Inside Story for Friday 1st of May 2026
Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering, will support projects in Kenya and elsewhere in the East-Central Africa Division. Read more about Rompas next week, and watch a YouTube video of him at bit.ly/Rompas-IS.
Rompas was born into a Maasai tribal family of one father and nine mothers in Kenya. He has 82 siblings. He is number 62.
Image © Pacific Press
When he was 13, he was tending his father’s cattle in the bush when he noticed that the animals seemed to have a mind of their own. They kept moving in a single direction. He followed the cattle and found himself at an outdoor religious meeting led by a missionary from the United States.
Rompas was intrigued. He had never been to school, so he could not read the Bible. But he liked to listen to sermons on the radio on Sundays. He enjoyed memorizing what he heard and preaching the sermons to his family. His love for preaching had earned him the nickname “Pastor.”
But the missionary was preaching a message that he had never heard. He said the Bible teaches that Saturday, not Sunday, is God’s holy day.
Rompas ran off to find a friend who knew how to read and write. He asked the boy to copy down the Bible verses from the sermon. The boy jotted down 33 verses about the holiness of the seventh-day Sabbath.
That evening, Rompas took the cattle home. But he didn’t stay. He then walked four miles (six kilometers) to the home of a pastor and handed him the list of 33 verses. “Does our Bible contain these verses?” he asked.
The pastor looked up the verses in his Bible and said ominously, “You have gone to a meeting of devil worshipers.”
Fear seized Rompas. He began shaking. “Oh Lord, save me,” he said.
The pastor struck the boy repeatedly on the cheeks with his Bible. “In the name of Jesus, I rebuke the devil who has possessed this boy,” he said.
It was late when Rompas returned home. After falling asleep, he had a dream. He saw the missionary preaching about the Sabbath again. Waking up, he was afraid that he had been possessed, and he rebuked the devil.
For the next three years, Rompas had the same dream every night. He saw the missionary preaching about the Sabbath. For three years, he lived in fear that he had been possessed. For three years, he kept rebuking the devil.
Then he thought, I wonder if this might be a message from the Lord. Let me find out if what the pastor said is true.
With that, the boy nicknamed “Pastor” took a first step toward becoming an Adventist pastor. Today, he knows the truth and is teaching it to others in Kenya.
