By: Lieutenant Harold Gitau

Today I look at where I am and say, Up to this point the Lord has helped me (1 Samuel 7:12). I give God all the glory and honor for every bit of my life. If it were not for God, none of this would be happening today.

I was born and raised in a Salvation Army family in Kenya, with my dad and mom actively serving in ministry. I learned a lot from my grandparents, Majors David and Priscilla Nzuki, on how to love and serve the Lord.

When I was 13, I was invited to attend the Word of Life Camp, where I gave my life to Jesus Christ beside a campfire. Even though I did not understand the magnitude of the commitment I had made, my life was never to be the same. I grew as a junior soldier, to an assistant YPSM, and went on to become the YPSM of my home corps.

God saw me through my teenage life, amid numerous challenges and peer pressure. Because I was a Christian, friends became scarce, but my conviction to serve the Lord grew by the day.

At the age of 23, while attending an afternoon youth meeting at my corps, I experienced the presence of God in a powerful way, and I was unable to report to work that day. On the following day, my boss confronted me, giving me a choice between work and my God. My choice was my God. He asked me if I was crazy, and I responded by telling him of God's love for him. I told him I needed one week off to go on a mission. My request was approved with pay to the dismay of my fellow workers, who were certain that I was about to lose
my job. I asked my God to move me somewhere else because I felt that my work there was done and that it was getting very uncomfortable. Within one month, God opened doors for me to go back to school, something I had desired for five years.

I knew that God was revealing his will in my life and calling me to a greater thing. As the assistant corps secretary at my home corps, Mombasa, together with other youth leaders, we were blessed to launch a youth mission team, The Salvation Army Coast Evangelical Ministry, to reach the unreached and lift other rural corps. My urge to serve God increased as I saw more and more souls won to him.

My beautiful wife, Eunice, and our three children, Rebecca, Timothy and Lois, and I are partners in our ministry. In December 2008, God opened a way for us to come to the U.S. We found a new home at the Marietta, Georgia, Corps, where Captains Jonathan and Amanda Raymer initiated our application to training. After three years of prayer and waiting, we were accepted and sent to training by Captains Jose and Candace Marquez in 2013 with the Heralds of Grace session. We were commissioned in 2015 with our first appointment in Frankfort, Kentucky, to the Glory of God. Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:14)