Inmates get baptised as part of church's Easter celebrations

The Vice leader and director of chaplaincy and youth of the SDA church in East and central Africa pastor Pierre Mulumba prays for an inmate during a baptism ceremony at the Naivasha Maximum security prison. [PHOTO: ANTONY GITONGA]

By Antony Gitonga                                                   

Naivasha, Kenya: It was song and dance at Naivasha G.K prison as more than 200 inmates, some serving death sentences, sought  forgiveness for their crimes were baptised.

The doors of the Naivasha maximum security prison opened for a local church where the inmates were baptised as part of the Easter holiday celebrations.

The Inmates who are adherents of Seventh Day Adventist church received the Holy Communion in an event that also coincided with the graduation of 100 chaplains from the prisons department.

The chaplains had undergone a rigorous two-week training that was facilitated by the SDA of Baltimore in the US and Kings Messengers of East and central Africa.

According to the director of Kings Messengers Benson Obolla, the training was part of a wider campaign to help chaplains spread the Gospel to the less privileged and those who are behind bars.

Obolla said the chaplains drawn from all over the prisons service had been taught various topics that would help them teach the inmates.

“This part of our strategy to help the prisons service implement the reforms they began a while ago and we will continue with this cooperation,” he said.

He said the Inmates who were baptized had been taken through the sermons for two days before they accepted the change for the better.

“The inmates who attend the SDA church have been taught on how to be better citizens once they are out of this prison,” he said.

Some of the inmates baptised are hardcore criminals who are serving death and life sentences while the rest are serving ordinary sentences.

Speaking o the inmates, evangelist Leon Earl from Maryland in the US said the church had supported the prisons through provision of clothes and other learning materials.

Earl said they began the cooperation in 2009 and it has started to bear fruits citing the historic baptism of the inmates.

“We will continue with this good work as we need to show the inmates that there is life after the prison and urge them never to lose hope,” he said.

On his part the officer in charge of the prison Patrick Mwenda hailed the noble move and called on other well wishers to join in the reform process.

Mwenda noted that majority of the inmates had reformed through the various initiatives that were started in the prisons service.

“We are conducting training through the school and other courses to inmates and this has been made possible through the cooperation we have with the private sector,” he noted.