Gazette - 6/12/16 - Probate & Admin. - A. Berntsen Stockseth of Old Kisumu who died at Nyangori 7/11/16. Applied for by Clyde T. Miller of Nyangori.

Red Book 1912 - C.T. Miller - Kisumu

Omololu Ebenezer Fagunwaa, African Pentecostalism and the 1918 influenza pandemic: Kenya’s earliest Pentecostal history can be traced to Clyde Toliver Miller (1884–1954) and his wife, Lila May Sturgis (1891–1978). Lila was a daughter of Miller’s mentor, Robert Waldron of Kansas. In 1907, the couple left for Kisumu, Kenya, to work with the Nilotic Independent Mission. At the initiative of Miller, Robert Waldron and John Buckley (a mission financier) quickly formed the “Apostolic Faith Mission” to acquire 109 acres of mission land among the Nyangori people in Kisumu.7 However, in 1908, the parcel of land was bought by Clyde Miller in his name, and that led to stewardship disagreements with the sponsors8 and a consequent marital separation from Lila7 that was responsible for the collapse of Clyde Miller’s mission. What can we say about Miller during the influenza pandemic? The time of pandemic was a frustrating period for Clyde Miller as he struggled with divorce, disfavour with the government, and distrust from his sponsor. So, in 1919, he sold the mission field to a “fill-in” German missionary, Otto Keller (1888–1942), of Pentecostal Assemblies Mission.9 Miller’s ministry could not stand the test of the pandemic. It appeared as if God used the pandemic to repair and reposition His Church. The absence of the Millers names in the list of missionaries in the minutes of the 7th General Council of the Assemblies of God held in 1919 and the appearance of Mr and Mrs John Buckley as missionaries in British East Africa confirmed the decline of Clyde Miller’s missionary work.

a dependable Pentecostal voice to respond to the 1918 flu in Kenya. More so, using the keywords “Clyde,” “Toliver,” “Miller” between the years 1917–1922 in the consortium database did not yield any remarkable account of his engagement/response during the pandemic nor engagement with the mission sponsors. However, a search between 1913 and 1916 indicated that Clyde Miller wrote letters from Nyangori, Kisumu, Kenya;15,16 received permission to stay at his post in Kisumu;17 and wrote about the lack of funds.18 Why was there not an adequate hint or correspondence about the 1918 influenza from both the Millers and the Kellers, especially at a time when various Pentecostal magazines, such as International Pentecostal Holiness Advocate, Pentecostal Herald, Pentecostal Evangel, Church of God Evangel, and Latter Rain Evangel were reporting the pandemic.