|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The phone was ringing, a shrill and intrusive sound slicing through the sacred silence of their bedroom. Pastor Silas reached to his bedside table to silence it. It was 11 pm, late even for a pastoral emergency. His wife stirred from her sleep, looked at him with a knowing, worried gaze, her silent concern hanging in the air. When the ringing stopped and immediately started again, he sighed, he picked it, looking at the caller ID. The name was familiar but the voice that came on was not.
“ I am calling on behalf of Atieno from church. I am the sister. Please come to Aga Khan. There has been an accident”.
Pastor Silas’ wife was now seated upright watching his expression change. He was trying to hide the worry on his face. Earlier in the day, pastor Silas had been called to bless a new car that had arrived from Mombasa. He remembered it clearly. A gleaming white Toyota Corolla Sport Hybrid, fresh from Japan. Its tires were still glossy black. He was used to these routine obligations for his congregants. Prayer for cars. For homes. For businesses. He had done the ritual by heart, walking a full circle around the car, his hand tracing the smooth metal as he spoke of divine covering and journey mercies. He could still smell the newness of the seats on the drive home and the words he spoke to Atieno and her family: an assured promise and guarantee of safe passage.
It wasn’t the first time he had to respond to these emergencies in the middle of the night but this one held a different level of urgency. He looked at the time on his phone and then jumped out of bed and started getting dressed.
‘Have you seen the car keys?’
He was normally an even-keel character, known for his calm disposition but this news had unsettled the good pastor. His wife returned with the car keys and handed them to him.
“What did she tell you?”
“Not much?” and he continued dressing, inserting his collar.
His wife still looked at him with concern and did not press on. She knew the news had shaken him because her husband normally became conservative with words whenever he felt overwhelmed.
Fortunately, he did not have to drive a long distance to get to the Aga Khan hospital in the centre of Kisumu town. His thoughts were racing throughout the quiet drive through the empty well-illuminated city streets. Strange. He remembered Atieno’s husband, not a frequent church goer, but a good man. He had mentioned that he would be doing a short trip to his village, near Maseno which was less than an hour’s drive. What could have happened?
When he arrived at the Aga Khan hospital, he was surprised by how many people he found in the reception area. He was greeted by the sickly glow of the fluorescent lights and a sterile scent of disinfectant. The corridors were a jumble of panicked relatives and weary staffers, a chaos that felt completely out of place at this hour. He was not the only one whose sleep had been interrupted. His heart began beating faster as he took in the scene, his shoes squawking on the polished linoleum as he followed one of the staffers towards Atieno’s shared room.
The staffer announced rather formally that the pastor had arrived.
Pastor Silas was dressed up in a black suit and carried a small bag that held his bible, a note book and pen. Atieno started sobbing the moment she saw him.
Her cry was a guttural ugly sound and it caused her body to heave. Her sister held her by the shoulders trying to console her, the same sister who had called him earlier. There was nothing he could do beyond just saying,
“ It will be well, it will be well in his name” and all that felt so hollow.
How fragile was this life?
This was the same lady that had served him tea less than 24 hours ago. Her face was bruised and swollen. Her right hand in a cast.
It was the sister who replayed what had happened. After the prayers, Atieno’s husband insisted that the car needed a thorough clean before the road trip. So they drove to Hippo point, by the lake Victoria where a group of young men specialised in washing cars. They sat by a small kiosk enjoying some fried fish as they waited for the young men to finish washing the car. It would be their last supper as a family. Atieno, her husband and two daughters. It was a beautiful evening drive, the sun was setting over the lake, splashing an orange hue in the horizon and Atieno recalled that her pre teen children were giddy.
Then as they completed the ascent of the Ojola hill, driving at moderate speed, a boda boda appeared out of nowhere from the corner straight into their lane. Atieno’s husband instinctively hit the brakes and the Fuso truck was behind them bumped into them sending the Corolla off the road and rolling down the valley. It took the villagers a long time to retrieve the bodies from the mangled wreck. Atieno’s survival was miraculous. She was found unconscious, still fastened in the upside down position. When she woke to the news that her husband and two children had died, she turned delirious and had to be sedated. That was when the sister decided to call Pastor Silas, who was known to be a calm presence in situations like this.
It was a terrible tragedy. Pastor Silas tried to find words of comfort but his mind kept returning to the events of the previous day. Had he not been present when he offered the protection prayers? What value would words have in this situation? The pain on Atieno’s face was raw and now she was looking him in the eye, pleading for an explanation. She wasn’t screaming, or speaking from a space of rage. Instead it was a pitiful plea that terrified Pastor Silas to muteness.
“But you prayed, pastor?”
“Why did this happen to me? Why would God leave me to suffer like this?”
