By Arnold Neliba
NAIROBI, APRIL 8, 2022 (CISA)– “I am coming to you not only as your bishop and not only as a servant but I’m also coming to you as a fellow Christian so that together we may walk in this journey,” Bishop-Elect George Muthaka O.F.M Cap of the Catholic diocese of Garissa has said.
Speaking to CISA on April 5 in Nairobi ahead of his retreat, which began on April 6, Monsignor Muthaka invited the faithful to join him in prayer and pray for him as he heads for a retreat in readies for his episcopal ordination on May 7.
“Dear people of Garissa diocese, we have lived together almost for the last 5 years and I have visited every part of the diocese. We have interacted, we have prayed together,” he said further urging them to “continue to pray for me especially as I begin my retreat so that the good Lord may bless me during these days, he may inspire me and that he may give me strength so that we may come together, continue to serve the Lord together and that we may have Christ as our master as a brother, and everything that we do we may do it as witnesses of Christ.”
Just as Pope Francis has invited Christians to walk together as a family in the synod, the 47-year-old bishop-elect called for synodality in Garissa.
“So I am coming to not as your boss, not as your master but I’m coming to you to listen, to try to understand you and together as a family that we may walk together,” he expounded.
Fr George Muthaka, a former Vice-Superior and Superior of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (2009-2015), was on February 17 appointed bishop for the Catholic diocese of Garissa.
The immediate former vicar-general for Garissa will be consecrated on May 7, becoming the third bishop of Garissa after Bishop Joseph Alessandro, O.F.M. Cap (2015-2022) and Bishop Paul Darmanin, O.F.M. Cap (1984-2015).