Part 4 Journey through Entrepreneurship
This photo was taken at Nairobi Arboretum, September 2020, by my dear old friend Ann Mbatia.
I was eight months pregnant and had just removed my mask for the photo.
Now, for those who were pregnant in 2020, you already know! We hated those masks with holy passion. Breathing for two humans is already an Olympic event, then someone tells you to wear a medical mask? The devil is a liar! 😅 Half the time I felt like my baby was kicking in protest, saying, “Mum, open the windows!” If you know, you know.
That day brought back a flood of memories.
We had just come out of two years of financial turmoil. We’d lost two major businesses in Rwanda and one in Kenya, even before COVID. Then COVID came and swallowed whatever was left — like the locusts and cankerworms finishing what the drought had spared.
The Beginning of the Fall
Friends, allow me to take you back to 2019.
Things were getting tough in Rwanda. We had taken on a UK investor in 2016 who had pursued us for years. Our first business was a Practical Training Center in Kigali. We then opened a bakery. Later, we started an avocado export business to Russia.
Rwanda didn’t have enough Hass and Fuerte avocados to fill even two containers a week. Kenya, on the other hand, had the capacity for forty. And you know Kenyans — when it comes to business, they don’t joke!
In early 2019, I’d take a flight every Friday evening. I would source avocados all weekend. I worked through to Monday and shipped by Tuesday. Then I’d fly back to Kigali. I did that for months. By April, I was completely exhausted.
When schools closed for the summer holidays, I asked George to drive us to Nairobi. He flew back to Kigali to run the bakery. We had just started the bakery and the Airbnb. I stayed in Kenya with the kids. We spent that summer in Migaa, soaking up the sun and peace. It felt like a holiday in disguise. Until, disaster struck.
The Betrayal
One day in August 2019, my business partners asked me to load three containers of avocados in one week. But, they didn’t have enough money. Each container cost about $20,000 to ship.
I had a good relationship with the farmers and suppliers, so against my instincts, I took some produce on credit. Normally, I held the shipping documents until my partners sent payment, so I wasn’t worried. That system had always worked — until it didn’t.
One sunny afternoon, I was praying on the golf lawns of Migaa when I suddenly felt uneasy. My operations assistant — a girl I had mentored — had been avoiding me. She usually handled the paperwork and asked me to pay the $300 shipping fee. But this time, nothing.
I sensed something was wrong.
I called her. She lied — badly. My heart dropped.
I had never spoken directly to our shipping agent since the first negotiations. I looked for his number and called him. Not knowing the storm brewing, he casually said,
“I already sent the documents to Richard over a week ago.”
Woooi! My heart sank.
I felt my stomach turn to water. I tried calling my partner, but that was the last time he ever picked up.
Three containers.
Seventy tonnes.
Gone.
Farmers, middlemen, exporters, suppliers — everyone was after me. The partners had agreed to pay rent for our fully furnished apartment during the project. But now communication stopped. Payments stopped. Everything froze.
A month later, we were given 24 hours to vacate Migaa. And as if that wasn’t enough, a neighbor called social services, thinking our kids weren’t in school.
The Fall and the Faith
I remember that evening like yesterday.
Tears streaming down my face, I called my friend Magda. She and her husband came quickly. They picked us — me, our six kids, and the house help — and took us to their unfinished house. Only two bedrooms. Their boys slept in the living room, and the seven of us shared one room.
The next morning, with nowhere else to turn, I went to Heaven’s Gate Church. I didn’t realize then that it was God drawing me closer.
I had never needed Him like I did that week.
I couldn’t tell my family. I had failed too many times. I was tired of sounding like a broken record.
I wept. I fasted. I prayed.
Then — out of nowhere — the phone rang.
“I hear you supply avocados,” an Asian man said with a heavy accent.
That call was a miracle.
I worked with him for just two shipments and made $500. Enough to rent a small house in Greatwall for $150. We moved in a week later, after being thrown out with nothing but faith.
The balance bought three mattresses and a small stove.
The house already had a TV and a fridge — yet another miracle.
And just like that, we were starting again.
Grateful, humbled, and aware that God still writes new chapters when you think your story is over.
2020 — Confusion and Faith
George had already turned our Kigali home into an Airbnb, so going back wasn’t an option at that point.
By early 2020, we were confused. No steady income. Farm to Fork was struggling to sustain itself, and the weight was heavy.
Then, one day, our kids’ headteacher, Virginia, met George and said,
“If the kids aren’t in school, just bring them to Kigali — we’ll take them in.”
So I drove seven girls from Nairobi to Kigali.
Three days on the road.
Just me, seven kids, and $150 in my pocket.
And just when I thought we can finally breathe, the lockdown began.
No clients for the Airbnb.
All Farm to Fork contracts canceled.
No income.
We were broke. Emotionally, financially — completely.
The Visitation
And then… the Lord visited me.
That very first night of lockdown, I had a dream.
He said He wanted to give me another child.
It was the Lord Jesus Himself. Don’t ask me how I knew — He didn’t even introduce Himself. I just knew.
I argued.
I reasoned.
I cried.
But deep down, I knew. If the Lord Himself was giving me this child, He already knew about the other six. He knew our struggles. And if He was giving her to us, He would take care of this child.
So I said, “Okay, Lord, but please… I already have six girls. Make it a boy.”
Then He smiled. And said nothing.
The Spoken Word
Eight months later.
I was staying with Ann again, looking for a house. I wasn’t confident; I had taken a new low-paying job just to survive. I was tired. I didn’t know what would happen to my entrepreneurial journey.
But I knew one thing — I was going to start again.
Because the same Lord who lifted me before would lift me again, no matter how far I had fallen.
That baby turns five this month.
She is the most precious, funny, and confident little human. She is proof that God not only has a sense of humor but also perfect timing. The Lord didn’t give me a boy.
He gave me a boss baby who thinks she runs the family. 😂
The Lord gave Kaylene our first her name — Rhema. She was, and still is, the spoken word of God.
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