By COLLINS KWEYU
ckweyu@standardmedia.co.ke
Kenyans woke up to the unexpected return of Jesus Christ on June 11, 1988… and in Nairobi’s Kawangware, no less.
A few years earlier, Prophetess Mary Akatsa, founder of the Jerusalem Church of Christ had prophesied that the Messiah would drop by her church.
Unprepared Nairobians in Kawangware weeped, sprinted hither and thither while others fell in supplication. After all Jesus had promised more than 2000 years earlier that he would “return like a thief.”
And here he was: Tall, barefoot, bearded, dressed in white robes, his head covered in a kilemba. Strange, sporadic light shorn on top of his head, feet and body. The four feet and six inches frame of the self-proclaimed prophetess stood next to ‘Jesus’ as the crowd went haywire, shouting “Jesus of Nazareth!”
‘Jesus Christ’ turned to the more than 6,000 worshippers at Muslim Village, Kawangware, and said in clear Kiswahili: “I shall come back and bring a bucketful of blessing for all of you,” as Kenya Times newspaper reported on June 12.
But Mary Sinaida Dorcas Akatsa now denies she brought Jesus Christ to Nairobi. She says the Indian looking man with long beards had “only came for prayers.”
“But my enemies used his presence to spread rumours and make me look bad in the eyes of the public,” says Prophetess Akatsa, who rose to prominence in the 1980s and 90s through her prayers and healing to the sick and disabled.
Fake Jesus aside, Akatsa’s Jerusalem Church of Christ is facing myriad issues. Akatsa’s first husband Franco Akatsa died a few years ago and her current husband of 12 years, she alleges, has been plotting to oust her from a church she has led for 27 years, besides having wrangles over church properties.
Akatsa claims to have received death threats from her estranged husband for which she has recorded a statement with Police at Muthangari Police Station.
“My husband ran this church since last year with five other women, but is now forming his own church as they could not persevere the strict discipline required here,” explains Akatsa.
Among things banned by her church includes not marrying a fellow Church member and adultery.
Akatsa accuses Mulinge of unfaithfulness, adding, “Together with others they stole the wheelchairs and walking sticks so that they can use to display them to people with an intention of winning worshippers whom they will lie to that they had healed people before. But I can assure you that they will fail miserably and be punished by God.”
The Jerusalem Church of Christ also bans tithing and offering which Akatsa says offended the breakaway group that sees it tithing as a fast route to wealth.
There are also no crusades and worshippers only attend services that have made many not to understand how she operates.
There are also no crusades and worshippers only attend services that have made many not to understand how she operates.
“I spend Sundays at church and weekdays at my various farms and use the harvests for catering for church members and the poor,” says Akatsa who is a no nonsense disciplinarian with her worshipers as Jesus was with his disciples.
Efforts to talk to Mulinge over the allegations levelled against him were futile as this cellphone was still off by the time we went to press.
