Abstract
My great grandmother Dorika Bweyenda Mwana wa Gwimbula lived a long and greatly impactful life not only to my family and community, but also to Quaker ministry among the Maragoli and elsewhere. The current Lyavugulu Friends Church sits on land she donated. She played a leading role in spreading the Quaker faith throughout western Kenya by accompanying the Friends pastors to teach women and men about Christ. She provided material and mobilized women and the villagers to provide labor for building the churches including Lyavugulu. She met all the Quaker missionaries who came to Kaimosi beginning 1902 and she was one of the first converts, even though she continued offering healing after the manner of the Maragoli African traditional religion. Unlike her father-in-law, Votega wa Mujira—a shaman who was completely opposed to the new Quaker faith because the white missionaries had dismissed his spiritual gifts as evil and satanic and therefore asked him to abandon them—Dorika and her husband Mboga wa Votega gradually embraced not only the white missionaries but also the new faith.
Recommended Citation
Chagala, Ngesa S.
(2023)
"A Narrative Account of Finding a Place Among Quakers as a Maragoli,"
Quaker Religious Thought: Vol. 140, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/qrt/vol140/iss1/4