It was a dreadful pronouncement, a silent indictment that left no room for answers. Pastor Silas felt the suffocating silence, unable to voice a divine explanation. He noticed that her sister was also staring at him in anticipation and he wondered what he could say that would make a lick of a difference. Pastor Silas could feel the weight of his Bible, suddenly a foreign object on his lap. The polished leather cover that offered words of comfort through all seasons, felt empty. He tried to think of a passage, any passage that could make sense of this tragedy, his mind racing a desperate scramble for familiar words.
He thought of the Psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want… He makes me lie down in green pastures…”
The shepherd had lost his sheep and there were no green pastures here.
He recalled Psalm 91: “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” The words, once a powerful promise, now sounded like a cruel mockery.
He could hear his own voice from that morning, the words he had spoken with such conviction. “We cover this vehicle in the blood of Jesus… We declare divine protection over your journey…” The words had sounded so certain, so full of power. Now, they were a hollow, ringing lie. They were just words, unable to stop a truck or save two young lives. His mind replayed the sound of Atieno’s plea, and he felt a terrifying emptiness. He had offered an empty promise, a spiritual placebo, and now he had to face the consequences.
This woman had just lost her husband and two young teens. They had done everything right. A model couple who were finally entering their season of prosperity and then this. Their children were just a few years younger than his own. Well behaved girls. And her husband. A fuss free gentlemen. A hard worker fending for his family.
What was he going to tell the congregation? He had blessed the car less than 8 hours before the accident. He left the room and walked to the parking lot to catch some air and clarity. A few of the relatives were gathered there and they greeted him warmly, amazed that he had actually come out at this hour. He found out that the husband and the two children were already at the morgue and they thanked him for being there for Atieno. He was hesitant to receive the compliment, the guilt of the whole affair hovering over him like a dark cloud.
He had to find something to say but couldn’t find the strength to open the bible. He was trained specifically for these circumstances. He had to find something, so he returned to the room where Atieno was. She was now asleep. Her sister who had been with her all along looked so exhausted that pastor Silas asked her to take a break and find something to eat. He sat beside the bed holding his bible, deep in thought.
Then a cleaner entered the room, her face a map of tired lines, her hair pulled back in a simple bun. She moved with the quiet, practiced ease of someone who used to being unseen. The damp slap of her mop was barely audible against the floor and rustling of plastic garbage bags was the only sound in the room for a long time. Without looking up from her task, she eventually asked, in a low, unassuming voice, “ Would you like some tea, pastor?”
The pastor assured her that he was okay and as if on second thought decided to chat her up.
“Where are you from?”
“I am a NyaGem from Kathomo”.
“What a coincidence. My grandmother is also from Kathomo. Which is your door?
“I am from the Kojuodhi people”.
“ Then we are related… this is why talking is good”.
That statement put her further at ease and she stopped moving for the first time since she entered the room and turned to face Pastor Silas as regarded Atieno asleep on her bed before letting out an audible sigh.
“ This story is very painful”
She still held on to a large black plastic bag in her hand as she lingered at the door
“When you work here, you see so many things. Our roads are killing us. Do you know that some days we even see up to 20 people, all road accidents victims. What is really painful, that many of them are pedestrians and passengers of boda bodas. The roads are finishing our children.
Just last week a bus carrying 25 people, coming from a funeral, went off the road and overturned. Only one girl survived. Can you imagine? People from one family and they had just come from a funeral. These roads spill too much blood”.
With that statement, she wrapped her bulging black plastic bag tightly, and offered her words of comfort.
“I say sorry again, man of God”, and she left the room as quietly as she had appeared.
That simple explanation felt like an epiphany for pastor Silas. He had remembered seeing the item in the news. The bus was coming from Nyahera going to Nyakach. Despite this, he had not even thought much about it. The accident might as well have happened in Ukraine. When he started to think about it, there was not a single week that passed when he did not hear of a road accident fatalities. How many funerals had he conducted of road accident victims?
In that moment he realised how disconnected he was from this everyday reality. This was not a singular event or a tragic anomaly. This was daily carnage happening on our roads and it had been happening for as long as he could remember. From the days when his own grandmother would pray, that they may be protected as they traveled in contraptions made by the hands of men. Nothing had changed. He had just forgotten. He was the one living in a bubble.
All those prayers over the decades had made no dent on Kenya’s road fatalities. He had been racking his brain for a spiritual explanation. The truth was plain and simple. This was a systemic problem that required more than just prayers.
He turned and looked at Atieno who was still in deep sleep. He adjusted himself on the chair and then looked up at the clock on his phone. It was approaching three in the night. His wife would understand. He sat still, in silence, the bible resting on his lap.
****
This is written in memory of Comrade Wanjau Wanja (Njau), whose life was brutally taken in a hit-and-run on Thika road, in Nairobi, on August 22nd, 2025.
Be one of the first to get your copy of “Strength & Sorrow,” a collection of encouraging meditations on death, grief, and healing. Pre-order now at the special early bird price: oyungapala.com
