Nairobi-based journalist Tom Osanjo has written a book, Kenyan Bible Stories, which he hopes will light up people’s interest in reading the scriptures.
The book tells popular Bible stories but in a modern Kenyan setting. The book that was launched Thursday last week is already having favourable reviews on social media. The story of Abraham sees the Patriarch living in Nairobi and going with his son Isaac to Galleria, a popular mall in the Kenyan capital.
Tom tells the story of Noah titled ‘Every Market Has its Madman: The Curious Case of Noah’ from the views of bewildered neighbours who must have believed the man was not in the right state of mind by building the Ark when there was no rain worth talking about.
‘So, the man, backed by his three sons and grandchildren, continued with his work. Many townspeople would pass by to gawk at the bunch of ‘weirdoes’ building a boat in the desert. “Come on Noah, we normally have spittle for rainfall, not enough even to lift a flask cover for and now you are talking of a deluge?’, reads a paragraph from that story.
As is normal with storytelling in Kenya, Tom weaves popular Kiswahili phrases (with English) translations, making the book appear very Kenyan.
Take for example the story of David: Along came David to see folks, when the Israelites demanded that they too wanted a king like their neighbours, a guy sauntered in. he was called Goliath. But like our Kenyan politicians, power seemed to have gone to his head. Blunder after blunder. Yaani alikuwa msee wa kutupa mbao (He was a useless guy).
Equally arresting is the story of the Crucifixion which Tom sets in Nairobi’s Jericho Estate. Here he throws the current presidential election campaigns into the mix as Jesus encounters a crowd believing that he is also vying for a political office.
Although set in Kenya, the book is an easy and gripping read that can have viewers from all over the world relating to the stories therein.
Tom Osanjo is an award-winning Kenyan journalist with over two decades of experience. A trained teacher of Kiswahili and CRE, Tom quit the teaching profession to follow his passion for journalism and began at the defunct Christian magazine Step Africa.
In 2009 Tom won the inaugural Joel Belz International Media Award which he received in Tampa, Florida in the United States of America. He was a 2017 Coaching and Leadership Media Fellow at the world acclaimed journalism school, the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Tom is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) of the United States, the world’s largest organization for journalists of colour, a founding member of the Kenya Parliamentary Journalists Association as well as The Media Project, a New York-based global coalition of journalists interested in covering religious issues.
He is also a mental health advocate. The book is soon available on Amazon.
