By chance, I met a friend and fellow electrical engineer & lecturer yesterday while I was on an errant to buy some Chapo’s for my supper (at Green Savannah café, Juja). After exchanging pleasantries with this said friend, I mentioned that I am just in Juja temporary and will be going back to Gilgil, where we have a camp meeting. He asked, “What kind of a camp meeting? When did you join the military? When I mentioned that it is a church camp meeting, he couldn’t hide his shock! He said, “I have always thought you are an atheist, albeit a good one.” He added, “From my interactions with you, and the little that I know about you, I consider you very rational and logical minded!” “You want to say you can believe, that you have Faith?” I felt a very huge impulse to defend myself and tell him that I am and have been religious and spiritual person as they come. For as long as I can remember, I always have been a believer, since the I day had a conscience, and even before that.
I say even before that because, even before I knew who God was, I found myself attending African Inland Church, AIC (called Mung’ala AIC, in Kisooni Village, Mung’ala Sub-location, Mumbuni location, Machakos). My family belonged to the Catholic faith but majority of my relatives then were members of the AIC. I was (I still am) the only child, and since all the children in the extended family and village were going to AIC, my family allowed me to join them since even the AIC church was just like 20 minutes walking distance. Further, it was more enjoyable to attend Sunday school in the company of my cousins, who, needless to say, were my age mates.
No sooner had I reached age 8, than my family abruptly poached me from the AIC and I started attending the Kisooni Catholic church with them. I did not even know the difference. But I mourned, I had just lost the few friends I had made at the AIC Sunday school in a flash. I think I even had some few “crushes” at this Sunday school. I somehow felt lonely in the company of adults every Sunday as we trod to the Kisooni Catholic church. It was at this new church that I first and last participated in a church drama (play). If my memory serves me right, it was a pre-Christmas play and we were dramatizing the events narrated about Noah and his Ark. I think I was acting like Noah or one of his sons, probably Ham (Ham, the father of Canaan, is the son who saw his father’s nakedness, so that part needed dramatization). We did well and I remember we represented the church in a certain regional competition. Something worth noting: My grandmother was (and still is) extremely devoted to the Catholic Church and she was the first to teach me about God and how to read the bible, I owe a lot to her and especially my religious and spiritual sensibilities.
Soon, my family procured me a Kamba Catechism translation and I was promptly enrolled in a baptismal class. Events (very long, probably tragic story) caught up with us, and I eventually moved to Kisau, Mbooni, Makueni, in 2000. I lived with my Uncles, Cousins, and Aunts. After moving to Kisau, we started going to Muiu Catholic Church. I still continued with my baptismal classes at Muiu Catholic Church. They had gauged my knowledge and even considered that I would be ready for baptism within a year. The baptismal class normally takes 3 years. But a lot can happen within a year!
Some of my uncles (and they happened to be my age mates) were attending Church services on “Wathanthatu” (or the 6th day in Kamba). This hugely alarmed me as I had never seen such a thing in Machakos, where I had come from. Their parents were Catholics. I couldn’t understand. How could these kids have the guts to attend a church on Saturday, when everyone else, including their parents was a Sunday keeper? This was quite intriguing and it formed the basis of very length arguments we would have after school. We all attended Mavitini Primary School. Besides ridiculing them, I wanted to know why they chose to attend church on the “6th day of the week”. I mocked them, they mocked me. Billions of Christians go to church on Sunday (Wakyumwa, in Kamba tongue), who do they think they are? That you are right and they are wrong? That millions of church theologians, professors, pastors, reverends, Bishops (and even our popes) got it wrong and that you, mere primary school kids are right? What a joke, so I thought. They would also mock me, “Ben, don’t you realize you worship idols? “Why do you worship Mary? Why do you pray to Mary to intercede for you? Why do you wear rosaries? Why do you have to light candles and put the supposed image of Christ when you have prayers (Especially during “Jumuia”, Jumuia are organized prayer groups normally organized by the Catholic Church). Why do you have to pay obeisance to images and idols? Why? Why? I rebutted them with all what I knew. But my key interest was to get to know why they decided to go against the tide and chose to worship on “Wathanthatu”.
They soon made some progress. They managed to convince me that “Saturday” or “Wathanthatu” was the 7th day of the week, and thus was the Sabbath and the said God had chosen Sabbath day for worship. They helped me find the evidence in the Calendars we were using. Even from the school texts, I confirmed that, surely, Saturday, is the 7th day of the week. I later came to understand why the Kamba people called Saturday “Wathanthatu” when it was actually the 7th day. We even don’t have a neutral name for Sunday in my mother tongue. We call Sunday, “Wakyumwa, (meaning “day of the church, “kyumwa” is church). This is clearly understood considering that all early missionaries and language translators in the Ukambani region belonged to Sunday churches. Otherwise we would be calling Sunday, “Wamuonza” meaning, the 7th day, going by the Kamba standard of naming days of the week.
