SELF-PROCLAIMED “MOTHER OF JESUS” JUDITH NAFULA REPORTEDLY DIES IN BUSIA

In the quiet village of Nangoma in Matayos, Busia County, a simple homestead once pulsed with the energy of believers. People travelled from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and even the Congo, calling the place the “Bethlehem of Busia.” They came seeking healing, miracles and a glimpse of the woman who insisted she was no ordinary mother of five, but Mary herself  the Mother of Jesus  returned in the flesh.

Her name was Judith Nafula. A former Catholic who said a blinding light and a heavenly voice had revealed her true identity. Her husband, John Wekulo, claimed the same light named him Joseph. She moved out of their bedroom into the sitting room on divine instruction, fasted for months, and wore a special cloth she said God had given her. The local Catholic church expelled her for performing miracles. Neighbours initially called her mad or bewitched. Yet the crowds kept coming.

Then, according to reports circulating in recent days, that extraordinary chapter closed. Nafula died while undergoing treatment in Busia. The woman who said she had raised the dead and restored barren wombs could not, in the end, outrun ordinary human frailty.

Her story is dramatic, but it is not unique. Western Kenya has long been fertile ground for people who step forward and claim the highest spiritual offices. There was Jehovah Wanyonyi, who declared himself God and demanded billions from the state. There is Yesu wa Tongaren, who insists he is the returned Christ. Others have presented themselves as John the Baptist, the third God, or various prophets with private revelations and strict new rules. The pattern is familiar enough that politicians and ordinary Kenyans joke about it: “Western is heaven  they have their own Mary, their own Jesus, their own Jehovah.”

Why does this keep happening here? Part of the answer lies in history. The region has a long tradition of independent spiritual movements that mixed local beliefs with Christianity, from Dini ya Musambwa onwards. Poverty and uncertainty also play their part. When formal churches feel distant and daily life is hard, a neighbour who claims direct access to the divine can offer hope, community and the promise of miracles that medicine or politics have failed to deliver. In places where jobs are scarce and hospitals are stretched, the appeal of a living Mary or a local Jesus is easy to understand.

Yet the controversies travel with the claims. Mainstream churches accuse these figures of misleading the faithful. Sceptics point to the risk of exploitation, of people abandoning medical care or handing over money in the name of faith. Authorities occasionally investigate for cult-like practices. Followers, meanwhile, testify of healings and answered prayers and defend their leaders with fierce loyalty. The gap between belief and doubt rarely closes.

Judith Nafula’s rise and reported death sit squarely inside this larger story. She was neither the first nor the last person from the region to claim a biblical identity. What made her different was the tenderness of the title she chose  not a conquering messiah or an angry god, but a mother. For a time, that claim was enough to turn a village compound into a place of pilgrimage.

In the end, even the self-proclaimed Mother of Jesus faced the same limit every human faces. The light she said once spoke to her could not keep her from the hospital bed. Her passing leaves behind the same questions her life raised: how far people will go in search of the sacred, and why Western Kenya continues to answer that search with such bold and sometimes startling declarations.