As she continues to draw reactions over her “Becoming a Wife” masterclass, gospel artiste Mercy Masika has come out to explain that she was never a perfect wife in her early years in marriage.
In an interview with Nation , the singer described a difficult beginning to her marriage to David Muguro, including moments when she packed her belongings, intending to leave.
She credited mentorship with helping her rethink how she related to him, adding that the experience inspired the classes she now wants to offer other women.
“In my first year, there were so many times I packed to go home,” she said.
Her husband asked her to enroll in marriage classes being offered by the co-founder of their church, Bishop Kathy Kiuna.
“Of course, I didn’t want to,” she said.
Somehow, she enrolled, and that proved to be the saving grace for her marriage, which has now reached the 19th-year mark.
“I usually say she [Rev Kiuna] is the one who inspired me to do this. If it wasn’t because of her godly counsel, I don’t think I would have made it in marriage,” Mercy said.
The singer-songwriter said independence and confidence had not necessarily prepared her for life as a wife.
“I was this kind of an empowered woman of the ‘we know what we want’ type and all that,” she said.
“We both kind of lost everything when we started out and so, at first, it was hard for me to respect my husband when he didn’t quite have a job,” she said.
Thanks to the guidance, she learnt to have faith in her husband, and understanding what respect meant within their relationship helped them through that period.
“I learnt that sometimes when fighting, you don’t get anything. In fact, you lose more,” said Mercy.
Something as simple as knowing how to address your husband, she noted, can save a marriage.
“We ask ourselves about the love language but we don’t ask ourselves the respect language. So, I learnt my husband’s respect language,” she said. “In every couple, the husbands just want respect.”
Today, she describes their marriage, which has two teenage children, as one that has weathered financial problems and sickness.
Gospel singer Mercy Masika.
Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group
“My husband has been very responsible and supportive. It’s been a beautiful journey just serving God together, working together,” she said.
By the time she became a national sensation with her hit song, “Mwema”, Mr Muguro was her manager. She credits his business skills, negotiation and calmer approach with bringing order to her career.
“He’s more of a businessperson than me. He’s a better negotiator and calmer and all. So, we complemented each other,” said Mercy. Mercy said she had an “attitude” in her first years of marriage, to mean she was strong-willed.
“I was honest with myself before I went to the mentorship class. I was like, ‘Well, I really have attitude. Attitude I have. I really have answers; honest, brutal answers.’ So, going into the class helped me realise that women are builders, and we also have more emotional intelligence than our men,” she said.
She also recalled approaching premarital counselling as though she and her fiancé already knew everything they needed to know.
“We thought we knew, but when you get in there, the game is different,” she said. “We had a tough first year, second year. Then I had mentors, of course, who came in.”
With that benefit of hindsight, she said, she now wants to mentor younger women – drawing from the Biblical epistle of Titus in which Paul states: “Then they [older women] can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”
She described the masterclass as intended for women in otherwise good relationships but who feel they don’t get enough affection, attention and time from their men.
“If those are your problems, I have your solutions,” she said.
If the women are facing what she called “deal-breakers” like abuse and infidelity, she noted, the masterclass is not the right platform for them.
“You don’t become an enabler for abuse,” she said, insisting that her discussion of mentorship and reconciliation should not be read as a claim that every marriage can be repaired by a wife changing her behaviour.
Her theory is that if a woman has tried all means of reconciliation and has even involved the community in vain, then she should consider parting ways.
She also rejected the suggestion that humility means a woman losing her identity to let the man take charge.
“Personally, I’m not a lowlife. I’ve made it, you know, in music,” she said, pointing to her success, ongoing PhD studies, among other feats. “I think I’m in a good place to tell someone that humility works better.”
Insisting that marriage shouldn’t mean enslavement for women, she noted that the biblical woman she wants to teach about is industrious and active in business, rather than timid or without ambitions.
“The Proverbs 31 woman is not a timid woman,” she said.
Mr Muguro, on the other hand, offered a bleak assessment of the institution of marriage today.
“Ni kubaya (Things are bad),” he said, laughing, before stressing that he still saw hope in people’s need for companionship, partnership and encouragement.
He argued that people invest in education and business skills without necessarily making the same effort to learn about family life.
