From abyss of disability to pulpit of success

Bishop Koskei and his wife Rose. [Photos: Tabitha Otwori/Standard Courtesy]

 

Starting afresh after wasting the first 20 years of his life, Bishop Jackson Kipkemboi Kosgei of Worldwide Church has transcended many challenges of life, centred on his loss of the ability to walk after a battle with polio. He spoke to Gardy Chacha

By all definitions he is a busy man – leading a congregation, managing a community development society, and watching over the wellbeing of his family. Bishop Jackson Kipkemboi Kosgei has been to the precipice of suicide and back to a streamlined life with prospects for a glowing future. He was born normal, but that didn’t last long. From age five to 20, his life ceased being a natural process of growth and character development, instead becoming a theatre of hanging hopes; a botched childhood dream; a humourous circus that villagers gossiped about.

After weeks of seeking to meet him for an interview, I finally manage to get him on a sit for a couple of hours. I listen to his epic narration of a life bogged with uncertainties, self-sympathy, lost hope, disability and an incredible U-turn towards prosperity.

Born in a family of 12 children, all ‘normal’ except him, thick clouds hang around Kosgei’s existence.

At his actual birth, his health and propensity for an exciting life appeared portentous. At five years of age, he contracted polio, the debilitating viral disease that emasculates a person’s capacity to aptly use their limbs.

Desolate life

This is where the train of life began losing its usual rhythm of railing along. Kosgei found himself desolate, unwanted for in the age when he was born; crippling phenomena had to have a superstitious interpretation from the gods’ or bad eye castings.

He says: “Theories were brought forth to explain why I developed disability: Some said the gods had foreseen the potential in me to grow up as a village terroriser.

Others said it was a curse; sort of bad omen, and yet many others suggested a reason or two more.” When his jovial smile fades ruefully into a much serious face, I realise the intensity with which the surrounding storm about his condition left him without prospects. From the sidelines, he watched while others lived.

“While my peers went about having an active life, I had to be satisfied with just watching them make progress while mine remained arrested,” he says, adding, “even my physical growth stagnated for many years.” Even a staid assurance from his mother of her love and pride in her son couldn’t change his mind.

So, he gave the universe and everything else in it, “seven days to give me a sign and a reason why I should continue living.”

Blessed man

Sure enough, destiny not only answered him but also betrothed him the woman of his dreams.

One Sunday, a woman passed by their verandah and she won his heart.

She invited him to a crusade that was to be presided over by a preacher from Nandi.

At the outdoors meeting, he says he got convinced and intellectually convicted that he would marry, have a family, and be happy.

With the heave lifted, he made a commitment to stop self-pity and begin levitating to success. His life was obsolete for he was already 20 but without education.

At 21, he joined Standard One, sharing a class with children way younger than he was and being taught by teachers well within his age bracket.

Slowly, he developed a sense of self-appreciation as his faith gave him a different definition of who he was rather than what people told him he was.

“Christianity taught me to love and value myself despite my disability. Fatalism had held my progress for so long and I decided to let go and live on: Achieve my dreams,” he says.

Meteorise rise

He made it to high school, graduating in his time among the top performers from Kabarnet Boys High School, then proceeding to Pan-African University to study Education, Social Science and Theology.

When he graduated, he went into church service, climbing up from being a Sunday school teacher, a lay reader, a choir master, church minister to a bishop at the Worldwide Gospel Church.

Apart from being a stalwart of gospel, he is also a father to three girls and a boy, all grown up and leading productive lives.

But what is his secret?

He says his success is based on his dedication to change the course of his life after experiencing a flaccid and empty 20 years of living.

His diction, understanding of the Queen’s language and articulacy with explanative verbiage cheats onto the fact that he began formal education at 21.

But it’s all believable when he says that he discovered he possessed, “one hell of a brain!”

His hope is that individuals caught in the quagmire of life could realise their potential, grab their chances, and keep goading for the best they can become.

In a gravel voice of the assured man he is, Bishop Kosgei concludes saying: “No human being was born with all the desirable qualities. All of us were born with disability; it’s only that mine is visible to the eye. All the same, anybody who discovers what God has put in them can definitely reach their dreams.”