Someone said I should preach more on this blog. Maybe I should. I almost did not do my Saturday share but you know what, a promise is a debt, like we said when we were kids. So here goes. I have made it a habit to read Our Daily Bread (ODB) daily on my phone. I had sort of stopped doing it mostly because of misplaced priorities. I would read it daily in high school, after someone signed me up for it. I don’t know who but it must have someone in Christian Union right around my year in form one. I would read the day’s piece and fall right asleep while praying during morning prep. Lol. Yeah, I was that girl.

Paul the Apostle was arguably the most learned among the Apostles. He had thorough knowledge of the Law and the prophets, being a Pharisee, and having grown in the lineage of Pharisees and religion piety Philipians 3:5. At a very tender age, Paul was put under the tutelage of Gamaliel Acts 23:6, one of the most renowned Jewish scholars of his time, a Pharisee and head of the Great Sanhedrin (Jewish council of elders) in Jerusalem. The Hillel school was noted for giving their students a balanced education, and likely giving Paul broad exposure to classical literature, philosophy, and ethics. Koine Greek was his first language, then Hebrew, and had great knowledge of stoic philosophy.

Every week I come across something that leaves my heart broken, partly because it touches on an area I am passionate about, and partly because there is so much that could have been done about it. This week it was about the sentencing of a nurse in Gachie to death. The man was accused of the murder of a lady and her baby as he tried to assist in abortion. Here’s a link to the article and this of the wife who now must be widowed and left to take care of a little baby. The lady who died in the process of abortion also left one other child who now will never see the mother again. We all have a rough idea of how that orphan will grow up. Right there, we have a child who will grow up without a Father, and one who is an orphan.

I love Sundays. Sundays are the days I just chill out and enjoy the freedom. On good Sundays (most of them are good), I am lady Shiku. I don dresses. And heels. Just to remind myself how it feels like to be a real girl. And it feels good. This Sunday, I wake up later than usual. Mum does not wake me up with a phone call as usual. No, I have not moved out. Yes, she calls me every Sunday morning from the other side of the wall. When phone calls act as alarm clocks.

I am so sleepy. Why, sun? Why couldn’t you just rise a little later today?

By Dickson Otieno

If I were an old man, I’d be termed as old-fashioned. A man who’s time is over. A guy of the ending generation. My words would be trashed in some quarters and the ‘young’ would make merry in letting me know that the new cohort does things differently. That in the new era it is the gospel ‘industry’ that thrives. And that we should let anyone thrive in doing whatever they please. As long as they insert the name Jesus in whatever composition they make, then it qualifies to be a gospel song. Try and read this to the very end.

A while ago when I was learning programming with PHP, I came across a section that really intrigued me. This is where your code tests for a certain condition, if the condition is true, performs a certain task if not true, performs another. You can set your code for example to check the time of day and return an appropriate greeting. One of the ways of doing this is using an if/else statement. If the time is 0800-1159, return “have a good morning”, if it is 1200-1800, return “have a good afternoon”, else return “have a great evening” (and if you plan on learning programming, apart from the syntax, the code does read the way the sentence reads).

I said this was intriguing and the reason is because I had come across this thought process elsewhere. I was lucky to have grown in my first job to a level where I participated deeply in budgeting.

Literally and figuratively. For the longest time, I have loved boy bands. Not just any boy bands but Christian boy bands. Think Plus One and Jars of Clay of the 90s to today’s Anthem Lights and Royal Tailor. It then goes without saying that my most played songs are boy band tracks alongside hip hop ones. I work with earphones on the whole time. It’s a reflex; so much so that sometimes, I plug them on and forget to play the music for hours. Yeah, I am crazy, I know.

I will list down my ten best boy band songs of 2014.

I did this on the bus. Amidst distracting texts and Google Docs lying to me that I can do this offline. It’s been a week and a half, that last week of June. You know something is up when I don’t blog. All the same, such times are enough to come up with a million posts.

Anyway, one lesson from last week. Fast Fade. You know Slow Fade, right? Casting Crowns nini nini. Ever listened to the actual words to the song? I have.

I have a father who never ever fails me. He is always a phone call away. He toils so hard I can never even dream of ever having half the zeal he has to dig up acres of land and cater for an entire extended family. My father is so lovable, his students never forget him. I know that even from Twitter. I mention him and I will often find an old boy who will speak fondly of him. My father is that guy who lives to make us laugh. He will get mad sometimes which is normal. He gave us some good beating when we were young. He had a special cane for those sessions. I can count the occasions on one hand though.

My father drove us to school, my brother and I, when he could. In a rackety old KUL 509, he would ferry us to school.