For him, the controversy around his wife’s project presents an opportunity to encourage that learning, rather than abandon marriage as an institution.
Mr Muguro has been running a programme called Man Up for the past three years at Jubilee Christian Church (JCC) Parklands – his church for the past 23 years. The programme, he said, brings together counsellors and business professionals to discuss life issues, decision-making and parenting.
Mr Muguro argues that what troubles marriages is the erosion of foundations like family upbringing and mentorship.
“A lot of things that we are going through as a society, as a nation, are due to foundations that have been either cracked or sometimes are not there,” he argues.
He questioned an approach in which a spouse concentrates on expectations of the other person without asking what role they themselves should play.
“We don’t see the other person as important as we are,” he said.
“Before you even submit, you fell in love. Before you came into that particular marriage, you made a decision based on the person,” he said.
Among the people who had expressed reservations about what Mercy’s masterclass portended is media personality Janet Mbugua. However, when she appeared with Mercy at the NTV show, she apologised for how her reaction was received. Facing the singer, Ms Mbugua said the conversation had not been intended as an attack.
“I apologise that that’s what ended up happening,” she said, acknowledging Mercy’s ministry and describing her as somebody people had loved and admired for a long time. “It’s good to hold oneself accountable, and that’s me doing that. So, apologies for that, Mercy.”
Gospel singer Mercy Masika and her husband David Muguro at Nation Centre, Nairobi on November 10, 2026.
Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group
Ms Mbugua noted that the announcement had opened a broader conversation: “Is the church meeting people in the realities that they are in today?”
She drew a distinction between valuing marriage and recognising the experiences of people whose relationships had failed. Her own marriage had not worked out, she said, while her parents’ marriage of 49 years remained an example she saw every day.
“The Bible and the Word are solid. They never change. They’ve always been. The teachings change,” said Ms Mbugua.
For some women, she explained, Mercy’s masterclass poster recalled efforts they had already made to sustain a marriage without success. Her concern was whether the masterclass would meet women in their different circumstances.
Mercy, in response, said men as well as women had responsibilities within her Christian understanding of marriage.
“Men ought to love women the way Christ loves the church,” she said.
For the women, she said there should be a deliberate choice on whom they fall in love with.
“I think it’s important for us girls not to just fall in love, but to stand in love, not to freeze our brains when we are falling in love,” she said.
The masterclass poster became the subject of chatter and memes on social media. The controversy centred on whether teaching women to become wives places an unequal burden on them to make marriages work, and whether comparable attention is being given to husbands’ responsibilities. Concerns also extended to the place of marriage among women’s other ambitions.
Another public figure who weighed in is actress Catherine Kamau, popularly known as Kate Actress, who noted that while she is not against marriage, women also pursued education, property ownership, financial wellness and mental wellbeing. In her opinion, marriage should be an aspiration rather than a measure of a woman’s success.
Others have defended Mercy’s right to offer guidance to women who wanted it. News anchor Mashirima Kapombe argued that disagreement with the initiative did not justify attacks against its organiser, and urged people outside the intended audience to move on.
The competing reactions left two distinct questions in the foreground. One is whether women should be free to seek faith-based marriage mentorship. The other is whether such guidance adequately addresses mutual responsibility.
“I think that was very interesting. We had thought about it, prayed about it, of course, but did not see the reaction as it came,” he said. “There are so many things that we had not foreseen; the issues with our society, the pain with so many disappointed and angry reactions. We took that as a learning curve for us.”
“No,” she said. “I thought it would be like 20 women, you know, a few people. I’ve never seen attraction to something like this before. But for me, you know, being a Christian, of course, God led me to this..”
The masterclass tickets are selling, Mercy said, but not sold out as some reports suggested.
“We’re still open for more people. We’re doing well, but we could do better because we’re aiming to reach 10 million families.”
“At first we said one million families, but when we saw the need, we said, ‘Okay, fine, it’s 10 million families.’ And we can do that by the grace of God.”
She told NTV: “We’re not telling you to submit fully; it’s not the main thing. There are many other things. We’re also creating a community for businesses because a godly woman has to be making money.”
A poster for the event says the topics to be covered include Biblical intimacy, “warfare”, building and being a dynamic woman. Rev Kiuna is among the announced speakers.
“Men are very simple,” said Mercy. “All they want is three things.”
