From Kenya to America, Pastor Ceciliah’s mission is to point people to Christ, and let God do the rest

by Becky Uehling

Grant Tribune-Sentinel

With her life goal being to help the church find its true purpose, pointing people to Christ, Pastor Ceciliah Igweta Keega is now serving the members of the United Methodist Church of Grant. 

“We as human beings, we have lost our way,” said the 46-year-old originally from Kenya. “We refuse to put things that matter at the center—pointing people to Christ. If we do that, God will take care of the rest.”

Pastor Ceciliah started her ministry in Grant on July 1, coming from the Chappell area, where she has served three area churches, Chappell, Lodgepole and Ovid, Colo., for the past two years.  

Pastor Ceciliah’s husband, Jacob Keega, is also a pastor, and serves the United Methodist Churches in Big Springs and Julesburg, Colo. 

The couple is now residing in Grant with their two sons, Emmanuel, 13, and Theo, 9. 

Called from an early age

Pastor Ceciliah grew up in Meru, Kenya, surrounded by a large extended and loving Christian family and community. Her grandfather especially had a great influence on her life. Pastor Ceciliah is grateful for the influence of her grandfather, who was a strong, peaceful man, and emphasized the importance of Christ and family. 

She said she is likewise grateful for the shaping of her community had on her life, and says that small town Nebraska is reminiscent of the closeness she experienced in her Kenyan village. 

Ceciliah gave her life to Christ early on in life, and she received great support from her church in cultivating her walk with Jesus. 

After her high school years, Ceciliah said she wasn’t sure what career she would pursue. With her mother pushing her towards teaching, Ceciliah decided she would take a wait-and-see approach. At one point, a pastor asked her if she would ever consider going into the ministry. Her first reaction was no, because she did not want to have to bury people. The pastor continued to encourage her and asked her to think about it, but she declined his offer. 

She continued with her church involvement, and started serving as the head of the children’s ministry. Every week she would prepare a sermon for the children, and she found out that she loved it!

As she continued to excel within the children’s ministry, the church was watching Ceciliah, and started putting her into more and more roles, and she felt like she found where she belonged. 

“I took time to pray and fast about it and really think about it, especially because my mother was wanting me to be a teacher, and I asked God to reveal Himself to me,” she said. 

She decided to approach the leadership of the church about how she felt to see what their thoughts were. Their reaction was instantaneous reassurance. 

“They told me they saw it (her call to ministry) a long time ago, and they had been waiting for me to see it too,” she said. 

Her next step was to share the news with her family, who also was excited about the news, even her mom. 

From there the process started for Ceciliah’s education to become a minister at Kenya Methodist University, where she met her husband, Jacob. 

After seminary, Ceciliah was assigned as the circuit pastor of four churches close to her home , which she served for four years.

From Kenya to America

It was after a while that both Ceciliah and Jacob decided to both seek Master’s Degrees in Theology from an international institution. After sending several applications to various universities aboard with no responses, the couple decided to stop pursuing and begin concentrating on a family. 

So, in 2009, Ceciliah and Jacob welcomed their first baby, Emmanuel, into their lives. Not long after, Ceciliah received a phone call from America. 

“At first I thought it was a scammer because I couldn’t quite understand the person on the phone,” Ceciliah said. “I told Jacob about it, and he said, ‘what if it was an answer to one of my applications I had sent to a university?’”

And sure enough, it was. 

Ceciliah had been accepted into the Southern Methodist University in Dallas on a full-ride scholarship—one of only two the school gives out yearly to international students. Ceciliah was a little taken aback. 

“At first I thought, ‘I am going nowhere! I have my baby,’” she said.”

But with Jacob’s and her family’s encouragement, she did accept the offer, and headed to America in the fall of 2009, leaving Jacob and Emmanuel in Kenya. 

Jacob, however, continued to apply to schools, now only in the United State so he could position himself and Emmanuel closer to Ceciliah. This included applying to SMU. Then, a miracle happened. 

Although SMU gives only two scholarships a year to international students, and usually never from the same country or from the same family, Jacob was awarded a full-ride from SMU as well. 

“This is what God did!” Ceciliah said. “I was told that the school got more dollars and that was the only reason he was able to get in. The college told Jacob, ‘your wife must be a praying woman.’”

The next few years were not easy for the two young pastors, both full-time students with a young baby in a foreign country, but they managed to each graduate and get associate pastor jobs in the Dallas area. During that time they also welcomed son number two, Theo.

After a while in Dallas, the couple felt the Holy Spirit moving in their lives, and they began praying for discernment. They ended up submitting their applications to be full-time pastors, and were called to the Great Plains Conference in Kansas and Nebraska. In 2020 they moved to Chappell. 

It was quite a change moving from the large metropolitan area of Dallas to small town Nebraska during a pandemic, but Ceciliah said she and her family have adjusted, saying that people are the same everywhere, all needing to hear the saving grace of Jesus Christ. 

“All people are God’s creation. We are not called to fix people’s lives, we are just the messenger. Speak the living truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and God will do the rest,” she said. 

Pastor Ceciliah can be reached at the Grant United Methodist Church located at  500 Warren Ave. The church’s phone number is 308 352 4594.