NEW BEGINNING: Why Religion Never Appealed to Me Until. . .

When Christianity sweeps through her mud and thatch colonial village in Kenya, will Wanjirũ and her tribe’s creation story survive the onslaught? She is eight years old and hasn’t gone to school yet. But she feels deference to her Kikuyu tribe’s creation story and their worship of Ngai, the Supreme. But with the Christianity descent, Will her village life change? Wanjirũ doesn’t think so. When the new faith energizes families and alienates others, she dismisses it as one more adult peculiarity. But she pays attention when one morning her mother declares she had an awakening in the wee hours of the night. Her mother is determined, she says, to repent and get her sins cleansed by the blood of Jesus. What does that mean? Wanjirũ wonders. Her siblings don’t know either. But her traditional father ignores his wife’s utterances and makeover. Well, until one of her decisions hurt his pocketbook. Then chaos breaks in their household. Wanjirũ and her young siblings are devastated. She blames Christianity for the unrest. As a result, she turns into a spiritual vagabond but still dances with Christianity out of necessity. It takes her decades to open her heart to a new beginning.