Once we established that “Saturday” or “Wathanthatu” was the 7th day of the week, I wanted to know why then majority of Christians were Sunday keepers. These kids used to take days before responding and I later guessed that they didn’t have the answers and thus had to consult with their church elders before they came back with responses. Why do majority of Christians go to church on Sunday? They later told me that at a certain time in the past, all Christians were Sabbath keepers but the day was changed and people coerced to attend church services on the 1st day of the week. I told them to provide evidence otherwise they were just telling me lies! Who said a day of worship was changed? And who had such an Authority? Where is the evidence? Again weeks passed by and they finally came back with the answer. The answer was in my Catechism. The evidence was in my Catechism! What a shocker! The answer was right there in my Kamba Catechism! I think it was question no.295 or 275, I don’t remember well. The section under the “Commandments of God” or “Miao ya Ngai”. The question asked “Mention the 3rd commandment? Answer “Remember the Sabbath day” Part B asked “What is the Sabbath Day”, Answer: Sabbath day is the 7th day of the week” Part C asked “ Why do we then Christians go to church on “Wakyumwa”, Sunday, the 1st day of the week, and not on Sabbath day? For this part, there were three answers: I will just rephrase them: One said a certain council (I think of Nicaea) had transferred the sacredness and solemnity of Sabbath to Sunday, Another answer had to do with “Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, since he had resurrected on a Sunday”, Another Answer mentioned that Christians wanted to distinguish themselves from Jews who had crucified Jesus. Jews worship on Saturday, even today. I have just rephrased these answers and the questions and anyone interested can check them online. If you have Catechisms editions of the 1970-1990’s, you will find these questions. Modern (current editions) Catechisms have omitted these questions.
These answers, and especially from a book I had kept all along, really shook my Faith and beliefs. But I did not want to give up easily. I told them that the Catechism was written by humans and perhaps whatever we had just read was cooked up and thus not reliable, I needed solid evidence. Once again, they took days before they came back with answers. They finally said, “Actually it had been prophesied that at one time such a thing would happen, that someone or authority would attempt to change the laws and times”. They told me to open by bible then and read Daniel 7:25. It says.
“And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
This was the final nail. Even before I could start doubting that may be the verse was quoted out of context or was not explicitly mentioning who was to carry out this, I implicitly believed what I was reading. They mentioned that the entire book of Daniel was a prophetic book and was easily understandable. I thus started reading the entire book from Chapter 1 to the end. Before then, I had only known about Daniel in the lion’s den, Nebuchadnezzar’s eating of grass and his image. New light was dawning! I could read a prophecy in Chapter 2 and find its interpretation in the next chapter. That’s how simple the book is. It is self-interpreting. And basically Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel were shown how the world would be from that time (Nebuchadnezzar’s time, Babylonian Empire) to the end. Start with Babylon, the Medianites and Persians, then Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire as a religious and political power, the divided Roman Empire, etc. and then the end.
I wanted to know why these things were not known within my church. I wanted to ask my priest. Because of my age, I was a bit shy and didn’t have the courage to confront any adult. So I sent one of my other adult uncles to ask and raise these concerns on my behalf. Honestly, I have never received a response from them until now. Of course I later found more evidence as time went on.
I was hugely conflicted. Should I quit my church and attend this strange new church that appeared to be ostracized by the society? A week passed and I refused to attend any church. Later I gathered courage and attended “Muiu SDA church”. I joined the Pathfinder class (I was around 12 years of age). I borrowed books about Adventism and read them like crazy. I read about the Sabbath, Prophecies in both Daniel and Revelations, about the Health messages etc. We were discouraged from eating flesh, drinking any caffeine or nicotine laced substances, and alcohol. When it came to the health messages, I really wanted to have a scientific backing. I wanted something solid and not just “The church elders advised us this and that”. So, immediately after writing my last KCPE paper in 2004, I went around the village borrowing all magazines and books on health. I mostly got secular health magazines and finally found the evidences I was looking for. I made notes and upto to this day I still have those notebooks and cut out magazine pages. I got baptized in 2003.
In high school I spend all my Friday evenings and Saturdays reading religious/spiritual books I could find in the school library. Same when I joined the University. I was even astonished to find that scientists of the past were hardcore religious people. I read how “Sir Isaac Newton” was deeply into religion and it was even said that much of his life work was into religious and historical investigations” That he had actually identified some of the ways for interpreting the prophecies, and so forth, such as the day=year principle, time=year, horns=kingdoms/dominions, etc. In July 2013, I actually wrote this article, “SIR ISAAC NEWTON: A THEOLOGIAN” You can click the link and have a read.
That’s how I became an Adventist. I have been member since 2002. Have participated in missions, crusades, camp meetings, have served in some capacities (church clerk, deacon).
I believe in God, and I fellowship with Adventists. I have since come to know how religious knowledge can be fleeting. There are things I used to hold as truths, only to have them disconfirmed later (through reading and even simple reasoning).
What even astonishes me the most is the manner and tone with which those who consider themselves “Atheists” express their opinions. Their bigotry even exceeds those of whom they condemn! Honestly, I have also gone through some of their texts especially by their champions such as those by “Richard Dawkins” and found them wanting. Most of them believe in “scientism”. While a believer has Faith and believes in God who he/she may find hard to describe, most atheists also just believe in what others have said should be believed.
What is important though is for us to respect each other and live in peace, if possible.
Now my friend, since we didn’t have the time yesterday for me to explain all these, you can read this at your own time and pleasure.
Thank you.
PS. This is a simple explanation. There were many other factors involved in my transition to becoming an adventist.
