Dini ya Musambwa started after Church rejected Elijah Masinde's plans to take a second wife

Elijah Masinde, son of Nameme the future prophet, founded Dini ya Msambwa when he left the Friends’ Church in 1935 after the church objected to his plans to take a second wife, a Ugandan. He had married his first wife Sarah Nanyama in a wedding conducted by the Friends Church in 1932.

Eventually he married a second wife and the Quakers expelled him from church. He then left home to work as a guard at the Bungoma Law Courts. He later married four other wives; the youngest is 60-year-old Gladys Masinde.