Nowhere to call home in promised land

The Vapostori community in Kenya are outstanding for their craftmanship when it comes to basketry and carpentry at their workshop at the Kiambaa municipal market in Kikuyu. Photo/CHARLES KAMAU

As popular Christian folklore, mythology and scriptures go, the place variously referred to as Canaan, the Promised Land or the land flowing with milk and honey in the Bible is somewhere in the Middle East.

The book of Exodus, which gives account of the great escape of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, led by Moses, precisely locates the Promised Land between rivers Euphrates and Tigris — which would be in the present-day Iraq.

But if you are in Kenya and you believe the teachings of one of the least known religious groups in the country, you are actually living on the Promised Land today.

Citing a 1956 prophecy by its Zimbabwean founder, Baba Johane Masowe, members of the group known as the Gospel of God Church hold that Kenya is the Promised Land.

Roots in Zimbabwe

The Gospel of God Church has its roots in Zimbabwe, where it has a larger presence to date due to its original unravelling as an indigenous African Christian grouping against colonialism and foreign values in the faith. They are also known as Vapostori, which is Shona for the apostles.

In a story line that has echoes of Dan Brown’s controversial book, The Da Vinci Code, Baba Johane, the first generation of the group came to Kenya some time in 1963 in search of a Mona Lisa-like symbol key to unlocking a vital secret, possibly of the Ark of the Covenant, as contained in Isaiah 19: 18 and 19.

Baba Johane, whom his followers consider John the Baptist of the Bible, supposedly told them to do so in his prophecy in 1956.

“He told his followers to go to a country called Kenya, where they would find a monument erected by wise men,” says Wellington Mumbi, a 48-year-old senior member of the group.

“He also ordered the chosen disciples to make Nairobi their permanent base. Although they were also told to preach the gospel to all the corners of the earth, they were told to make sure they returned here.”

Discovered altar

In Kenya, they discovered their altar — the globe-shaped monument next to the General Post Office (GPO) on Nairobi Kenyatta Avenue.

However, inscriptions on the Nairobi monument indicate that it was erected by the Royal East Africa Automobile Association in 1939 in memory of its founder, Lionel Douglas Galton Fenzi, who died on May 15, 1937.

Fenzi founded the Royal East Africa Automobile Association — the forerunner of the Automobile Association (AA) — in 1919 and was its honorary secretary at the time of his death.

The controversy aside, the original members of the church, said to number less than 20, did not just stumble upon their religious symbol, they also established a small colony of Zimbabweans in the quiet Kiambaa village on the Naivasha Highway, in Kikuyu Division.

Other members of the community are to be found in Githurai estate in the outskirts of Nairobi. Mumbi estimates that their population is currently close to 4,000.

“Most people call us refugees, but we are not. Our parents came here to spread the word of God,” he says.

Mumbi, who says he came to Kenya as a two-year-old in the company of his parents, told Lifestyle that the last of the original adults in their family, Samuel Chinyanga, died about five years ago, aged 106.

Although they peacefully co-exist with the locals, they have retained their unique religious identity and maintained a fairly distinct lifestyle.

The Vapostori worship on Saturdays in open places except during extreme weather when they get inside buildings. Their services are conducted in such a way that men sit in front of the women.

Mumbi says the church, which has its headquarters on Valley Road next to Daystar University, has been able to spread to different parts of the country, including Meru and western Kenya.

In addition to the Bible the Vapostori study other books such as the Book of Adam.

Like Baba Johane who had three wives, the Vapostori practise polygamy. However, Mumbi says the pressures of modern life are such that it is no longer financially tenable for them to take more than one wife.

“If one can be able to take care of more than one wife, our church allows it as it is better than keeping mistresses,” he says.

It is hard not to notice them. Men cut their hair short and let beards grow, while women are normally dressed in white, complete with headscarves.

To sustain themselves economically, men largely engage in carpentry and women basketry. In fact, the Zimbabweans are increasingly becoming recognisable in their neighbourhoods for their craftsmanship as much as their religion.

Their Kiambaa workshop is popular with locals and people from the city shopping for furniture, baskets, mats and table cloths.

