oranga, Janet

? East African Revival Fellowship (Tukutendereza)
Kenya

COLLECTED MEMORY: The following text belongs to our collection of eyewitness and fragmentary accounts that includes eulogies, obituaries, and primary materials. It may lack sources and proper academic verification for accuracy.

Janet Oranga was born in September 1923 in Kisumu. She became the second wife of Kefa Otiende, and together they had five children. In 1952, she attended an East Africa Revival meeting in her area, where the preacher spoke on John 15:1–10, emphasizing the pruning of branches that do not bear fruit. Deeply convicted of her sin, Janet experienced a spiritual rebirth and was born again. Despite her newfound faith, she remained in her marriage while continuing to participate in Revival meetings. In 1964, Janet received a new spiritual insight that convinced her she was living in sin as a second wife, having disrupted a pre-existing marriage. She came to believe that in order to bear true testimony to her salvation, she needed to leave the marriage and openly share the gospel.

Oranga approached both her husband and co-wife, confessed the wrong she believed she had done, and informed them of her decision to leave. Her husband attempted to dissuade her, but she responded firmly: “My body attracted me to you, but my heart has compelled me to leave.” She took her youngest child with her, leaving the older children, who were already in secondary school. She returned to her father’s home, where both he and one of her brothers, who had also experienced the Revival, welcomed her and supported her decision. They allowed her to till a portion of the family land to support herself and raise her child. Janet engaged in small-scale farming and sold her produce to sustain herself, all while continuing to attend Revival meetings. Through determination and hard work, she eventually purchased a piece of land and built rental houses, creating a source of income. Although some Revival members encouraged her to remarry a widower to avoid living alone, Janet declined. She argued that in heaven, every marriage record bore the name of the first wife, even if she had died, and that she could not enter another union.

Stephen Kariuki Apollo Warui

Source:

Mombo, Esther. “The Revival Testimony of Second Wives.” In The East African Revival: History and Legacies, edited by Kevin Ward and Emma Wild-Wood, 196–206. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012.

This collected memory was submitted in May 2025 by Stephen Kariuki Apollo Warui, a PhD student at the Boston University School of Theology and a member of both the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and the Presbyterian Church (USA).