Inspirational Story: Not a Lesser Priest

[Laela]

From despair to a beacon of hope​

By Joe Ombuor

"Life is not about speed, but about calculation," Rev Jackson Kosgei says slowly and illustrates his point through an example.

"If a lion or cheetah enters a room, the first instinct will be for people to run away even though they cannot outrun the beast.

"The fastest person could end up the victim while the person who prefers to duck under the table emerges unscathed. I am that person who would go under the table," he says, adding, "I anchor my life on calculation, not speed."

That is the message he uses as he starts his crusades across the globe. An international preacher, Kosgei sees his mission as that of articulating the African understanding of Christianity.

"I strive to prove that our own culture, though cast negatively by Western Christian teaching, was not all bad. I stand for the faith where there is opposition."

He says Africans have been made to believe that they can only receive yet God has given all communities the capacity to give as well.

"True Christianity is the message that makes a person to be socially and economically resourceful," he says.

Rev Jackson Kosgei

"The world should also appreciate Christianity through the eye of an African."
This is the message coming from a man who instead of joining school at the normal age of six first entered a classroom at 21.

If you can picture this; it is a photo complete with a moustache, a sprouting beard and a voice several octaves low.

Shrivelled appendages
That was the figure Jackson Kosgei presented when he joined Lombogishu Primary School, Baringo District in 1973.

"Some teachers were my age mates and some children cheekily referred to me as kimutu (a big man)," he muses.

Worse, Kosgei had only shrivelled appendages for legs and his big body was no taller than those of his little classmates who literally towered over him standing. But he remained undaunted.

For, attending school was all that was left between him and death.

"It was life after a narrow escape from the noose of a suicide rope," he says.

Prior to the school opportunity, Kosgei was determined no, set to join his ancestors to the extent that he had secured a rope and identified a tree from which to hang himself.

"I had gone to my mother, whom I loved so much, to seek her permission to die now that I was a grown up vegetable but she had tearfully declined," Kosgei recalls of his suicide bid. "I thanked her for having taken care of me during my most vulnerable years, for having bravely yanked me from the jaws of death when society declared me a bad curse after I lost my legs to polio at five years and decreed that I am left at the exit of a cattle pen to be trampled to death by the bovines in accordance with an age old tradition of the Tugen community.

"My proud people (I come from the Lembus sub-tribe of the Tugen who till the rich lands of Koibatek) equated people with obvious imperfections with evil. The disabled and children born to underage mothers who had not gone through traditional rites and initiation were considered a curse and hence not worth of living.

"For children born in circumstances considered unclean, an old woman would plug cow dung into their nostrils and they would suffocate to death to cleanse a curse.

"Children who were born without legs or lost them after birth like me were considered potential criminals, hence the tendency to cull them out because God had already given the warning.

 

[Laela]

Rev Kosgei and his wife Rose,
whom he calls his "Black Rose" because she never
saw his disability and loved him the way he was.

****​

Fixed date of death

"My mother could hear none of it. She held firmly onto me, convinced that my disability was the mischievous work of witchcraft from folks who envied my strikingly handsome features. She refused to budge to pressure even as my father vacillated."

At this juncture, I steal a fleeting glance at him. Yes, the man is handsome.

He had fixed the date of his death. "I hated leading a hopeless adult life in a society where beggars were frowned upon and treated like mangy dogs."

But that was not to be. On the eve of his date with death, a young high school girl from the neighbourhood came along to invite him to a Christian crusade the following week.

"When the girl spoke to me, I had a strange and unusual feeling within that compelled me not to refuse her invitation. Live one more week? It was long but I decided to give the crusade a chance to see if something good could come out of it."

Kosgei says the words that were to give him a fresh lease of life were read by the preacher from the book of Romans 3:23. "All mankind have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.."

"It was as if the preacher had singled me out in the large crowd where I was dwarfed by able bodied people when he intoned: "you may be physically disabled, weak, poor, rich or powerful. It does not matter if you have missed the purpose for which you were created as many have done and taken to seeking alternative purposes in life outside God".

"He said such people are seeking refuge in drugs, alcohol and even suicide. On the mention of suicide, I thought the preacher was talking about me, only for him to give the example of a wealthy farmer in the neighbourhood who had recently committed suicide and a prominent man who had jumped to his death from a high rise building in Nairobi.

"By the time the preacher was through, the futility of my contemplated action loomed large as it dawned on me that problems were not peculiar to me or people of my ilk alone.

"I realised that we all have problems and that only attitudes differ. The tragic idea of taking my own life fizzled out and was replaced by reality that nothing is impossible, so long as one lives.

"I learnt that God has a purpose for our lives. I read John 3-16, imbibing the all important message that the giver of life has a positive attitude towards His creation such as me. By the end of the sermon, I was convinced that I was only a victim of the collective depravity of humanity. I discovered that I had the capacity to change to something better through a positive attitude towards life."

Kosgei says that from then on, his attitude towards life changed as he began to see opportunities. "I consoled myself that all I needed was to improve on what I had not to feel hopeless. I decided to go to school despite my age and asked God to take care of the fees."

