[SIZE=7]Prison gave me food and a place to sleep: Pastor Ndingo[/SIZE]
NaiNotepad By Liz Njuguna 2 days ago
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[li]At 11 years old, Joseph Kabochi aka Pastor Ndingo lost his mother.[/li][li]He speaks about his criminal past and how salvation restored his life[/li][/ul]
“My name is Pastor Joseph Kabochi aka Country Man. I am 35-years-old and most of my followers call me Pastor Ndingo, which means I steal people from the darkness and bring them to the light,” Pastor Kabochi introduced himself.
He is a licensed pastor with Kenya Assemblies of God and the assistant pastor at Zimmerman New Beginnings Church, where he spends his days in drug dens, convincing addicts to change.
“I bring addicted youth from the streets into the rehab and even get them sponsored,” says the now reformed former drug addict and criminal who has been to hell and back.
When Kabochi’s mother died, his relatives and maternal grandmother neglected him.
“I lived alone in my mother’s house for a long time. Some of my aunts who moved in to manage my mother’s businesses embezzled funds and got married. My grandmother on the other hand would withdraw huge chunks of cash from the business and brought it to its knees,” says Pastor Kabochi.
Young Kabochi, only 12 at the time, was left all lone, but lucky for him, his church catered for his rent, food and school fee.
“I was happy for the support but food was not enough and I would go to school in shifts. When going go too tough, I started pick-pocketing,” says Kabochi who first stole Sh20.
“I was kicked out of secondary school for lack of fee. I had nowhere to go and would sneak back to school to eat and sleep. Unfortunately, teachers busted and blocked me from school,” says Kabochi, adding that he was left wondering the streets of Nakuru until one day he met his grandmother’s sister.
“She told me that even though my mother had left her assets to public trustees to manage till I had come of age, my grandmother did everything including stripping in public to claim the property,” he said.
Kabochi was reunited with his grandmother and “I was very excited that they were ready to take me back. But the day I was to report to school, my grandmother and uncle attacked me, calling me a thief,” recalls Kabochi.” I would have been stoned to death had it not been for a friend who rescued me.”
After this incident “my grandmother’s sister and her son supported me till I finished high school despite several suspensions. After KCSE, my uncle gave me Sh10,000 and then kicked me out,” he told The Nairobian.
Kabochi spent most of this cash on girls and booze and when he was running out, moved to Kawangware where he joined bad company.
“In Kawangware my porridge business wasn’t bringing in enough, so I started snatching handbags and phones to earn some extra,” he said.
“I later jointed Matenjo Base gang. We would drink and steal from people using machetes,” recalls Kabochi.
He once hacked a man over Sh100 and “seeing blood in my machete was the turning point for me and I decided to stop robbing with machetes.”
A few days after that incident, Kabochi and a few of his gang mates acquired guns which made robbing easy.
“We started robbing M-Pesa joints. But cops intensified their shoot-to-kill approach to armed criminals and I decided to lie low. I was arrested and released several times yet people around me were getting killed. When things got out of hand, I sold the gun and started gambling which I thought was safe,” says Kabochi.
“After a while, I was forced to join a wanted vigilante group who beat me badly for breaking their rule of not drinking,” he told The Nairobian.
Good Samaritans took him to hospital and after recovery, his attack on one of the gang members left him imprisoned at the Industrial Area Remand Prison.
“In prison, all my needs were taken care of; I had food to eat and a place to sleep. When I got out, I [SIZE=5]looked for my attacker and chopped off his ear [/SIZE]so that I could go back to jail,” says Kabochi.
And back he went, but after being released, he was introduced to Teen Challenge, an international rehabilitation programme.
https://www.sde.co.ke/sdemedia/sdeimages/tuesday/thumb_xulopqfc4ohe2wn3zu5b0cf308b2685.jpgPastor Ndingo with one of his sponsors
Three months into the programme, Kabochi saw the light. In 2011, another well-wisher offered to sponsor him to study theology.
He would later be sponsored to join a Bible school, and after three years, graduated with an advance diploma in Bible studies and theology.
Graduating from East Africa School of Theology in Buruburu in 2014 was the culmination of his long and arduous road to recovery. From a desolate life in the streets, Kabochi now enjoys sobriety and can afford regular meals and a roof over his head.