How I got to Engaruka
by Rev. Lukas Lekojja • October 2007

[English translation of audio]

I'm Rev. Lucas Mollel; the pastor of Engaruka parish. I was born in Ketumbeine, I'm married and I have two children.

My life history is a bit complicated. In the past I was a pagan, but there came a time I was baptized and I was confirmed. At a certain time came sort of strange feelings that made me rather uncomfortable. But it led to enlightenment. Every time I went to sleep I got nightmares that interrupted my sleep. I decided to go to church to confess to the pastor, and I was accepted to the congregation. Then I began to teach a class; lessons leading to getting confirmation, even with my plaited hair (traditionally young Maasai men wear long red braids, but it is a habit that is usually rejected by Christians). I taught a class of 36 students in 1987, and four of them are now evangelists in Ketumbeine parish. I continued with this job until 1988 when I shaved my plaited hair and went for an evangelist course in Dodoma (a city in central Tanzania). The course took me a year and then I came back for my job at Kimokowa. But after a while I got transferred to Namanga as an evangelist for six months, after which I moved to Longido parish center where they nominated me to go for a priestship course in 1995. So I joined Mwika Theological College from 1996 to 2001. I was confirmed as a priest on 10 March 2001 to take leadership at Selian Lutheran Parish. My service at Selian ended in the year 2003. The following year I was transferred to Engaruka parish.

There are difficulties associated with changing working environment. The environment of Selian is totally different than that of Engaruka. Distance, people's behavior, people's characters are quite different. Engaruka's environment is also different from the environment of Ketumbeine where I was born. In Ketumbeine people have achieved a degree of progress in the community's lifestyle. They are changing towards better living condition. But people of Engaruka tend to find it difficult to accept changes.

In my life I have experienced God's power. Each time I pray I get His response. Before marriage I prayed God so that I can get a wife and that's what happened. Then I prayed that I need children; God gave me two daughters. I pray God to give me not more than four children in all. I don't want more as I can't meet the cost of bringing them up.

When I seriously talk to God He responds accordingly. However, I have faced some temptations.

One of the temptations was related to my wife's illness in 2004. She felt sick from 2004 through 2006. The incidence affected my family and, indeed it weakened my job. Because of my work as a pastor and an evangelist I'm used to of traveling – so my wife's sickness became an obstacle.

We are in tug-of-war with Maasai customs and various traditional beliefs. People still mix up their traditional living style with God's work, and it's a real problem. But we thank God as He is with us and we still can do His work.

I would like to advise fellow Christians in Tanzania as well as in America, particularly at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Illinois: Every Christian needs to be firm with what they believe. To believe in God is to create eternal life. This job demands love, tolerance, and caring for other people.

Let's pray for each other as we continue with God's work and where ever your neighbor needs help, try to give the required help.

That's my message to you. As I have also given my life history, let's pray for each other. There are so many things I haven't told you about — setbacks, temptations and all that is happening now. But let's pray God so that He guides with whatever is ahead of us.

May God bless all of us. Amen!

The story of my life
by Rev. Lukas Lekojja • October 2007

[English translation of audio]

I was born in Ketumbeine, at Noondoto village. My father's name is Lekojja and my mother is called Namayani. Nine children were born to my parents. Two passed away and seven are alive. I'm the third to my parents, as the first is a female and the second is a male who died. Due to my brother's death my mother was highly frustrated to the extent that at the time of my birth her mind had yet to settle.

Some days after my birth I became crippled because they were forcefully making me sit on my own before reaching such a stage. Then there was a fire accident in which I was involved. So I lived in such a situation.

However, I grew up to a stage where I was able to graze our livestock, starting by grazing goats and eventually cows. In 1972, I began going to school at Longido. I completed primary school there and grew a little older.

At a certain time our family life changed for the worse. My parents' life became difficult. My father had no more cows and goats. Much of our life depended on begging for help from people.

In the 1980s we tried to involve ourselves in cultivation. As Maasai, we couldn't do much with cultivation because it's not our nature.

However life went on. Then came the age I underwent circumcision. Thereafter I remained as a pagan for quite a long time and I was lucky to be respected by my agemates so much that they made me their leader.

When I decided to turn to Christianity, my agemates resisted and objected strongly the idea. They didn't want to see me becoming a Christian.

A big problem in life was with what happened to my parents. My father — he died while I was away at college. He died on the first day of our exams. Although relatives at home didn't inform me about the occasion, I somehow knew because when I left for the college my father told me that I may not find him alive when I come back home. So on my way to the college my heart was full of sadness.

Later my life became terrible, but I thank God as I'm still here, struggling for life.

Again I had bad luck as my three sisters' husbands all passed away and for that reason they came back home. It was a burden on me as I was responsible for taking care of them. But life goes on.

At the moment, we were already taking care of our mother who is very old. She is probably more than 89-years-old.

Such is life. We grazed cattle. We were murran (young warriors). We participated in many traditional Maasai activities.

There are so many such activities for the youth. One of them is hunting lions; of which I participated with fellow murran and we were lucky to be able to kill a lion in 1986. So I was among the winners. Usually in this activity there are two categories of winners. One winner takes with him a lion's tail and the other one takes this part of the lion's body. As a formality the first winner deserves the tail while the runner-up winner's share is the other part. I also had an opportunity to take part in traditional dances.

There are certain traditional functions, one known as engipot involving a girl choosing a friend, then she arranges sort of a ceremony whereby youth are invited. I participated in such occasions.

Actually I took part in many other such ceremonies.

So now, as we bring the Gospel to them, we also narrate our past life experience and the environment we lived so as to convince people to change their lives.

Other activities I took part as a teenager included paying a special visit to oloboini (traditional doctors) to do traditional rituals and offerings to god, but eventually our lives came to change with Christianity.

So in such things we participated fully.

We even sometimes had to grab animals we herd from fierce animals such as lions, leopards, wild dogs — these are many at my home area and they are very troublesome. So we participated in such things since childhood up to the age we got circumcised in 1981.

Such was our life when we were young people.