Inside Story

Trading a Red Cloth for a Pair of Pants

Rompas was a Maasai boy in Kenya. The pastor told Rompas that Seventh-day Adventists worshiped the devil. The pastor also said that Seventh-day Adventists walked backward into church on Saturdays. Seventh-day Adventists worshiped without wearing any clothes, too.

When Rompas was 16, he decided to learn if the pastor told him the truth about Seventh-day Adventists. Early Saturday, he walked many miles from his village to a Seventh-day Adventist church. Rompas hid in the hills near the church and watched.

Before long, the first person arrived. The man wasn’t walking backward. He was wearing clothes. The man wore a nice suit and tie. The boy wished he had a suit and tie, too. He wore only a ‘shuka.’ A ‘shuka’ is a piece of Maasai clothing. A ‘shuka’ is a red cloth with black stripes.

Then the pastor and other church members arrived. They did not enter the church backward. They also wore nice clothes.

Then the church choir or singers started to sing the song “Oh Happy Day.” As Rompas heard the words, He walked to the church and sat in the back row. He listened with deep interest.

After the sermon, a young white man came to him. The young man was a Bible worker from the United States. Someone translated the man’s words into Rompas’s language. The young man held out a pair of pants to Rompas. The pants had many pockets. The young man said, “These are your pants.”

Rompas was excited! He never owned pants. He put them on. Then he tore his ‘shuka’ to make a belt to hold up his pants.

Back at home, Rompas’s 82 brothers and sisters were surprised to see their Maasai brother wearing pants. They came up to him and asked, “What happened?”

Rompas put the prized pants under his bed that night. He only wore the pants when he went back to the church the next Sabbath. The pants got the attention of the children and women in his village every Sabbath. Some of them started to follow him to church.

Many months passed. Rompas and his mother gave their hearts to Jesus in baptism on the same day. The first two members of a family of nearly 100 people became Seventh-day Adventists. Rompas felt happy and free for the first time in his life. Jesus told His followers, “ ‘You will know the truth. And the truth will make you free’ ” ( John 8:32 📖 , ICB). Rompas said, “For sure, the truth about Jesus has made me free.”

Part of this quarter’s 13th Sabbath Offering will support work in Kenya and elsewhere in East Africa. Read more about Rompas next week. Watch a YouTube show about him at: https://bit.ly/Rompas-IS .

Provided by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission, which uses Sabbath School mission offerings to spread the gospel worldwide. Read new stories daily at https://AdventistMission.org .