The wife of the Deputy President of Kenya is a pastor on a mission to rescue tens of thousand of boys living on the African nation’s streets.
Dorcas Rigathi told CBN News Kenya has a crisis of young men addicted to drugs and alcohol and dying in large numbers.
“They are on the streets because they have migrated to the town centres trying to find jobs. Many of them have come from the rural areas. They are from single parent homes and they are coming so that they can be able to make a living for their mothers,” she said, adding that most of them don’t get work.
“They get themselves frustrated because they do not have housing, they do not have money, they are not in any sort of employment and because they are not able to get money and don’t have access to food and all that, they start taking glue. They take glue and are introduced to drugs. Some of them now are hard drug addicts, and many of them are dying from HIV and AIDS because of the syringes,” she explained to CBN News.
She also believes there is a huge spiritual battle going on in Kenya which is 85% Christian.
“Anytime Satan wants to destroy a nation, he goes for the boy. We may not look at it and see it as a satanic move, but it is. There is no way we can have our boys in the gutter and on the other side you have girls who are so well-educated and we have a boy who is directionless and is dying out in the streets,” Pastor Rigathi observed
“We know God has called us to be able to reach out to those boys. And when I look at them, I see the future of the church,” she said.
As a child, Kenya’s Second Lady experienced extreme poverty herself, being forced to live in a chicken pen.
She believes the same God who saved her and her young siblings can rescue Kenya’s young men.
“My mother prayed for us. My mother spoke words of power and authority over us. She told us, ‘Don’t worry when your father is not there and you are children of the widow, you have a Father in Heaven. He will see you through,” she recalled.
“So that is why, you see, I can feel the heartbeat of the street children, because I’ve been there. I know how to be without food. I know how to be without clothes. And it was so cold that one of my sisters died of pneumonia.”
Pastor Rigathi believes she is in a position of influence for a reason.
She recently visited the US seeking funding for her dream project.
She told CBN News that’s the creation of a multi-faceted program to provide the street boys with a medical rehab facility, Christian counseling, a vocational training centre to teach different skills, and a sports academy.
“Those who want to do sports, they can get engaged there to redirect the energies to something that is more fruitful,” she said.