 

[Laela]

School uniform and fees

A rejuvenated Kosgei left home to live with his sister whose home was opposite Lombogishu Primary School.

He requested the Ministry of Culture and Social Services to assist him. They bought him the school uniform and paid his fees while the school committee chipped in with a remission.
After crawling his way to school and surprising everybody by his decision, there was no turning back.

He was a focused learner and within one term of his first year in school, he was pushed to Standard Two. He sat the Certificate of Primary Education in 1979, scoring 34 out of the maximum 36 points to join Kabarnet Boys High School. Four years later, Kosgei sat his Kenya Certificate of Education.

With education in his grasp, other aspects of a wholesome life followed like clockwork, among them winning the love of a woman who was to become his wife.

"She looked humble and mature and I could not help getting attracted to her. Would I repulse her because I had no legs? I kept on asking myself."

However, it took courage for Kosgei to approach and propose to her.

"She was incredulous but after some time, she warmed up to my request. The rest is history, as she eventually became my beautiful Rose. However, it was not going to be easy for the reverend. Her parents were not agreed though they eventually mellowed. There was initial opposition from her parents, who could not understand how a legless man would win their daughter and it took the intervention of other elders for them to relent and give us their blessings."

"My stature had grown beyond my physical appearance and my mother was the happiest for it when I won the hand of my wife Rose, against all the odds."

This he did while still in high school and his wife, who had gone to school earlier, was a fellow member of the church youth league.

He says there are white and red roses but the best is his "Black Rose" who never saw his disability but "the man she had always asked God to give her".

"With that hurdle cleared, people waited with bated breath to see if the person they had nicknamed "the frog" would sire normal children or if I would have children at all," Kosgei recalls.

"They were shocked when one normal child arrived after the other. I am the proud father of four children, all normal and grown up."

Rev Kosgei's four children.
From left: Naomi, Nancy, Meshack and Emmy.

 

[Laela]

True superiority in the brawn

The first born, Nancy, is married with two children. Second born, Emmy, has cut a niche for herself as a gifted gospel musician with a traditional tinge. Son, Meshack, is a businessman and is married with one child while Naomi, the last born, is a fourth year student in International Relations at the United States International University.

He says his calling to serve the church came early in his primary school days, culminating in his ordination as a lay evangelist by the late Archbishop Manasses Kuria in 1977. He was in Standard Six then.

Now, fast forward: The scene is a slap-up hotel in downtown Nairobi. The plump, legless man on the floor at the entrance attracts sympathetic glimpses from guests ignorant of his status.

I look at him. Could this be the Rev Jackson Kosgei? I wonder quietly, but quickly conclude that he is not the one. A church minister cannot be looking that ordinary. He has no priestly collar around his neck, after all.

I am dead wrong. Moments later, the man I had ignored is wheeled to the spot of our meeting.

"I am Rev Jackson Kosgei of the Full Gospel Church," he introduces himself.

His voice is powerful and his eloquence impressive. I rue my mistaken impression. "I am sorry, I assumed you were not the one."

"Common, that is normal," he says humbly, smiling away my embarrassment.

"It is human nature to measure social status against physical superiority. The result is wrong in most of the cases."

To put me at ease, he continues, "Many people who meet me do not believe their eyes until they hear me talk. True superiority, in my view, including kicking football, is in the brain, not in the brawn."

I nod mutely. Indeed life is a paradox. The child who was to be destroyed for losing his legs to a disease is today a gospel giant trotting the globe, taking the word of God to all its four corners.

In addition, his daughter Emmy has for the last four years accompanied him on his annual gospel missions overseas where she sings before he preaches.

_______________________​

Not a lesser priest

As he speaks of his academic life, Kosgei's four years at Kabarnet High School were perhaps the most challenging because for him to move from the dormitories to the dining hall and classrooms all he could do was crawl.

The terrain in this part of the country was not conducive to his using a wheel chair and he had to climb the rocky paths up the hills to reach classroom, dormitory, dining room or even the toilets.

His suffering never escaped his colleagues. He says: "The students could not understand what was so good about school that I had to suffer that much.

"I would arrive in a class or the laboratory only to find the lesson already started. I would be late for food too, but luckily, everybody appreciated my predicament. Teachers would make sure I did not miss out on anything.

"I tried to be as active as possible outside the classroom, although I could not participate fully in games. But I was at my best in debate, choir and the Christian union."

Having suffered in so many instances, Kosgei is an avid reader and a crusader for the rights of the disabled.

"I hate seeing physically challenged people being used by churches as objects of advertisement to attract people to crusades," he says.

"My disability does not make me a lesser priest. Given a chance, there are no heights a physically challenged person cannot climb," he says.

And to demonstrate how the disabled suffer, Kosgei has climbed staircases in highrise buildings to prove his point.

"That does not mean that we should not be given special consideration where necessary."

He has been at the forefront in fighting for the disabled to have access to easy mobility to areas such as toilets, buildings and parking.

"All buildings should have ramps built for the physically challenged and public utilities such as automated teller machines must be provided with us in mind."

 

[Shimmie]

Wow... This is an amazing journey that this man has traveled...without limits.

I noticed that he named his son, "Meshack"