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My Family Should Have Disappeared Several Times, But It Didn't

Two orphaned children were separated during a raid and taken into different communities. The boy was taken into Turkana. The girl remained among the Pokot of Baringo. They grew up speaking different languages and living lives neither could have imagined for the other. Years later, they found each other again. This is the story of my grandfather, Chebet Kiptabure, and his sister, Kwadit. It is also the story of how their family survived a separation that could easily have ended the connection between them forever. Chebet and Kwadit were orphaned while they were still young. No one knows exactly when my grandfather was born, although family memory places it sometime between 1910 and 1915. Kwadit was a few years younger. After the death of their parents, the two children were taken in by relatives in Marakwet. They grew up in a time when children were expected to contribute to the survival of the household. School was not part of their lives. Their work was to herd cattle and goa...
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Festo Okonyene: Servant of the Word, Faith and Service

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Rev. Festo Okonyene was born in the early years of the twentieth century, and his life would come to embody, more fully than almost any other, the grace-wrought transformation central to the Reformed Church of East Africa’s (RCEA) founding story. He is remembered by the RCEA as one of its earliest evangelists and trainees, a man who stood at the very beginning of what would become one of the most vital Reformed communities on the African continent. He came to that calling without formal schooling, yet he would spend a lifetime championing the church’s education initiatives and literacy programmes, understanding instinctively that a reading congregation was a rooted congregation. Festo Okonyene and his wife in early 2015 Before his encounter with the Gospel, Okonyene worked as a labourer for white settler farmers in colonial Kenya, one among many young men drawn into the agricultural economy of the Uasin Gishu plateau and its surrounding highlands, where European farming enterprise had ...
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The Roots That Made Me

A Family Heritage Narrative There are stories that shape a family long before any of us are born, stories carried quietly through generations, held in memory, in land, in names, and in the scars of survival. This writeup is my attempt to honor those who came before me: my grandfather Chebet Kiptabure, my grandaunt Kwadit, and my grandmother Tekwan (Kokomen). Their lives were marked by hardship, courage, and resilience. Their stories live in me, and I write them so they will live in those who come after. My Grandfather: Chebet Kiptabure My grandfather, Chebet, was born around 1910-15 or thereabout, though no one knows the exact year. His childhood was short-lived; he lost both parents while still very young, left with only his sister, Kwadit, in a world defined by conflict and uncertainty. In those early decades, the Kerio Valley was a place where small-scale conflict and cattle raiding were woven into daily life. Families slept in hidden places like tabut, escaping into the escarpment ...
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A Seed That Fell to the Ground: The Gospel According to Rose Barmasai

When Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces many seeds,” He was speaking of His own sacrifice. Yet throughout history, God has raised men and women whose lives echo this Gospel truth. Rose Barmasai was one of them. Twenty-six years after her tragic death at Chembulet trading center, along the Iten-Eldoret road, her story still stirs the conscience of the church. She died returning from Chemalingot, where she had spent the day mediating between the Pokot and Turkana, two communities locked in cycles of revenge, cattle raids, and generational trauma. Her life ended in the very work she had given herself to: reconciling God’s children. Born in 1957 in Turesia, Keiyo South, Rose grew up in a region where ethnic tensions, political manipulation, and cattle‑raiding violence shaped daily life. She trained as a theologian at a time when few women in the Reformed Church of East Africa (RCEA) dared to pursue ministry. She...
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Peace in Hostile Places: Rose Barmasai's Courage in Rift Valley Conflict Zones

  The Rift Valley of the 1990s and early 2000s was a landscape marked by fear. Ethnic tensions simmered beneath the surface. Political manipulation inflamed divisions. Cattle raids, revenge killings, and displacement were common. Many avoided these areas. But Rose Barmasai walked straight into them. As the Peace and Reconciliation Coordinator for the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), Rose became a familiar figure in conflict zones, from Tot in Marakwet to Chemolingot in Baringo, from Kainuk in Turkana to Chesegon in West Pokot. She travelled in dusty roads, crossed dangerous valleys, and sat with communities who had lost hope in dialogue. Her approach was simple but powerful: listen, respect, and insist on peace. In Tot in 1997, she faced one of her most challenging moments. Pokot and Marakwet elders had gathered, but the atmosphere was tense. Decades of mistrust hung in the air. Youth were preparing for retaliation. The meeting seemed doomed. Then Rose stood up. She sp...
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A Woman Who Refused to Be Silenced: Rose Barmasai, a Pioneer of RCEA Women's Ministry

In the late 20th century, when the Reformed Church of East Africa (RCEA) was still firmly rooted in patriarchal tradition, a young woman from Turesia in Keiyo South dared to step into a space reserved for men. Her name was Rose Barmasai, and she would become the first woman theologian in her denomination, a pathfinder whose courage opened doors for generations of women after her. Rose’s journey into ministry was not smooth. She entered theological training at a time when many believed women belonged in the pews, not the pulpit. Her calling was questioned. Her ambitions were dismissed. Her voice was often ignored. Yet she persisted, driven by a deep conviction that God calls both sons and daughters to serve. As the Women’s Coordinator of RCEA, she became a fierce advocate for the ordination of women. She argued not from rebellion, but from Scripture, pointing to Deborah, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, and the Samaritan woman who became the first evangelist. She challenged the church to see...
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Tbt# School Culture and Resources Back in the ‘80s

The schoolyard of Sergoit primary school (UG) in the 1980s was always alive with the shuffle of bare feet and the chatter of children arriving from distant villages of Kapnyangi, Chembulet, Kaptuli, Kaplogoi, Chemanywes... Some had walked seven, even ten kilometers, their faces flushed from the morning cold, their clothes thin against the biting wind. We carried our lunches (mostly mkarangoo ) in tin containers, hanging them on the branches of a great tree outside the classroom. By midday, goats would sometimes wander in, tearing down the tins and feasting on our food, leaving us to laugh bitterly or walk home hungry. Inside, the classrooms were little more than shells. At Sergoit Upper, three brick-walled rooms stood side by side, their floors dusty and uneven. The headteacher’s office was squeezed between Standards Five and Six, a cramped space where books were marked and milk packets distributed. Every Tuesday and Friday, the Nyayo School Milk program transformed the atmosphere. C...
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