“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints”. Ps. 116:15. 

This is very true of the two Sisters of Mary Immaculate of Nyeri, Sr. Rosetta Njeri and Sr. Cecilia Wangeci. These are courageous women who chose death rather than what could have contradicted the faith they had defended and promised to keep to the end at any cost. Their faithfulness and trust in God can be traced from the letters and sharing shortly before their brutal murder by the Mau Mau freedom fighters. Both and individually had written at different times about fear for their lives to Sr. Michelina Wairimu (a member of the SMI General Council then). Sr. Cecilia had also written another letter to her biological sister Lucia Warundu ending with the words, “… if we are killed ….” The two also shared with some SMI members and friends at Consolata Hospital Mathari expressing the same prediction that if God willed that they be killed, they were ready.   

  
The Mau Mau disliked the sisters specifically for the following reasons:  

• They refused to marry according to the custom of their people, thus they held back the birth rate of their tribe.
• They refused to take Mau Mau’s oath.
• They advised Christians not to take the oath, and they gave the message of hope and of the mercy of God to those who repented.

They were brutally attacked with pangas and machetes for their fidelity to God on the night of 15th October, 1953 at Baricho in Murang’a Diocese, Kenya in the company of three other sisters. They died at dawn of 16th October, 1953.