By Joseph Ondiek
Last year, KTN flashed on our screens footage entitled Lost puffing souls based on the activities in a small town in Western Kenya.
Those with long memories will remember Luanda town and the story of how the devil has planted the seeds of bhang there and misled residents into engaging in widespread smoking of bhang.
The result, according to wags, is that a substantial proportion of the patients at Mathari Mental Hospital hail from Luanda and its environs.
Spiritual nets
A trip to the town is likely to reveal even more potential candidates for the mental institution.
Now trust the men of God to cast their spiritual nets into such troubled waters.
The result is that Luanda is a small town teeming with churches of every persuasion.
The proliferation of these houses of God is the perfect antidote to those who have lost their souls to the weed.
The churches are so close that it is possible for one to listen to five sermons from different churches at the same time. If a church by any other name is a melting pot of former and current sinners united in the name of the Great Spirit, then read the names of Luanda churches and you’ll be vindicated that a noun just identifies abstract identities.
Therefore, Huduma Ya Kisima Cha Neema Cha Mwana a Daudi is the name of a small church here. Less than 10 footsteps away is Jesus Eternal Life Everngeical (sic) International Ministry.
Miserable group
What invited my curiosity is the ambitious ‘international’ inserted into that confusion of a name. First, the church itself is housed in a derelict building. If there wasn’t a banner placed strategically outside to advertise its existence, and a miserable group of worshippers singing and dancing like people possessed, one would be excused to think that he has strayed into a village carpenter’s workshop.
Another house of God with the ‘international’ tag, Jesus Miracle Eternal Evangelical International Church is directly opposite.
Probably these two churches might once have been one organisation that went the way of our political parties and splintered.
The near rhyme in their names and the fact that they face each other like spiritual adversaries further bolsters this assumption.
You walk further (Warning: don’t walk far) and a white banner fluttering incessantly before the wind welcomes you to Toba na Utakatifu Miracle Church of Christ Luanda.
Here, the devil is combated fiercely and fervently. The ‘Bishop’ is dressed in such scary attire the devil himself would think twice before approaching the church.
His coat is of the biblical Joseph’s Technicolor kind. This means that he threw onto his body all the colours of the rainbow, with the red dominating. It extends up to his knees to be followed by a white pair of trousers and a brown pair of shoes.
Puffing away
Curiosity leads you to Grace Baptist Bible Church. Though its doors are flung open, there are only three women inside. Chances are high that one of them is the pastor’s wife with her two sisters-in-law.
We still have Upendo Pentecostal Church and Luanda Pentecostal Church, not to count the mainstream churches standing between the Kakamega road junction and the main Luanda market, a distance of only 300 metres.
While people are still puffing their lungs away, it is clear that the devil is being given a run for his money.
