By Fredrick Odiero
Bishop Phoebe Adhiambo Onyango, the presiding Bishop of Salem Ministries, is an extra-ordinary personality whose compassion has moved her to help destitute children, orphans and widows. What’s more, she never tires as she spreads her love across many counties in the Western region.
Her smile is captivating, never fading from her radiant face. Touched by human suffering around her, she started off with a handful of destitute children who had nowhere to call home, hoping she could offer them a shoulder to lean on.
With that leap of faith, Onyango has now hundreds of less fortunate children under her care, from the small idea that started in the slums of Kisumu town.
She was not born to fortune herself, perhaps the reason for her golden heart. For starters, she dropped out of Pand Pieri Primary School at Standard 7 due to biting poverty.
Born and bred in Nyalenda slums in Kisumu where she lived with her parents and four siblings, she says her parents were forced to separate because her father could not take care of the family needs.
Later, she had to be brought up by her grandparents when her mother could not sustain them because she had no means of livelihood. But it was not to last as things became tough for her grandmother and her life took another turn in 1976.
“From there my life was one of struggle as I tried my hand in menial jobs within Kisumu. I continued to yearn for education and started saving the little I earned to enroll for a series of short courses,” she recalls.
Bishop Onyango says she opted to get married at 17 years when the situation at home grew worse, hoping to secure her life but unfortunately, the marriage did not offer any solace because her husband was in the same hole of poverty as she.
By then she was selling second hand clothes to complement her husband’s scant earnings as a tout.
Hopeless and weak, disillusioned and lost, she decided to turn to Christ and salvation in 1992.
Yet even with her newfound faith, she still felt downtrodden.
Then one day while walking in the streets of Kisumu, she noticed many street children, most of whom had been abandoned by their parents. It crossed her mind that she could not continue brooding over her children while there are others without a home and parents.
She was so moved that she took in six of them to share their single room in Obunga slums. That was the beginning of a new chapter of service and charity, which opened a whole new chapter of life to her.
“With meagre resources and little education, I have managed to start a fully-fledged church ministry with over 26 branches in Kenya and one in Uganda, a children’s home, a secondary and primary school,” she says today with a broad smile.
Bishop Onyango says though it was difficult to feed her now bulging family, she refused to look back; instead started seeking help from government social welfare offices.
“When I told the state officials that my dream was to start a children’s home, they advised me to register it,” she says.
The hand that gives never lacks, so from the moment she opened her home to destitute children, funds started flowing in.
She later started Salem Children’s Ministries and, with the help of donors like Feed the Children, the numbers increased tremendously to more than 150.
The home is now a refuge for the disadvantaged in Kisumu.
In 1997, Phoebe established a primary school and a clinic for the children, inspired by the desire to give them food, education, shelter and proper healthcare.
“I felt education would be a long-term investment for them,” she adds.
She later followed up with a secondary school, both of which now have recorded stellar performances in the region.
She says she later established a church ministry where she could take care of their spiritual needs.
However, it has not been easy-going as in 1999, the children’s home suffered a major setback when 17 children died of HIV-related complications.
She explains that currently, Salem Ministry takes care of hundreds of orphans and abandoned children from all over the country.
It has also introduced a widows empowerment programme that equips them with farming and weaving skills so that they can be independent.
‘We give them hybrid seeds and teach them modern farming methods,” she says.
She was ordained by Bishop Maurice Arao in 2010 as a full bishop. She says her church in Kisumu has six priests.
Bishop Onyango was feted by a Greek organization for helping the less fortunate in society. So far, her work is felt across Siaya, Homa Bay, Migori, and Busia counties, with networks for aid both nationally and internationally.
She was once the chairperson of Kisumu Town Churches and Bishops Network.
Now aged 49, she has managed to donate 12,000 water filters to several islands of Lake Victoria worth over 50 million shillings.
