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personal story

    You'll see no faces and no names of gay East
    Africans on this website.  It isn't safe!
Personal Story No. 4
Gay and Christian in
KENYA, UGANDA,
TANZANIA, RWANDA
AND BURUNDI
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Counter
This website was constructed in July of 2007
Visits made to this web page since August 2007
Meet us under
the acacia tree.
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"I have other sheep that
are not of this fold.  I
must bring them in
also."John 10:16
Photo at right:
Gays telling their stories
to one antoher in the
Nairobi gated apartment
complex  where Steve
and Jose were staying.
Jose Ortiz, Other
Sheep Coordinator
for Africa
Steve Parelli, Other
Sheep Executive Director
Above photes:

Top Picture
Jose is leading one of the
many discussion groups
that met in our apartment.

Bottom Picture
Steve is teaching the
power point presentation
on the Bible and
Homosexuality from his
lap top.

Nairobi, Kenya
July, 2007
Now there's hope that I will no longer be
a conflicted gay Christian

Kenyan Man, Mid-Twenties
Submitted July 31, 2007  

I quit the church because there was this fight within me and
because I saw same-sex sex just as wrong.  
But now there is hope that I can be gay and a Christian.
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Why you'll
see no
pictures and
no names of
gay East
Africans on
this website:
"In October
2006, a local
newspaper
published a list of
names of
suspected gays
and lesbians. The
gay rigths group
says several
people whose
names appeared
on the list lost
jobs and were
mistreated by
their families."
In a Quaker boarding school I received Christ as my Savior
    I was brought up in a Catholic church.  My parents attended
    regularly the Catholic Church and they still do.

    I received Christ as my Savior in a Quaker boarding school
    (high school) when I was in Form 2. The high school has high
    academic standards and I had qualified for admission.  After I
    was saved, I started attending a Pentecostal church.

I was the boy-attendant to my cousin when he was circumcised
    I come from the western part of Kenya.  The culture there has
    the ritual that when a man reaches puberty (about age 14), he
    is circumcised and they put a young boy to take care of him
    while he is healing.  So, I was taking care of my cousin when
    he was healing from his circumcision. He was about 14 and I
    was about 5 or 6.

    After he healed (we shared beds), he called me to his bed and
    he started touching me.  He was showing me how he was
    circumcised and by doing so he was making me masturbate
    him.  I thought he was peeing, but it was sticky.

My attraction to men
    I grew up with the feeling of liking the company of girls but I
    was attracted to men.  I was especially attracted to men's bums
    (bottoms).

    I didn't have sex with another man until my early twenties.  And
    when I did, I enjoyed it.  

I came to the city and worked for my in-law.  A man made
advances towards me. I was conflicted as a born again Christian.
    After high school I didn't go to college.  Instead, I came to
    Nairobi to assist my in-law at his store.  This is where I met this
    guy who was supplying bread and I was the cashier. During
    one of his deliveries, and he tried to seduce me:  "Small boy,
    you look good," he said.  One day this same guy invited me for
    coffee.  He spoke straight to the point:  "I like men."  I didn't
    understand him.   I said "I like women." And I gave the reason
    that I was brought up by a mother only and that my pastor was
    a women, so I was freer with a woman than with a man.  He told
    me he was not talking in that sense, but about having a
    boyfriend like a girlfriend.  I was kind of surprised and
    confused.  But deep inside me there was a question that was
    being answered.

    It was this man who explained to me what men do with other
    men.  You can f*** or be f***, but he said he preferred giving
    oral sex; and that he liked romancing.  The idea of oral sex
    made me mad.  I told him it was not good hygiene to do that.  
    When we left, he went his way and I went my way.  As a born
    again Christian, there was a conflict within me.  I kept my
    distance from him.  I prayed.

How I met the person who would introduce me to my first
boyfriend
    After three weeks I went to collect more bread from the depot.  
    The guy that wanted to perform oral sex on me introduced me
    to another guy whom he claimed was his nephew. I told the
    nephew, "I am a born again Christian.  I can't do that."  I put
    him off.   After one week I meant the nephew again.  He told
    me he was not, in fact, the first man's nephew.  

"I was still fighting the conflict ... but after three weeks ...;"  my
first boyfriend
    The so-called nephew introduced me to his friends and to
    clubs.  He introduced me to the gay community in Nairobi.  I
    was still fighting the conflict and still going to church.  But after
    three weeks I stopped going to church and I started drinking.  
    One of the friends who was introduced to me started dating
    me.  He became my boyfriend.  He was also a church person.  
    We had sex.  We went home for Christmas, back up country.  
    He was working as a nurse.  Not too long ago he left the
    country and is now living and working in a foreign country.  We
    communicate but he does not plan to come back to Kenya.

My second partner -- and now another boyfriend
    When he left, I got another person, but he hurt me when we
    performed sexually.  So since then I do not act as the receiving
    partner.  Now I have a boyfriend who is the receiving partner.  

Why I quit church; new hope as a gay Christian; my niece may
know; I'm happy as a gay man
    I quit the church because there was this fight within me and
    because I saw same-sex sex just as wrong.  But now there is
    hope that I can be gay and a Christian.  

    My niece, I think, knows I am gay, because when I leant her my
    hand set there was a text written out that she could have read,
    and because she has meant some of my gay friends.

    I have accepted myself as a gay man.  I am happy being gay
    especially now because I know I can be gay and Christian.  For
    my future as a gay person, I hope to be married to another gay
    man and to go on with life together.

    VISIT Steve and Jose!
    Visit the Other Sheep web site of  the Executive
    Director, Steve Parelli (at right in photo), and his
    partner Jose Ortiz.
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