Pastor Chege wa Willy: How shadowy blogger Martha Hinga threatened my marriage
Pastor Willy wa Chege.
Sometime last year, on a Thursday, Akorino pastor Willy wa Chege’s life turned upside down – the gospel industry moral cop and faceless blogger Martha Mwihaki Hinga accused him of infidelity.
“Interestingly, I had on Thursday retreated to pray in seclusion...to repent. I was accompanied by servants of God Sammy Nene and Pastor JJ Gitahi. It was the former who prayed for me,” he says.
He, however, cannot recall the exact date, only the day of the week.
Mr Chege recalls Bishop Gitahi “tightly holding my head and in deep prayer beseeched God to hide me from Martha Hinga...Those were his words”.
At 2am, Mr Chege arrived home to his wife fully "feeling protected by God", humming to the tune “God has hidden me on higher ground where Satan cannot access me”.
At home, he was tired and sleepy, he narrated on to JK TV.
“But there were these [incessant] beeps on my phone...Message alerts that were oddly too many and in quick succession. But in my tired mind, I ignored...until I could no longer ignore [them],” he says.
At about 7am, he decided to check the messages and he found that the alerts were Facebook notifications on him being mentioned in people’s posts.
When he clicked on the notifications, he was directed to Martha Mwihaki Hinga’s page “and I knew boy! It was my turn”.
He says he did not read the contents and just closed the page.
“I also started receiving calls from nearly all people who knew me...I made a resolve to keep off the phone,” the pastor adds.
He also banned his daughter, who was a standard eight candidate, from the internet.
“Her mother is not an online fan...I needed not worry about her. But this daughter was different. I made it clear to her that she had no business venturing online,” he says of his desperation to keep his 'shame' off his family.
The pastor adds that he braved the bad press all through to Monday morning, when his wife travelled to their rural home in Murang’a for a funeral.
“When she returned in the evening, she was fuming with anger. She could not master the guts to confront me but it was all written all over her face...I bid my time, readying for the explosion or the implosion,” Mr Chege adds.
“I prayed for a moment to safely ask her what was amiss...And the moment came...and she contemptuously retorted: ‘Is that what you did? Have been doing? Why?’”
Pastor Chege denied being unfaithful to her and even called a friend of his for defence.
“The storm became calm after a long tête-à-tête with her. She had been fed with the Hinga tea about me at the burial. I insisted it was another wa Willy and not me...Thank God my wife never keeps grudges. She is such a blessing,” he says.
Insisting he was innocent, Pastor Chege, however, says, “We are all human and being called to serve God does not kill bodily yearnings. It is only the Grace of God that keeps us safe from temptations.”
But grace helps people not to falter, he argues.
“The fact that I am saved does not mean that I cease to be human. I am a gospel artiste, a pastor and a man...all my passions are intact...all my organs are as human as those of others…my throat might get thirsty for beer...It is only by grace [I do not fall for this temptation] including on other body feelings,” the pastor adds.
He urges Martha Hinga not to use a different yard stick to measure behaviour of those in the gospel industry “rather, treat us all as human since some of us will err, succumb to temptation and sin.”
“Know we are called to serve the Lord yes, but it should never escape all that we are human beings with all biological functionalities.”
Pastor Chege, who studied accounting before venturing into music in 2010, has released popular tracks like Guoko kwa Jehova, Nígúthií thiíte and Twandíkíre Marúa mangí.
He has also collaborated with crooner Mary Williams in the song Tútigútungata twí Ngombo, as well with other artistes like Elizabeth Nyambere and his sister Sarah Kimunyi for other songs.
Pastor Chege was born and brought up in Gathaithi village, Murarandia location in Murang'a County. In 2006, he stole household goods and sold them to raise fare to travel to Nairobi.
“This was immediately after I cleared Form Four. My father, Bishop Johanna Willy Kibe, tracked me to Nairobi where I was hustling in construction sites and hawking and [ensured I] enrol for the accounting course. But that was not my line, I made it in the music industry and now as a pastor,” he says.
He adds that the videography for his music is highly inspired by Harmonize and Diamond “and that is it where being secular crooners cannot outlaw them from inspiring the gospel singer that is me.”
The two artistes “give me ideas through their audio-visual to enrich mine,” Pastor Chege adds.
His ultimate goal, he says, is to serve God and inspire people to live by the faith.
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