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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 s...
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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 se...
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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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Childhood on a Settler Farm: Growing Up in the Shadow of Power

 My childhood began on land that did not belong to us. It was in Sergoit, on a vast, mechanized farm owned by the Kruger family, Boer settlers who had made Kenya their home decades earlier. By the time I was born, the rhythms of the farm were already established: who owned, who worked, who decided, and who obeyed. My father was a laborer there.  We lived in what were called  kambis,  clusters of workers’ houses spread across the farm: Kabao, Soin, Kambi Ya Juu, and Kaprison. Each had rows of small, closely spaced houses, built not for comfort, but for function. Our first home in Kabao was a single-room brick structure near the school, exposed to the harsh winds that swept down from Sergoit Hill. At night, the wind could tear at the iron sheets, and my father would place stones on the roof to hold it down, an act that felt both ordinary and symbolic of how fragile our place there was. The farm was not just where we lived. It defined how we lived. Work, movement, even ...
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Rev. M. P. Loubser (1876–1947): Settler Pastor and Foundational Figure in the Origins of Reformed Work in Eldoret

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Rev. Marthinus Petrus Loubser was born in 1876 in the Cape Colony, South Africa, and ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church within the Afrikaner Reformed tradition. His life and ministry must be understood within the wider historical movement that followed the Anglo Boer War, when many Afrikaners migrated to British East Africa in search of land, autonomy, and the preservation of their religious and cultural identity. Loubser was part of this migration and arrived in the Eldoret region in the early twentieth century, where he would become a central figure in the emerging settler church. Rev. Loubser. Photo: Europeans in East Africa By the 1920s, Afrikaner settlers in the Uasin Gishu Plateau had established the Vergenoeg congregation, a name that reflected both geographical distance and a conscious separation from British colonial influence. Loubser was called as its first permanent minister and served across a wide and scattered farming community. His ministry focused on Afrikaans speak...
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