Page 50 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 1

AR TS PERSONALITY

THE SOUND AND COLORS FROM AFRICA

The chosen road of
Rebekah

PHOTO BY: Alan Sucre Dawn KENYAN GOSPEL SINGER/MUSICIAN

By: Chioma Phillips

My name is Rebekah Dawn Gituthu, I am American by birth, but Kenyan by heart as I like to say. My grandparents came to Kenya
many years ago as missionaries. My dad met my mom in Kenya when she came out on a mission’s trip to serve with my dad’s family.
They got married very young and went back to the states for Bible College, then came back and have been living in Nairobi since. My
dad was a pilot. He would fly to the islands off the coast of Kenya to a lot of the Muslim islands, Lamu, Pate, those islands and would
reach out and just share the gospel. After some time, he just started feeling the frustration of the dependency on missionaries and
people coming from the outside in at that time, which was in the early 80s. And while they were so grateful for the missionaries, they
themselves were missionaries also, they just felt that burden of “where are the Kenyans? Those that would go out to the rest of the
world and you leading churches and just standing at the gates of the city” So in 1987 they planted Nairobi Lighthouse Church.