How does the youngest child from a family with seven boys and three girls in Africa become a full-time Christian writer? I asked Moses Wasamu, 55, a new CT correspondent from Kenya.
Moses grew up in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, from which many champion runners come. Three things shaped his life: an early introduction of God, a young introduction to politics, and lots of reading and writing.
Moses said, “The Anglican Church Kenya introduced me to God. My siblings and I went to church religiously every Sunday. This was because of the influence of my mother, Julia Onienga, a born-again Christian.” He remembers confirmation as a member of the Anglican Communion, a major event for parents and their children, under the teaching of a fiery bishop, Alexander Muge. “I went through this ritual more as a religious duty than as a personal commitment to God. Yet that is what God used to draw me to himself.”
Muge’s criticism of former Kenya president Daniel arap Moi also drew Moses into politics. “His preaching made the high and mighty uncomfortable. My political consciousness came from listening to his fiery preaching at an early age.”
Kenya was then in political turmoil following an attempted coup in 1982. Moses remembers that his older brothers brought home daily newspapers—Daily Nation, the government-owned Kenya Times, and The Weekly Review, a publication run by US-trained nuclear physicist Hilary Ng’weno—that deepened his political consciousness.
“I also remember reading the US-published Reader’s Digest voraciously. I liked it for its inspiring stories, hilarious jokes, and advice on health issues,” Moses said. “Exposure to different publications at a young age gave me the desire for reading and writing.”
In elementary school, Moses’ English teacher Rachel Lamenya made it mandatory for all students in fifth grade to enroll in the Kenya National Library Service. Every week, students had to borrow a book from the library, read it, then write a summary of the story.
“At the time, it looked like a punishment, but when I look back, I realize it laid a strong foundation for me as a writer and a student in later life,” Moses told me. “At 11 or 12 years of age, I was clear in my mind that I wanted to be a writer.”
Moses had a crisis when he finished high school and didn’t qualify to enter a public university as expected. He questioned how he would fulfill his desire to become a writer: “I felt like my life had come to an end. I started drinking as a way of forgetting my misery.”
In 1994, though, “I got saved,” he said. “The miracle happened one night while I was on bed reflecting on my life. The fear of people and the unknown, which had kept me from making that decision, came to an end that night.”
That change led to his enrollment at Daystar University, a Christian school. There, for the first time, he saw the leader of an institution—vice chancellor and professor Stephen Talitwala—lining up with students and staff for meals at the cafeteria. He learned humility from this example and honed journalism skills during a course, Writing and Editing, where “you earned extra marks for publishing an article in any of the local dailies.”
At Daystar, Moses reported on school events for the university’s publication and also published articles in local newspapers. In his last year, he applied for an internship at a big Kenyan organization, Nation Media Group, and was the only Daystar student picked. “This was big for me,” he said. “What I had dreamed about over the years was coming to pass!”
But Moses did not get the “thrill and satisfaction” he anticipated: “I sensed that I wanted to write, but in a way that honors God and which brings eternal significance.”
In 2004 Moses began to volunteer with Scripture Union Kenya, a nondenominational organization that evangelizes and disciples children. That year he also helped to found The New Sudan Christian, the first Christian newspaper in South Sudan, a quarterly that became a monthly in 2010. (It went online in 2016 and is now called The Christian Times.) Moses became head of communication with Scripture Union, but his job there ended in 201l.
The next two years, he recalled, “were my night of the dark soul. I fell sick and was diagnosed with muscle spasm. … I was so scared because I was not sure I would sit down again and work on a computer, which was my main tool of trade. Yet during that time, God revealed himself to me as Jehovah Jireh, my provider, and Jehovah Rapha, my healer. As a family, we never lacked food or drink. God covered all our bills.”
Moses found one highlight among two years of lowlights—he became one of more than 350 writers from 50 countries who contributed to the Africa Study Bible printed by Oasis International Publishing.
In 2013 Moses traveled to South Africa for a three-month international leadership-development program. As he came into contact with Christians from different countries and denominations, Moses said Galatians 3:28 became a reality for him: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He said he became aware of his own biases and now counts as friends Christians from all over the world.
Moses reported that God also “used different events and people to lead and guide me into my calling.” The Anglican priest from South Sudan who led development of The New Sudan Christian, John Daau, urged Moses to “go to Bible school and become an Anglican priest.” Moses did go to Bible school but eventually had ordination not as an Anglican but as a Kenya Assemblies of God minister.
He also used email to make contacts that led to writing internationally: 3 stories in Christianity Today from 2011 to 2013 and 19 in World magazine from 2014 to 2016. Moses joined CT as a correspondent earlier this year. He quoted to me the summary attributed to Karl Barth: “Christians should approach the world with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”
Moses now sees telling stories of God’s creation as a calling: “As Christians, we cannot close our eyes to what is happening around us, because God reveals himself in all things, the good and the bad. As a Christian journalist, my first calling is to God and to the truth as revealed by God.”
Moses’ bottom line: “I want to be found worthy when Jesus comes back, telling stories of God’s creation in this world.”
