Makena – the One Who Brings Happiness

You don’t have to be in Kenya for long you to realize that the Kenyan people are all about names. Upon arriving, they will start brainstorming what African name they can christen you with, and one of the most popular ones is “Makena” which means joy, or the one who brings happiness.

There is no person that truly embodies what this name means than Ruth Makena Linguli.

She met us in front of her church in Naro Moru with a huge smile and a laugh that comes from somewhere deep inside her personality, the kind of laugh that shakes and seeps out of everything that she is.

Since every time is teatime in Kenya, she welcomed us inside for some breakfast and, of course, a cup of chai.

Ruth grew up in Nairobi.

“I was a city girl!” she says, laughing to herself as she thinks about the change she experienced when she moved from environment where she was raised to the one in which we currently sit.

Naro Moru is not the most remote community in Kenya, but compared to her job at Nairobi hospital as a CPA, it couldn’t be more different. Nestled in the shadow of Mount Kenya, it is a small market town that most people find themselves in because they are preparing for an adventure up the mountain or because they are just stopping by on their journey from Nanyuki to Nyeri.

Ruth first came to Naro Moru in 1994 to visit her sister who was working at the River Lodge, and on her second or third visit is when she met Moses Riungu.

Moses had grown up around Nanyuki. After completing Form 4, he was working in a kiosk selling books to earn some money. The people of Gospel Outreach Church continually pursued a relationship with him, and he came to know Christ at the very first crusade they had in Nanyuki.

It was actually at a crusade that Ruth first met Moses, too.

She was volunteering and he was preaching and shortly after their first meeting, he explained his intentions to marry her.

“My family thought I was crazy!” she said. “They asked me, ‘Ruth, you are leaving Nairobi to stay in the shacks?!”

She paused for a second a let out a big contented sigh.

“But I thank God, for I have seen his faithfulness.”

They were asked as a couple to plant a church in the town of Naro Moru, because it was too far for most people in the town to travel the distance to the Gospel Outreach’s Nanyuki location. There were a lot of Catholics in the area, because that was the first church established in the area, but no strong Pentecostal church existed, so Moses and Ruth had to start from scratch.

“It was hard.” Ruth tells us. “The church was small and there was hardship, but it made me hard. I mean, it made my faith strong.”

Ruth set her cup of tea on the table and exited the room. When she returned, she had a pile of photographs in her hands, and we began to thumb through the memories together, her recalling the details of their early days in ministry and telling stories of crusades and baptisms and growth.

As the church grew under Moses’ leadership, and as believers came from further away, there became a need for further churches. Moses discipled members of the congregation to be the leaders of these new churches.

“He is a good leader. Strict, but a good administrator. For him, you do not joke with ministry, but because of that he has been able to raise many ministers and wherever they go, they stand,” Ruth shares.

Now Moses is the bishop over eight churches that have been planted throughout Nyeri and Laikipia counties. Ruth has been by his side from the beginning, and finally found herself enrolled in DPTC in an effort to “learn the ministry,” specifically the area of discipleship. Gospel Outreach hosts many crusades throughout the region, but as these people come into the knowledge of Christ as Savior, they have struggled with getting them plugged in with people to help them learn and grow in the faith.

“I know the lessons I learn here will be very helpful in our ministry.”