Grace had never looked so precious and beautiful like it did in those tiny eyes. God reminded me where I had come from- and He whispered to me to trust Him more and He began to teach me to follow Him.

I came back after a year and a half in the US, Canada and Alaska and tried to sit behind a desk doing communication work for a Christian Charity- but it wasn’t working out for me. Those tiny Grace eyes were still looking at me,beckoning me elsewhere-and I just couldn’t turn away.Not anymore. I had never been so sure about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life- and I felt Gods peace flood over my decision to pursue this calling as a full time ministry. So I walked away from another job!

I have been looking in His Grace eyes lately. He has been humbling me over and over again. Reminding me what He has done. I have been counting my blessings- and they are too many to keep track off and too many to list here.
Here are a few though:

I am a jobless man with no money for my dream and mission- yet He takes care of all that. Since April last year, he has continued to provide and draw people to support my dream.

My rent has been met in miraculous ways. I eat and drink with change in my pocket- that I didn’t wake up to work for all month. Random people and friends hand me or send me money-quietly with that knowing nod.Sometimes it’s envelopes-and they are not empty. All they say is something like,” Keep doing what your doing and God bless!”

I currently teach five very varied Bible classes a week-yet I have never been to Seminary! By His Grace,I am helping teach His word-despite having no Theological qualifications. Just a heart willing to step out in faith!

I help teach street boys, orphans and needy slum children about a loving father- yet I never grew up with a dad.

I have walked away from two jobs in my life- some people can’t even find one!

I get so many favors and gifts of things from people that even my own friends complain and whine about how unfair it is for me to get all the good stuff -all the time!

Yes, I have an iphone. Yes, I have a mac-that I didn’t work or pay for!

Yes, I have many friends that I don’t deserve.

Yes, I have two wonderful pastors looking out for me. One even lets me walk in to his house and raid his fridge and joke with him and sleep over at his house -any day of the week, while the other one sells me iphones for dirt cheap- just so I could have one!

Yes, I have precious little kids who look up to me as if I were their father or older brother. And it humbles and overwhelms me!

Yes,I have drank tea at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and walked inside the pristine walls of St. Peter’s Basillica in Rome.
Yes, I have been to both Disney World and Disney Land!
Yep, I have watched a female grizzly bear and her cubs fishing for salmon by a river just a few feet away from me in Alaska!
Yes, I have been to Ethiopia and South Africa and even South Sudan- where I killed a couple of Scorpions trying to sneak into my 'Tukul!'

Yep, I have gotten an autograph from David Beckham and Michael W. Smith.

No, I do not hold a degree in anything. I only possess a diploma in Broadcast Journalism from a nondescript private college.

And No, my mom does not think I am the best son a mom could ever have-she has always known me as a stubborn little stinker!

Yes, I am often mean and insensitive with my words and I offend people more than I am a blessing to them in my speech. But I am learning and growing and working at it everyday. Ephesians 4:29 is my key verse!

I don’t write all this to boast or to show off-no,not at all! For what achievement or thing would I pride myself in?

No, God forbid it! For I am but a child of Grace!
And I haven’t even started talking about what He did for me on Calvary or what He has in store for me in Heaven!

Oh! How spoiled I am! Yes, a spoiled brat of Grace indeed!