The Desert Boy
Benson who is in a shirt and trousers, quite different from the usual desert attire he refuses to let go off, explains that being a ‘desert boy’ requires him to appear like the other desert nomads so as to be able to reach out to them. He adds that the weather is too hot to allow any clothes on except for the sheet that he wraps across the shoulder and a short, “I go naked” he says quite naturally. During his journey through the desert he carries a stick and a seat.

Benson, the desert boy, was initially born with a deformed head. It was too big and quite un-proportional to the rest of the body. A missionary lady took him to a hospital in Kitale District and he was operated on only to discover that there was too much water in his head, thus the abnormal expansion. Now his head is so normal you wouldn’t suspect that it ever had a defect. The missionary lady took care of him and taught him about the word of God. It was then that he began to hear the voice of God calling him. The Lord talked to him when he was twelve years old and told him to teach and heal all nations of the world. He did not understand that outright. With due time he saw the need of reaching out to the un-churched people. In 2002 he came to Thika and joined International School of Missions (ISOM) and learnt about missionary work and how to reach out. After ISOM he went into the mission field in Turkana land. He started with what he terms as a “hard village” called Kerio, which was well known for witchcraft. It has a record of Seventy-two diviners who have deceived many claiming that there is no God.

He says that the first strategy that God gave him was to bring together the 72 diviners together and talk to them about Jesus. He did that and the diviners agreed that if all he wanted to do was to teach the people about God, then it was alright. They told him, “you do what God has called you to do, and let us do what our fathers left us to do”. In another village called Nimuria. Where a great and powerful diviner lives, Benson started a church and he describes the experience as “walking in hell” because of the blocks placed on his ways by the diviner.

After one year, God healed a person who was bitten by a snake and that is when the first one-hundred and fifty (150) people came forth to accept salvation. At this point the diviner left the village for someplace else saying to Benson, “you have more army than I”. The church grew and he started baptizing them in water, “but sometimes the river could not flow and I baptized some in the mad”. Now Benson has ten churches in Kerio situated under trees and schools. The largest church has four hundred people. The total number of churches that Benson has planted within the last four years is 43, under the Cornerstone churches.

Benson walks more than Fifty kilometers a day. Being a husband to one wife and a father of two, Benson says that his movement does not interfere with his role as a family man as he has enough time with them and they know his mission which he says will continue forever. Benson is currently a full time missioner with ACMI. Any donations towards his work can be sent through ACMI.

Related stories:
Diviners accept Jesus Christ

Watch the Just a Desert Boy video at: www.justadesertboy.com

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