Cost of Justice: Kings Family CMS Link Letter 11, May 1989
by Graham Kings
Date added: 02/01/2026
At around midnight on Saturday 22 April 1989, Bishop David Gitari’s house was attacked by thugs. They cut the telephone wire, smashed his bedroom window and shouted that they had come to kill him. While they dug out the heavy security grills with axes, the Bishop, his wife and eldest son, ran upstairs to the balcony and onto the roof.
The younger two sons and a friend, who was staying the night, locked the door to the balcony and hid the key. The Bishop shouted for help from the rooftop. The thugs repeated their threat to kill him. They demanded the key to the Bishop’s car. The Bishop threw down stones instead. The eldest son secretly jumped down from the roof and ran to a house with a telephone to ring the police. Neighbours came to the rescue with shouts and farming tools and the thugs ran away. Later, police dogs found three of the men hiding nearby.
On hearing the news, early on Sunday morning, we drove to the house and saw the Bishop and the family. They had been up almost all night. The General Secretary of CMS, Bishop Harry Moore, and his wife, Betty, had spent the night at Kabare with us: they also witnessed the smashed windows and security grills.
We drove on to Embu Cathedral where Harry preached at the 9.00am English service. At 11am Bishop Gitari arrived the Cathedral to conduct, as planned, a confirmation service. He preached, without notes, on 2 Timothy 1:7, ‘God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and love and self-control.’
In February 1988, the Bishop preached against the local rigging fo the preliminary general elections. In March 1988, the Christian monthly magazine, Beyond, was banned. In September, he again preached against rigging, this time of Party elections. His sermons were debated in Parliament.
In February 1989, the local administration refused to give a permit for a school fund raising event which was to have been conducted by the Bishop. When the Bishop publicised this through a press statement, he was summoned to appear before the local Party executive.
Instead of being intimidated, he told the press that he welcomed the opportunity to discuss issues of justice within the local party: he would come to their office in his episcopal robes, accompanied by his diocesan clergy, lay readers and members of the Mothers’ Union, all in their robes. Nothing more was heard of the summons.
On Sunday 9 April the Bishop’s sermon in Kerugoya church was interrupted by two Party ‘youth-wingers’. They tried to snatch the microphone, but were escorted out of the church by the wardens, accompanied by press flash lights and victorious singing. The President condemned the interruption.
On Saturday 15 April, one of those two ‘youth-wingers’ started insulting the Bishop in the street in Kerugoya. He was saying that he had not finished with the Bishop yet and that he could do what he wanted to him since he had powerful protection. A crowd gathered but the local chiefs did nothing. In the end, the crowd chased the man away. He was later arrested but the police had to release him on orders from the local party administration.
During that week, three men announced that they had discovered a plot to hijack the Bishop’s car and attack his home. The three were arrested for giving false information. On Saturday 22 April, the Bishop’s house was attacked.
On Thurday 27 April, the President announced that he had sent a top level commission to probe these three attacks on Bishop Gitari and to look into the situation in the district. The staff of the Diocesan Office in Embu, of St Andrew’s Institute, Kabare, and of the Diocesan Development Offices in Kerugoya, held a Communion Service at the Bishop’s house to pray for the coming Sunday service.
That Sunday, 30 April, somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000 people came to Kerugoya church (and outside!) to thank the Lord for saving the Bishop and his family. The Bishop had written an adapted version of Psalm 116, which was prayed as a litany, and which I enclose with this letter, as a modern day Psalm of David.
A few other items for your prayers:
- Revd Godfrey Mureithi, the new Principal, has settled in well. He has recently gained a BD from London University.
- Rosalind is enjoying Turi School and writes every week. She has made many friends, but still misses us a lot, and we miss her. We see her every few weeks.
- Our language course was encouraging: last Sunday, I preached my first sermon in Kikuyu.
- I have been invited to represent CMS at a conference on World Evangelisation, called ‘Lausanne Two’, which is from 11-20 July this year in The Philippines.
With love in Christ.
A Psalm of Bishop David Gitari
This is based on Psalm 116 and he wrote it in thanksgiving for God’s protection of him and his family during the attack on his house, the night of Saturday 22 April 1989. It was recited in the service at Kerugoya on 30 April 1989.
I love the Lord because he has heard my call for help. I love the Lord, because he has answered the prayers of all his people and delivered me.
The danger of death was all around me and my family. I slept peacefully but the Devil planned evil against me. Wicked men came, determined to take my life. Then I was filled with fear and cried to the Lord.
They broke the windows, they cut the bars, they struggled to seize me. I called on the name of the Lord: ‘O Lord, I beseech you, save me and my household.’
My enemies called to each other, ‘Kill him, kill him. Let us silence his voice.’ They ransacked my house, they searched for me everywhere. But the Lord opened a way of escape, and I climbed onto the roof.
The Lord preserves the faithful, providing strength at the time of need. When I was desperately helpless, he became my saviour and my guard.
From the top of my house, I shouted to the Lord for help. He sent his army from my neighbours: he dealt bountifully with me.
My enemies saw my help coming. The Lord filled them with fear, and he scattered them in terror.
The Lord has delivered my soul from death: he has rescued my household. He has strengthened our faith and kept us from stumbling.
I will call on the Lord as long as I live. I will serve him and proclaim his truth even from the housetop.
What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.
O Lord, I am your servant: I am your servant, the son of your handmaid. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!
The index page of our 18 CMS Link Letters, 1985-1991, is here.
