“Life is a school,” the old man used to say. The most vital lessons aren’t found in books. Books, like maps, offer good guidance, but the truth of any journey comes from experience. Often, the most significant guides reveal themselves in unexpected ways. This is how my acquaintance began with a man who delivered a masterclass in empathy during a season of profound personal grief—a man I would never forget, and who would eventually wear the robes of a Bishop.
This isn’t a story about church hierarchy or titles. It’s about the measure of a man I knew before he became a Bishop. I first met the man then known as Canon Francis Omondi during the funeral arrangements for a beloved aunt. My late sister, part of the organizing committee, roped me in, along with many others, to help with the immense logistics of honoring a matriarch. The Canon was in that planning committee.
“Canon” was an odd title to me then. I would later learn it was an honorary position within the Anglican church, given to those who advised the bishop—part administrator, part advisor, part spiritual guide. My own grandfather had been a Deacon, but it wasn’t until I met Canon Omondi that I truly began to grasp what such titles represented; they were not fancy labels, but markers of a deep, living commitment to the flock, carried by men defined by their dedication, not their designation.
He was slated to deliver my aunt’s funeral sermon, introduced to me as a friend of our cousin, Rev. Philip Owuor, a fellow clergyman at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi. My sister had often spoken of his sermons, saying he was “not your regular preacher.”
It struck me as odd that his base was in Garissa. My sister, then living in Lamu on the Muslim-majority Kenyan coast, remarked that his nuanced approach to Islam stood out against the usual Christian prejudice she regularly encountered. His ministry in Garissa focused on building trust and mutual respect, rather than proselytization, in a Muslim-majority region amidst the Islamophobia that had become commonplace after the tragedy of 9/11. He wove philosophy and literature into his sermons, sounding more like a decolonial scholar than a traditional theologian from the pulpit.
His thoughtful perspective was affirmed a few years later when our paths crossed again, and we discovered mutual friends in journalism. When I joined The Elephant platform as a curator and editor, I found Canon Omondi was a regular contributor. He loved to write and maintained a personal blog. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, possessing the moral courage of late Archbishop David Gitari and Bishop Alexander Muge – men of cloth who boldly spoke truth from the pulpit, blending theological reflection, ethical critique, and a strong call for social justice.
His commentaries were insightful and scholarly. During the Covid-19 pandemic, as church activity was disrupted, he grappled with the church’s role to its members amidst closures and brutally enforced curfews. He warned against the church leadership’s unholy alliance with the political class, consistently showing up during national crises to remind us of the church’s prophetic responsibility. When the celebrated Kenyan scholar Prof. Micere Mugo passed, the Canon delivered a moving sermon, memorializing Mugo as a Miriam-like figure: a prophet and protector, a symbol of resistance, an unyielding feminist, and an Utu evangelist.
Then came his book, “Shrouded Witness,” a meticulous unearthing of his family’s history. It told the story of his grandfather, Reuben Omulo, and his pivotal role in indigenizing the Anglican Church while navigating the colonial complexities of the Church Missionary Society. To decolonize a metaphor, the guava truly fell right underneath the tree. His grandfather dedicated his life to bridging the chasm between indigenous Luo spirituality and the demands of this new Christian faith. In his story, I saw echoes of my own family: my grandfather, the first convert, and the foundations of my Christian roots.
I saw the sacrifices and choices of those early Christian men and women who, faced with the onslaught of the colonial system, did not surrender their cultural soul. They consciously wrestled with the contradictions of their new Christian faith embedding it deep within their indigenous cultural realities, forging communities where their ancestral spirit was not erased but profoundly reshaped into new ways of being and belonging, laying authentic pathways for generations.
I would meet the Canon sporadically over the years, mostly at functions held at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi. For many Anglicans, it was a mother church—a crossroads where lives intersected, a familiar venue for celebrations and the quiet rituals of mourning.
Then I had to leave the country. As often happens to those who journey west, you arrive on distant shores and realize you’d taken the presence of God for granted—a constant hum in the background of your life. The initial fascination of a seemingly secure, secular country reclaimed from sea by the will of man eventually gives way to a deeper yearning for spiritual grounding. The absence of a readily available spiritual community forces the African immigrant to be more deliberate in forging connections, to actively seek out those anchors. Suddenly, the custodians of the church in these parts—often resource-strapped and facing dwindling congregations—command a new, profound appreciation.
