The Nairobi Christian Church Singles fraternity also known as the shining stars thronged the Umoja Sanctuary in huge numbers for a life changing all-night prayer on the 31st of May. The all-night session commenced with soul moving worship songs at 10.00pm which set a lively pace for the entire program.
Minister Jonathan Okwiri took the podium and spoke at length about the need for Shining stars to have convictions and live as people who trust and understand God’s power. He noted with concern how the standards of fellowship among the singles fraternity has gone down to levels where a number of singles are not going out on fellowship to encourage their brothers and sisters. The message left the singles not only convicted but awake and repentant. As a practical, Jonathan paused and requested everyone to set fellowship before he could proceed with his message. This was indeed interesting as some brothers sandwiched between two sisters were spoilt for choices and had difficulty settling on whom to fellowship with first.
Mary Okwiri, Jonathan’s wife challenged the singles when she shared her experiences on fellowship as a teen back in the nineties. “I one day went out with a brother who was intimidatingly tall but still had fun anyway,” she shared among giggles and laughter. Isaac Dendwa came up at about 1.00am and spoke with conviction on the boundaries sons and daughters of God have to observe in order to remain faithful.
It was inspiring to hear the responses from the brothers and sisters during the response and confession time. One brother looked around and commented, “I wish we were recording the whole experience on a video camcorder.
As a custom in local all-nights, the spiritual agenda had to take leave at 3.00 am to allow the singles have refreshments they had carried along. After refreshments, the fellowship was devolved into categories to enable sharing of individual challenges and possible solutions. This took care of the young disciples, the mature disciples and the single parents respectively. It was interesting especially listening to the mistakes shining stars commit for lack of patience or failure to seek advice in their pursuit for relationships. So much came out of these discussions that were cut short by lack of sufficient time.
During the ‘homestretch’, the song leaders took over and led the congregation to an exciting finish. At this point, saying the Shining stars were excited would be an understatement. Jonathan had a difficult time convincing the edified singles that the all-night was over. Lessons were learnt, commitments made in this memorable singles all-night.
There were 345 singles drawn from the six regions of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Macedonia, Thessalonians and Colossians. The singles will be holding another all-night on the Friday of 28th June 2013.
Written by Albert Simiyu
