devastating chapter in the history of the Church in Kenya, it is important to
address it publically and to show that we are taking steps to guard against such
disorders in the future.
What happened was that the Rev. Khalid Obiri Rangi, who was pastor in
Riounde, about an hour from Etora, committed suicide. He apparently did
this because he was HIV active and was accused of sexual impropriety with
a minor. While the Kisii area is heavily populated, it is still a small town with
everyone knowing about a scandal like this. This disorder was addressed at the
well-attended funeral, when Samson spoke openly and extensively about New
Church beliefs regarding marriage and the evils that attempt to destroy it.
The result was that the Riounde congregation collapsed. The orphanage
closed suddenly and Samson rescued the children who otherwise would have
lived on the streets. The land and buildings were registered in the names of
individuals rather than the Church and thus were forfeited. A few of the people
who wanted a continued connection with the New Church migrated to Etora.
As always, we look back and wonder what we might have done, or if we
could have foreseen and prevented this. Several lay people from the United
States spent months at a time there, and several had been trained to work in
developing world areas and to look out for things like this. No one suspected
anything.
We now have protections in place to lessen the chances of disorders of this
nature happening again. For example, all clergy and other church employees
take the General Church sexual abuse awareness training and observe all the
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