Dr. Sammy Gitaari – The Unstoppable Author

Sammy Gitaari is my name. Presiding Bishop of Gospel Celebration Church. I am a preacher and teacher of God’s Word, the Bible, with a passion for family, Leadership development and Clarification of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am married, been married to the same girl, Rose Gitaari, since September 1, 1984. We have two living children, Timothy and Grace. Our first born, daughter Salome, went to be with the Lord at 11 years of age, in 1997. We still miss her – she is certainly a part of my family.

When I got saved in 1977 I admired the writing of the late Billy Graham, Gordon Lindsay and Oswald J. Smith and T.L. Osborn. As a babe in Christianity, I started praying, “Lord Give me an anointed pen”. I have no idea why those particular words but I prayed like that for about 10 years. I don’t know when the prayer was answered but I stopped praying that prayer around 1987, 10 years later. By then I had attended some writing courses and started editing a denominational magazine that was published bimonthly. In 1988 I was asking God for a ministry that would benefit his church beyond my congregation and one day He said, “If you build strong families you will build strong churches; if you build strong churches you will build a strong nation”. That is how my passion for family was born. Since I did not know anyone doing anything for family, I got into libraries and read a few hundred books on family.

I attended a course “Christian Marriage”; “Marriage and Family Counselling”, “Biblical Counselling” and “Marriage Counselling”. I finally wrote a masters project on “Marriage Seminars” in 1988. You would think I felt confident doing seminars and counselling, I was scared to death. I only had certificates and no experience. I did my first marriage seminar in 1988, I was only 29 years then. Everyone who attended was older than I was but about 200 attended. Subject: Resolving Marriage Conflicts. The result was shocking. I was embarrassed speaking what people did not speak in church–but was invited to 20 or so other similar seminars in a span of months. Since then I speak family freely and without fear at least twice every week. After a few seminars people came to me and asked, “Where is the book of the subject you are teaching, Pastor?” Was the trigger for my first book – “Resolving Conflicts in Marriage”.

My “mzungu” publisher stayed with the manuscript a whole year and wrote these words in red, “Not publishable and if published, can’t sell.” I was rejected and did not know what to do. People did not do self publishing then. However, I figured, I already have a market–people are demanding for the book, so it can sell. I may not have written the way the Mzungu wanted, but I was not writing for him or other Mzungus-I was writing for my people, the people that come to listen to me! By the way, publishers don’t have any market – books are sold to the authors constituency. This and other similar incidents in life have made me come to the following guiding statements for my Life:
“Those who say it cannot be done, are usually interrupted by others doing it.”
” All you can do is all you can do, but all you can do is enough.”
“Don’t tell me It can’t be done.”
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”

The kind of man I am, I don’t like no for an answer. I went to Kirinyaga Road and printed 1,000 copies of the same book. I sold them all in a few days. Got a better printer and did 3,000 copies , they sold quickly. By the time I sold 9,000 copies of the same book, the same publisher (different officer) took over my book and it become their “best seller”. After teaching “Christian Marriage” and “Marriage Counselling” in various schools and colleges over many years, I ventured into radio and did “Jamii Ya Mkristo” (Christian Family), one hour per weak for several years, Family Talk, 30 minutes per week, and writing a monthly column, “Family Talk” for a Christian Magazine (Revival Springs), my second marriage book was conceived, “Keys to a Great Marriage”. It is really a marriage course and basic marriage counselling condensed into a few pages. The other side of me is that I am a trained Mathematics and Chemistry teacher. I have also been a lecturer in a few colleges for a few years and continue as an adjunct lecturer in one.

While teaching a masters class on Principles of preaching, I am a preacher and love developing preachers with an excellence on the pulpit; I found out that while my students were highly educated they could not articulate the message they preached. I asked them what they preach and they used bombastic terms to describe what they preached, but with no clarity. One of my frustrations over years was going to a Christian Bookshop in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s only to find one or two titles by African Writers. I complained about it for some years. Then I realized if you don’t like what you see the right thing is to change it. I started writing more. But book writing was one way a Kenyan could get poor. I printed a few books and I did not like what was in my store. I would commit Kshs 500,000.00 in publishing a book and take three or so years to sell the books; at that rate you cannot fill bookshops with books. I had written five books and was completely won down by costs.

We agreed I will share the gospel with them for 15 minutes in 15 days outside class time. I saw the change in my students and wondered how many Christians are unsure of what they believed? That was the birth of my other book, “Amazing Freedom: Freed to Be Free.” It is a basic clarification of the gospel. I had a conference with myself over a cup of coffee at Java some day. My question was, If I have a call to write and I don’t doubt it, Why am I so stuck. I figured I needed to print at least 30 titles. That will be millions of shillings to do, which I did not have. “What is eating me?” I pondered, Then God answered, not with a loud voice but an idea. To call one of my spiritual sons and charge him with the responsibility of getting 30 of my books in bookshelves without killing me financially.

One week later we were back at Java for another cup of coffee. He was sure he landed on the answer. It is print on demand. Now, I knew about that but Amazon is 1,000’s of miles away. After our coffee we drove to Kilimani to meet a man he wanted to introduce me to, Patrick Omukhango, of CLC. That was the game changer, self publishing, print on demand is possible in Kenya. My 30 titles dream is on course, now I have 16 titles in the market–and manuscripts for the others. Well, my friends, we can do it and Africa will be fed the right meal served in African plates.