The Cake Guy

Love might not usually just happen with the guy you want to end up with. It might not usually work out for you with your fellow Luo man from Homabay, or your fellow member of the Seventh Day Adventist church. Sometimes you might end up getting stuck with someone that you will be arguing with in the house about lesson plan formats, or with conversations that revolve around which is the harder bar; Frozen chocolate or Law school exams! But whatever the case, just ensure that you choose whoever chooses you genuinely.
Three years ago, Zephaniah, might just have been the kind of man I thought I would have been praying and fasting for, for ten good days. He appeared when I least expected, maybe explains its Hebrew meaning (Hidden by God). I had saved him as Zeph on my phone. I mean we do the very most always to even find names for them, as if we are their mothers. Essentially, this might have been the most obvious instance of God instructing us to pray without ceasing and that even if we feel like we have found what we wanted, we should continue praying for further directions. I didn’t. I stopped, but I thanked God for bringing him my way. We met at a housewarming party. And later on, there I was, wishing that my house and his would be warmer than this particular one, but his cold heart won the race. I was attending Zeph’s wedding in Rodi-Homabay county.
Pastors have preached, and writers have written claiming that we don’t meet our soul mates in church because, on church days, everyone is parading as a holy saint. I didn’t meet Zeph in church atleast,so this was already counting as a plan itself.
“Care for a coffee on Wednesday evening?” Zeph had texted me a few days after the house warm party. Wait, this was a red flag already, I thought. Just the other day on Sunday, I had seen him post those long writings that SDA men post on their statuses with the burning flame  emblem for Adventists. I could relate to the sign-off of these quotes bearing the name Ellen white, and that’s how I came to learn that he was an Adventist. I responded and asked for sugarcane juice instead, because now all of a sudden, men from that faith who think they are rich are ordering for sugarcane juice and Dawa online.
I was really on the move to strike a bond with whoever came my way at that particular point. I showed up for the date, and the talking stage began. These were those talking stages that didn’t follow a particular order parsee. You are talking, and one time he has posted another lady, and you allow your mighty assumption power to rule over you, and make you think that that is his cousin. The sole responsibility is on you to set the next date. Ladies, kindly just wait for him to ask, because if he wanted to he could, but because he doesn’t want to, he has decided to plan his wedding on that Sunday that you want to meet him. Do you want to meet him on Sunday afternoon? That’s the time SDA wedding committee members meet to discuss the progress of an upcoming wedding.
Anyways, today is his wedding.One of our mutual friends is driving down to Homabay and I am idle as well.I have this new dress that I have been looking for an event to grace it with. So I decide to show up at Homabay Central SDA church that Sunday mid-morning.My friend is talking  to me about cost sharing fuel prices but I am not just in for his idea.I want to catch the bus going down that side.I want to pay my bus fare, because I  want to watch  this guy from a designated corner, lie with his vows on the pulpit the way he lied to me about keeping a relationship. A few minutes later, the MC is announcing that the groom’s family should move to the right and the bride’s family and friends to his left. I sit still, because I am not sure whom I am here for up to this point,but we are all  God’s children, so I sit still. Much doesn’t usually happen in the church because the major highlights are : the matron keeping an eye to ensure that the bridal team members don’t hug,one of the  bridal team ladies falling in wedge shoes,someone attempting to stop the wedding, a rare occurrence in SDA weddings nowadays or dealing with the anxiety about whether the officiating pastor will allow members of the bridal team to march because they have soaked their faces in make up and they have nail polish on.
Wedding receptions  usually seal the entire ceremony.I was seated in a group of people that I  had no idea who they were.They only started talking to me when the bridal  team started passing cake around.”Do you eat cake?” One  old man asked me. “No, I don’t.” I murmered as if to address him in a way that I didn’t want to appear rude.The cake was being passed from table to table. I turned to a table behind me as if to respond to a persistent tap on my shoulder which could not stop no matter how hard I tried to ignore it.He is staring deep into my eyes.He wants me to pass the plate of cake behind to them.He probably just doesn’t know how far I travelled to come have this piece of cake, and what this son of a luo woman has done to my heart.
“Hi, cant you speak?” I intentionally break the stare.He is pointing at the plate of cake that  I am holding dearly.He deliberately seems to be  appearing in all my photos as well.And When some choir guy who was seated next to me moves to go sit next to the newly weds,the guy moves next to my seat.He is  intentional:
“What is your name?
Can I have your number?”
And if you will, could you help me record this tiktok challenge?”
“Which challenge is that?”, I ask him.He has been  talking to me non stop like a Kisii man.
“The  song is called Arusi by Rubi Adventist Youth Ministry.” I consent to it, and it later on turns out to be  one  of the  the most sensational and invigorating content ever on my socials ,having pastors asking when they are officiating my wedding.The song’s lyrics  blast the wedding venue with lots of Kiswahili words that dont  make sense to Homabay people.
“Siku zote sala zetu zipate kibali,machoni pa Mungu,” When I turn to him and ask “Sala yako na nani?” Spoiling and calling for another take to record the video, he calmly whispers, “Lets focus on the now,the rest will handle itself.”
“Jua lipunge vivuli vikimbie,mimi wako wewe wangu,mifano borabora familia, yetu iwe mbingu ndogo, nakupenda, nakuenzi.”
This definitely pushes me to answer the questions that  the general public, and you as well might also would have loved to ask.And years later into settling in love,I  go way back and recall that this actually came to pass because I  involuntarily passed a plate of cake to the guy I  met in a wedding that  I  thought might not have made sense to my emotional sanity back then.But look, here is a hefty win-win. So guys, remember to show up for weddings of people who have wasted your time in the name of disillusioned talking stages.The love of your lives are seated there waiting for you to serve them cakes.