Yesu wa Tongaren: You can't crucify me again

 Self-proclaimed 'Jesus wa Tongaren' from Bungoma County [Benard Lusigi, Standard]

Despite all the half-hearted threats on social media to crucify him over Easter, Eliud Wekesa, alias Yesu wa Tongaren is not a worried man.

We find him seated under the shade of a mango tree at the centre of a compound that houses several buildings, among them the Jerusalem Mpya Kanisa la Yesu Church in Lukhokhwe village, Tongaren, Bungoma County. Interestingly, this church celebrates Easter in mid-July unlike other churches.

Clad in full dull-green robes, sandals made from worn car tyres and spotting a long grey beard, he cuts an imposing figure.

After introductions, he requests us to be patient while he informs his assistants that he has visitors.

"I am the son of God and I came back to complete the work that I started more than 2000 years ago when I left earth," Yesu wa Tongaren says when he returns for the interview.

While reacting to social media remarks about him, he says "Those are the dark hearts from Babylon. God, my father, is letting them come together to attack me because he wants to destroy them. Jesus was crucified only once and since I have come for the second time, it is written in the Bible that I come to save those who await me, not to die for their sins a second time".

Even though he was born of man and woman in 1981 at Lukhokhwe village in present-day Bungoma County, Yesu wa Tongaren says he started having visions of who he truly was at the age of nine.

"One morning, I was outside my parents' house when a sound drew my attention skywards. There I saw hundreds of angels come down to greet me. I was not alarmed and thereafter I told my parents about it," he says.

"Only one experience unnerved me. "I was looking after my dad's cows when suddenly angels appeared next to a nearby tree and started radiating different colours. That was the only time I was scared and ran off to tell my parents about the encounter."

Yesu wa Tongaren explains that his parents were not surprised by his claim because they sensed early on that he was a special child. After that first vision, he says he having the same vision twice a week between 0900hrs and 1200hrs. He would see hundreds of angels come down to greet him in glowing robes.

"I was the only one who used to see them. Whenever I told those around me I had seen angels, they doubted me and at some point, they thought I was a mental case. However, my parents understood what was going on and told me to keep whatever visions I had to myself. My parents used to call me Mungoi (prophet) and Omusalisi (preacher).

These visions, he says, continued to appear to him until he became a family man and his own son started experiencing the same visions. By then, he was 26 years old. What later convinced him of his special status was an encounter with angels in his brother's house where it was revealed to him how some jealous neighbours had conspired to bewitch him.

"I was directed to burn the talisman that were miraculously revealed to me and when I lit the fire, I was instructed to place the talisman on a bible. Surprisingly, when the fire was out, the bible remained intact and that is when I knew I had a special purpose on earth."

Yesu wa Tongaren built his church in 2015 and to date it has more than 200 ordained angels and prophets. Like Jesus Christ, he has twelve disciples representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Ordaining of the prophets, he says, comes after the said individual gets a revelation from God. Ordained church members put on different robes.

"The red robes signify that the prophets who don them command fire that destroys all evil. The sky blue colour signifies God's work while white signifies purity of heart of the wearer. Green is worn by those who have powers to heal through prayer."

Yesu wa Tongaren's wife is among the prophets and goes by the name Nabii Benjamin though she was born Susan Bulimo. Equally, his fifth born son, nine years old, is a prophet and is known as Nabii Yusufu. Yesu wa Tongaren got married at 20 years. He had a difficult childhood that forced him to drop out of school after the first term in Form One at Lukhokhwe Secondary School.

"My parents died in 1996 and 1997. I was the last born in a family of nine and I had to drop out of school to fend for myself. Dad had enough land, so I ventured into farming for some years before starting the church. At 20, I got married."

Asked why he is married yet Jesus was never married, Yesu wa Tongaren quotes Isaiah 53:1-10 and Revelation 21:9, which says; "Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the last seven plagues and spoke to me saying, 'come I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. He says he did not marry the first time he was on earth, but the Bible clearly says that he shall have offspring when he returns.

He is reluctant to pinpoint any miracles he has performed because it "will offend my father who is right here in New Jerusalem (Lukhokhwe village)."

Some of the Nabiis however say they joined his church because of the miracles he performed for them.

"I joined Yesu wa Tongaren in 2014. Before I knew about him, I went through a lot of tribulations. I suffered from strange sickness and insomnia. When a friend directed me here, the first prayer cured me," says Nabii Reuben.