Sect member says prayers provided divine healing from deadly snake bite

By PHILIP MUASYA

Kenya; In most parts of Ukambani, a snakebite is so dreaded that if it happens, all resources would be marshalled to rush the victim to hospital for anti-venom jab.

Most snakes in Ukambani are so venomous that many victims have died outside hospital gates while others have had their limbs amputated to prevent the spread of poison.

But a Kavonokya sect adherent from Wasya village in Mwingi Central District, Kitui County, whose belief that it is only God who heals is unshakable, says fervent prayer saved him from the poisonous fangs of a snake. He was bitten but never sought treatment from hospital.

Munyithya Suvi, 79, a member of the sect whose beliefs include prayers for healing and which abhors conventional treatment, says he was bitten by a snake in Ngomeni while asleep.

“I felt a sharp bite that woke me up immediately. I felt around and touched the snake as it slithered away,” says Suvi. The reptile bit him behind the knee a month ago.

Bible verses

Coincidentally, Suvi, who says he got saved in 1960 when he was only 25, was attending a bonding session with other elders of the sect. The sect members prayed seeking healing for the old man. “I immediately grabbed my Bible, read a verse and went into a deep prayer, asking God to protect me from the snake poison,” he said.

Suvi says he read Mark 16:17 which says: “And these signs will follow those who believe, they will take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them, they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.”

Having prayed, Suvi and his colleagues went back to sleep, knowing that God had heard their prayers.

“I woke up in the middle of the night sweating, I then vomited. Once I vomited, I knew my healing had come and that all the poison had been ejected from my body,” he says.

After their retreat, Suvi went back home and started nursing his swollen feet. However, the area chief got wind of his ailment and alerted the police. Fearing for the worst, a battery of police officers led by Mwingi Central OCPD Kipkemboi Birir went to his home, where they found the jovial old man sipping tea, a Bible resting on his lap.

After explaining their mission of wanting to take him to hospital, Suvi flatly refused. He said he was healed and demonstrated his healing by walking within his compound, albeit with some discomfort.

When the officers insisted on taking him to hospital for tests to confirm his claims, a seemingly agitated Suvi flipped through the Bible and quoted Mathew 7; “God says: ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. I asked God for healing and He gave me. Kindly go back,” the old man dismissed the officers.

Knowing he would not budge, they tricked him that they also needed prayers at his Kavonokya church, after which they would take him back home.

Suvi reluctantly agreed and boarded the police van, barefoot.

After the officers bypassed the church, the old man, who has witnessed other Kavonokya faithful being forcibly taken to hospital, hatched a plot. At Mwingi District Hospital, Suvi refused to disembark from the police van. He later told this writer he was asking God to forgive his “abductors” since they knew not what they were doing.

Out of danger

A medical officer pleaded with him, telling him that they would only carry tests on him without any injections or giving him drugs.

The nursing officer James Mutie gave him a clean bill of health, prompting him to break into song and dance. “He is out of danger. If nothing happened to him within 24 hours of the bite, then nothing will,” said Mutie.

The officers who accompanied him to hospital smiled. “Mzee, we believe you. Let’s go home,” a policeman told him as he boarded the vehicle back home. “It is God who heals, if He wants to take your life, it doesn’t mater which hospital you go to,” he said with a broad smile.

The larger Mwingi region is known to have some of the most poisonous snakes and most of their victims are bitten while asleep as the serpents crawl out of their abodes to seek refuge in people’s homes due to searing heat in the area. They also enter people’s homes looking for chicken eggs or chicks.