Barnabas like many other authors started writing while still in school. He loved writing compositions in primary and secondary school, later on when he became a believer in his first year in university, he started journaling; He wrote scripture references which he used for devotions.
‘I started preaching in our International students fellowship in my second year, six months after my salvation. I would write down my thoughts that I would then use as my sermon notes.
After college and into my career, I would write notes from the books I read. I love reading and that’s what inspired me to love writing. I started reading story books, the newspaper and a magazine that used to be called weekly review.
When one of my congregants was appointed the managing editor with one of the local dailies, he asked if I would write for them. They gave me a column that I started writing in 2009. That then increased to two columns. In the second column, my wife Grace and I would answer questions on matters relationships. We have been doing this to this day in the People Daily. Our column runs every Monday.
It’s what propelled me to writing our book. I had written so many articles and ideas and my wife felt that we should write a book. I was unsure, until we met Muthoni at CLC and the the idea of writing a book crystallized. She encouraged us to compile all our articles of about ten years and from that came our very first book Marriage Thistles and Flowers.
Writing a column is very much like writing a book. And yes there’s pressure to always have content to push out on a weekly basis as sometimes you are dry. There are days you have no content, the thoughts are not flowing. But there are also other days when there’s so much content, so like money or the harvest, you store it up for those dry spells.
After launching our first book Marriage, Thistles & Flowers, we were inspired to do our second book. The writing or authorship bug bit us. We now realized it was doable. A Pastor friend on seeing our recently launched book, asked me if I would take the couples in his church through the book. That’s when we thought, we need to do another book, and this time a workbook, where couples can engage with it and do some exercises together to enrich their marriage. That’s how the idea of the second book was birthed.
Having dealt with couples for the over fifteen years, we knew exactly what topic our workbook would have. Many years ago someone had asked us to do an article on this new magazine they were launching, targeting newly wedded couples, married between 6months to 6 years. When I asked why this target group, they told me that from their research, they had discovered that many marriages were struggling in this drama stage.
They were struggling in this stage because of their inability to resolve conflict. From our experience many years later, we have come to see the truth in this. So we begun a program targeting this stage of marriage. The program was called Navigating the storm. From this program our latest book was born.
Our coaching company is called Two Ships Solutions. We believe we are the ship that comes alongside your relationship, in the turbulent waters of marriage. So our Pre-Marital program is called charting the course, as the ship does before it’s voyage. This one is for those who find themselves in a storm, just as in a marriage, where you will encounter many storms. The question is, how do you effectively navigate through those storms?
And to crown it all, the book comes with a “His” and “Her’s” journal, an excellent idea from CLC.
It is amazing that you write in the People Daily’s column to date. Keep up this great work. It is beautiful to see a couple working together. Stay blessed.