“We train our children from an early age,” says Michael Maposa, 37.

Ben Kapota, another member of the community, says that church teachings have enabled members of the community to remain pure adding that their girls are virgins at the time of marriage.

“We make sure that the young ones grow up in the right path. We keep a close eye on them to ensure that they do not fall into bad company,” says Maposa.

After years of living with locals in Kiambaa, the Zimbabwean community are fluent in Kikuyu, in addition to their native Shona.

“Some of us have intermarried with locals. However, one has to convert to our religion to be allowed to marry amongst us,” says Kapota.

Although a majority of the Vapostori are of the second and third generations, most of them are stateless. They neither have Kenyan nor Zimbabwean papers, an issue that sets them on a collision course with the authorities.

“We do not even have national identity cards, therefore we cannot open bank accounts,” says Mumbi. “This means all our transactions are strictly in cash.”

They now plead to the government to accord them some form of recognition.

“Considering that most of us were born here, the government should accord us citizenship status,” says Mumbi.

“Luckily for us the police recognise us from our religion, and since members of our community do not engage in criminal activities we do not have much trouble with the law,” he says.

Their statelessness also means that they cannot travel outside the country.

“Ever since I came to Kenya as a two-year-old, I have lived all my life in Kenya and I consider myself Kenyan,” says Mumbi.

Teresia Maposa, who was born in Kenya, says she has tried acquiring a Kenyan national identity card in vain.

“When I attained the age of 18 I went to get an ID but was told that I could not get one. I was required to present my parent’s ID, which they do not have as they were not born here,” she says.

The only papers that show she has lived in Kenya are school leaving certificates.

Mumbi says that there are a few of their members with Kenyan or Zimbabweans papers, but an overwhelming majority are paperless.

Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’ says that the Vapostori’s case is complicated, since Kenya, unlike other Western countries, does not issue citizenship on the basis that a person was born in the country.

In a telephone interview Mr Kajwang’ said that their problem can only be solved through Parliament.

“They should do a petition through a lawyer and present it to the government. That petition should be taken to Parliament and the Speaker should be able to give direction,” said Mr Kajwang’, adding that he personally knows the people as good fundis (artisans).

When we called the Zimbabwean High Commission to enquire about the status of the Vapostori, an official from the consular divison who did not want to be named for this story, said that members of the community have Kenyan or Zimbabwean passports.

“These people are very secretive,” he said. But the community’s problems with citizenship have neither dimmed their pious view of Kenya as the Promised Land nor their fond memories of events in the country.

According to Vapostori, the Egypt referred to in the Bible is Africa.

“Nairobi is at the centre of Africa, from Cape to Cairo, and that is why the altar was built there,” says Mumbi.

Other Bible versions substitute the city of destruction with city of the Sun. This, reference, according to Vapostori, ties in well with the popular tag, Nairobi, the City in the Sun.

“The people who called Nairobi, the city in the sun, knew something we don’t know,” says Mumbi, smiling.

Speaking in flawless Kiswahili, Mumbi says that Kenya is a blessed land and that it holds a great secret, and that in the fullness of time people from all corners of the world will come to behold the secret.

“The wise men who built that monument knew the secret that Kenya holds, and that is why they chose to hide some of the message on the monument using Roman numerals,” says Mumbi.

Apart from giving various distances, from Nairobi, recorded on the pillar, there is the inscription Isaiah XXX V 8. Assuming that this means Isaiah 30 verse 8, we looked it up in the Bible and this is what it says: “Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.”

Pray for rain

Mumbi recalls an incident in 1976, when Kenya’s first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta gathered people of various denominations and religions at the Ngong Racecourse to pray for rain.

Members of Gospel of God Church were also present.

“After the prayers, many of the denominations gave their predictions of when the rain would fall,” recalls Mumbi.

“Towards the end of the event Mzee noticed members of our church, who were dressed in white, and asked what they had to say. A prophet in our church stood up and announced that before the gathering broke, everyone will have been rained on, and surely it rained.”

He adds that after the event, Kenyatta invited them to State House Nakuru.