It’s a privilege to be a man of God in Kenya, where the population holds an ingrained reverence for anyone sincerely claiming Christian ministry. Out in a city famous for its Red Light district and coffee shops, street preachers hand out free bibles and prophetic warnings, their cries for repentance often lost in the city’s din, like a lone madman jingling a bell in a crowded marketplace.
It is not an easy line of work. Perhaps it was the distant memory of my cousin in the priesthood, or the stories of my grandfather’s calling, that attuned me to the quiet dedication of these men of cloth in Holland. I saw them not as figures of distant authority, but as individuals making a genuine commitment against the tide of secular materialism. This respect was slowly cultivated. Churches became spiritual refuges for dislocated Africans. People traveled long distances to find their spiritual community. One thing that felt acutely missing in this season, was the sincere counsel of a man of God—that steady presence you could turn to when the foundations of faith felt shaky, during those long, dark nights of the soul.
This hit me with the force of a punch in my gut during a great personal crisis. My sister fell ill while I was far from home. It was a long, complicated affair, demanding a complex choreography of support marshaled from afar. A tight circle formed, organically, without prompting. Canon Rev. Francis Omondi became a spiritual anchor in that storm, a steady voice reminding us of the power of prayer. Then, the news we dreaded arrived.
My sister succumbed to her illness. I left Amsterdam for Entebbe immediately, the first from my family to arrive in Uganda. Life, in its cruel irony, conspired further: an Ebola outbreak announced on the day of my arrival, made it impossible for my family to travel to her residence in Entebbe. A difficult decision was made: cremation, in accordance with my sister’s final wish. I reached out to the pastors in my immediate circle, searching for someone who could navigate the unfamiliar terrain of a cremation funeral with grace and understanding, something that honored her Christian roots. None were forthcoming. I realized I would have to step up and bury my own sister. So, I called the one clergyman I knew with the breadth of spirit to help me think, offer guidance, and suggest the necessary verses to craft a send-off that honored her dignity.
And he tried. He made calls, his network yielding only polite regrets and prior commitments. Then, he decided: he would come. At his own expense. A journey by road from Garissa to Nairobi, a flight to Entebbe, then onward to Kampala. I remember the unexpected strength I drew from his mere presence amidst the raw, disorienting grief. He didn’t offer platitudes or easy answers. I don’t even remember what he preached about. All I recall was that he simply was there. That was enough. His physical presence offered quiet guidance and steady shepherding through the bewildering landscape of loss. He also preached at my sister’s memorial in Nairobi at All Saints Cathedral. Over that year of grief, he made regular check-up calls, handing me a lifeline as I suffocated under the weight of silent stoicism.
In his quiet presence and unwavering action, I came to understand what “holding space” truly meant. It wasn’t in grand pronouncements or daily biblical verses, but in the simple act of showing up, of bearing witness, of walking alongside during a dark night of my soul. In the crucible of grief, one is rarely aware when they are drowning. This timely intervention—a simple act of human decency, Utu, and spiritual fortitude—became one of the most transformative events of my life.
Who do you turn to when the bottom falls out? In those moments, the privilege of true human connection becomes blindingly clear. He was a man who appeared when hand-holding was desperately needed, like one who lends you his own staff just as you begin to lose your breath and footing on the precarious section of a long ascent.
Two Sundays ago, he became Bishop Francis. That’s the title he carries now. I watched the beautiful ceremony at All Saints Cathedral on livestream, as he was consecrated as the Bishop of the Garissa Diocese. The church in Garissa has found a worthy shepherd. He embodies the quiet strength of lived faith, his principles etched not just in words but in actions. I share this story as a public testament to his integrity. I know him not by the weight of his new title, but as the man who has consistently served as a quiet example of what it means to be a man of faith.
As he embraces this call and goes forth to serve, I offer this prayer:
“In the spirit of the early African Church, and with the enduring guidance of St. Augustine, let this be your compass: ‘Love, and do what you will,’ trusting that a heart filled with divine love will lead to clarity of mission, courage of conviction, sincerity of service, and a life lived in God’s grace.”
P.S. This reflection on the profound power of presence during loss is drawn from my meditations on death, grief, and healing. It forms part of a series of insights drawn from my upcoming book, Strength and Sorrow, where I delve deeper into these universal experiences and the pathways to finding healing amidst loss.