John Mwatu Oyoo and Chami Lu Anne Oyoo: Kenyan-American Couple Narrate their Beautiful Love Story

They say love has no boundaries, and that is certainly the case for this devoted Kenya-American couple who has been married for six years now.

John Mwatu Oyoo, a Kenyan, and his wife Chami Lu Anne Oyoo, an American national from Indiana, shared their love story during a recent interview with Daily Nation. 

Chami first came to Kenya in 2011 on a two-week charity mission with her church—she was 17 years old at the time.

“We stayed at a guest house around Yaya (Centre in Nairobi), close to the orphanage our church had assigned us to. We would hold the babies and help feed and clean them. On our last day, we visited Kibera slums courtesy of one of our members who had made numerous trips to Kenya in the past,” Chami said.

After returning home, Chami could not stop thinking about Kenya and two years later, she informed her family of her desire to move to Kenya permanently. Her parents did not object.

“I was yanked out of my little bubble and awoken to a new reality. By then, I’d fallen in love with the culture and the warmth of the Kenyan people I’d met, and on my flight back home, I felt in my gut that I’d to return, but never did I imagine that meant permanent immigration,” she says.
 
“I said, ‘Mom, Dad, there’s something you need to know, I want to relocate to Kenya.’ They simply looked at each other and smiled, then mom placed her palm over my sweaty fist and said, ‘it’s been a long time coming, we have been waiting.”

She adds: “I’d been prepared for a contest because my three elder brothers had joined university straight from high school and I had shown interest in wanting to become a nurse,” she adds.

Through friends and family, Chami and her best friend Holly Peters were able to fund-raise for their trip to Kenya in 2013. Their accommodation was organized by Moses Wafula, a Kenyan man they had met during their maiden tour to Kenya.

“I slept through most of the flight while Holly stayed awake watching movies. At 11.30 pm after check out, we spotted our contact Moses at the exit standing next to the white van that would take us to our new home in Olympic, Kibera.”

Moses and his friends, among them Oyoo, were jointly running a feeding program in Kibera at the time. Chami and Holly joined the feeding program on a voluntary basis and this is where she met John.

“Once a week, my friends and I, who were raised in Kibera, would gather children from the neighborhood and serve them a meal, but the number of children kept swelling every week and we began to get overwhelmed in terms of money as well as a helping hand,” John recounts.

“Feeding took place at a community hall in Olympic, close to where we lived. We would wake up around 4 am to get the fire started, while the girls would join us at around 6 am to help cook.”

Moses, John, Chami, Holly, and other members of the feeding program later decided to start Born To Shine (BTS), an organization that offers guidance and counseling to teenagers. Today, BTS brings together at least 30 teens to engage in various activities including life lessons on Fridays, Bible study on Wednesdays, and prayer sessions every Monday. 

The initiative brought John and Chami together and it did not take long before the two fell for each other.

“On several occasions, I caught John looking at me in a certain way; I even once caught him absent-mindedly staring at me while I took some girls through a Bible class but I thought nothing of it,” says Chami.

John says: “I was awed by her patience towards the children and how dedicated she was to this project. I was getting attracted to her.”

One day as they served children at the community hall, a boy fell and got injured. John and Chami rushed him to the hospital where he underwent surgery. 

The two spent the day at the hospital as the boy was being attended to by doctors and John took advantage of the opportunity to speak his heart out.

“As unexpected as that day was, it turned out to be our first date. Before then, Chami and I had never been alone together. We were always in the presence of other people. Besides her being beautiful, I was won over by how humble and modest she was,” says John.

“But she wouldn’t agree to date until I called her parents to seek their permission. She gave me her dad’s number, and out of fear, it took me a week to make that call. Mobile network was poor and our accents were a barrier, but I eventually got his approval to date his daughter,” John recalls.

Chami says: “Our courtship was humble because we directed most of our money to our community project. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful courtship. We took nature walks, went hiking, and shared jokes that only the two of us could understand, besides serving our community together.” 

Having been convinced that Chami was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, John proposed to her in 2014.

“I bought Chami a ring, and on her birthday, I wore orange, floral shirt (which used to be my lucky shirt until she threw it out after we got married) and took her to a modest Chinese cake shop and proposed. She said ‘yes’.”

In April that year, the two tied the knot in a small ceremony attended by 30 guests. Chami’s family followed the ceremony via Skype as they were unable to travel.

“We would have wanted them to be there, but had to make peace with [their absence]. The wedding was beautiful! I especially enjoyed the photo session and the dancing,” she says.

Chami and John later traveled to Indiana for an introduction. “I expected the usual official treatment in-laws receive in my culture but was pleasantly surprised by how laid back their culture is. My father-in-law welcomed me with a hug and even let me stay in his home during the duration of our visit,” John says.

The couple visits Chami’s family once a year for three months.  The two have two daughters together; Brielle Praise and Jasmine Rose.

As expected, their marriage has not been one without challenges, especially cultural differences.

“Fish was a recurring subject at the beginning of our marriage because Chami could not bring herself to eat tilapia with the “head staring” at her, as she put it.”

“However, where I come from, tilapia is a delicacy eaten whole. We only leave the bones. We feast on everything else,” says John.

 Chami says: “I learned to cook most Kenyan dishes by watching YouTube videos. I especially love cooking chapatis and samosas. I also learned to care for my daughters’ beautiful curly hair through YouTube. The trick is to minimize shampooing, keeping it moisturized, and using certain oils.”

In 2016, the couple joined hands with friends and officially registered Endless Frontier Foundation with John as its director.

“Our vision is to reach the youth of Kibera while still young and offer discipleship and leadership skills,” says John.

The charity draws most of its funding from Endless Frontier Foundation-US in the form of grants and individual donations.