I joined form 1 back in 2010 pale Koelel Boys High school straight from an all-boys boarding primary school place tulikuwa tunavaa safari boots anyone from Naivasha can relate which school i am referring to. Back in primary school i was not so kin on religion or church services. Whenever i went it was either because CU dancers would be performing or i had missed singing my favorite Golden Bells songs loudly in a crowd or when the teacher on duty would not entertain the I-AM-AN-SDA line and everyone had to be in the school hall. Still, almost every Sunday i always sat down during worship and slept during the service however touching the sermon was. I was a rebel.
I always prayed on the daily though.
Fast forward pale high school the first week we were being taken through the orientation na the senior student leaders,then candidates, in the school tukaambiwa on Saturday nights one has a choice to either be in the Dining Hall which also doubled up as the Assembly Hall to enjoy entertainment or to join the Christian Union(CU) in a certain physics lab pale. For me, automatically, i would prefer going for entertainment on any day so that was essentially supposed to be a no-brainer. That is until the then CU chairman, a certain light skin nigga rose to address the monos. First thing to strike me was that he was light skinned. I mean, it is no secret that most religious guys are dark skinned. I do not have a clue why but if you are meticulous and you are observatory enough you’ll realize that it is very rare to find light skinned guys participating actively in religious matters and if they do, then there is usually a compelling reason as to why. Maybe they survived a near-death experience, they are orphans or they are needy guys. Or they are guys from the village who were brought up under tight christian guidelines.True story.
So it came as a surprise to me. Then from how he was talking i realised he had that Nairobian accent. Being a Nairobian in a school from the Rift Valley is a big deal by the way. Tulikuwa tunatisha sana. He was very eloquent and articulated his points like a Martin Luther reincarnate but with extra fervor and great conviction. At the end of his address i was certain i wanted to try the CU first. At least to get a reason why i should never go back there. In the back of my mind i was thinking boyy, this guy seems very cool, how is he in the CU? To me, back then, you could not be both in the CU and be cool. So i set to find out how different high school CU was to Primary school CU.
First Saturday mimi huyooo…kwanza i convinced a few other guys from my class to join me, felt very accomplished. Bible na Golden Bells kwa mkono plus we used to carry chairs to the lab. Service used to start at around apo 7pm and run to around 10-11pm. We started with the praise session where praise leaders led us through an energetic session amid jumps and dancing. I am a natural born dancer so i didn’t have any problem with that. In fact, i stole the show with my moves kama zile za kina Maximum Melodies.Very flexible young man. Next ilikuwa worship and boy didn’t the worship leader have such a good voice… you just had to envy such, in a good way.
Nimwabudu naani mimii,
kama siiio wewee,
Kama sio,
Kama siiio wewee,
Pia ile ya
[I]Baaaba, sisi tunakuabudu,
Baaaaaaaaaaaba, sisi tunakuabudu
Twainua…
[/I]
To be honest i cried during that worship session but uzuri watu wengi walikuwa wanafunga macho na many more walikuwa wanalia pia so none of my friends noticed.
The way that guy sang, i actually felt a deeper connection with God during that worship session. I felt like i was addressing him directly with the prayer-like lyrics.I felt unusually vulnerable. Very different from the worship pale Naivasha Boarding. This was far too intimate. If this was it, i was willing to ditch entertainment for a CU membership. Full membership!!! Deep down i even felt tempted to judge the entertainment guys. I felt holier than thou all over sudden.
Next was prayer sesh and in the background the worship guy belting out a ballad occasionally breaking to remind us of things we should pray for kama vile familia, masomo, baraka, na kadhalika. Kwanza hapo kwa familia nikaguswa sana juu nilikuwa nimewacha mum hosi and it was only once after then that i ever saw her alive(God rest her soul in peace). Nikalia a litro bit moo juu ya hiyo story. I was not the only one. It was the ambience all over the room. A quick glance to where my friends were and they were all kneeling as if in a begging mode.Hysterical scenes.
Prayer sesh ikaisha ikaingia sermon and the light skinnned CU chair was invited to proceed with the sermon.
He didn’t even use a Bible the whole night. I was startled. In his head it is like he had the Bible completely figured out. He would randomly refer to differently verses that were relevant and made no error with the numbering of chapters and verses. Up until then, the only verses i knew off-head were three:
Jeremiah 29:11
Phillipians 4:13
Plus ile ya For God so loved the world…
It is a shame that 7 years later i still don’t know more.
So you can understand my amazement.
But really the highlight of the sermon for me was when he sensationally addressed MUSIC and especially secular music in particular. If anyone here remembers very well around hapo 2009/2010 ndio stories za Illuminati kwa music zilikuwa zimeshikaaa. You could become an overnight celebrity if you could at least narrate a short history of the organization and give a list of celebrities in it whether true or false.Mostly they were false baseless stories. Most of 2010 was when most of mainstream media huku Kenya actually covered on Illuminati in the music industry often referring to Jay Z, Kanye, Rihanna, Beyonce and the rest …How their videos were filled with demonic symbols and words had hidden meanings and that bullshit. I remember around that period ndio Run this town ya Hov ilikuwa hit vizii. It was my jam.
So the CU chairman goes on to tell us that it may seem difficult quitting such things kama secular music but if we trusted in God we would succeed often ending his sentences with an Amen.AMEN! He even told us that for a long time he was a die-hard fan of crank and had a box full of compact discs which he eventually burnt after kuuona mkono wa bwana.
Akasema anajua kuna watu wako addictcted to pornography, masturbation, drugs and alcohol among other things na hapo kidogo nikajishuku nilikuwa nimeanza kuwatch porn just before admission. Still, i convinced myself that God would deliver me from the bondage i was in. Surely if he delivered Daniel from the Den of hungry lions( were they really hungry?), he would deliver me from porn and lust kwanza vile nilikuwa napenda kuundress teacher was Kiswahili in my head to an extent of ‘impregnanting’ her.
To cut the long story short, on that particular day and many days that followed, those CU leaders managed to even convince us that the earth was soon coming to an end. It sounded so close that i lost the will to work hard in school. I could only anticipate the Second Coming of Christ. I thought it was going to happen before i even sat my final exams. For the whole of 2010 i was very religious.
Soon after those guys finished school i went back to my ways and i never stepped back in the CU …
Of course Armargeddon did not happen and i am in my final year in my campus. I found the guy who used to lead the otherworldly worship session huku campo huwa tunapatana klabu na yeye tunashikiana madrinks.
The CU chair often posts pics of himself clubbing mbitchez all over him. He seems happy and i like it.
He used to make tremendously powerful prayers and i wonder what happened. And that has been the case with all the CU leaders who followed. At least that i can attest to.
So, what became of high school CU leaders?
WATER IS WET!!!
Some play holy due to circumstances wakipata mwanya ya kutoa kucha hamtaamini. There was another one who conned the school and students close to 60k