Kenyan churches respond to violence

House which was burned, killing 2 children and  injuring 2 others

This weekend troops of armed village youth swept through the villages south of Kisumu, Kenya, precisely at the location of the Kisumu East diocese of the Kenya Mennonite Church.  These 2000-some youth were armed with bows & arrows, spears, and machetes.  Perpetrators who have been captured say they were paid to conduct these raids, but it is not yet known who is behind the violence.  Kenyans presume the violence is political-ethnically motivated, similar to the violence of the post-election crisis of 2008. 

Members of three Mennonite churches, and the surrounding communities, have had homes burned, cattle and goats stolen and sugar cane—the primary cash crop—razed.  At least two children and three adults from the community have been killed so far, and 16 seriously injured, including 2 Mennonite Church members.  As this area uses a subsistence economy, when livestock are stolen and grain stores burned, local people literally have nothing to live on from today to tomorrow.

Kids and Women in the camnp

Police have come in to attempt to stop immediate violence, and make-shift “camps” are being formed; these camps are basically huddles of people running for their lives.  The largest is in the village of Owiro, where Bishop Clyde Agola reports 3,028 people have taken refuge.  They have little or no access to food, sanitation, or shelter from the elements.  Tuesday (today) is Day 4 since the violence began, and hunger is reaching desperate proportions.  The Red Cross and World Vision are providing medical supplies, but sufficient food aid is yet to reach the camps. 

EMM and MCC, working together, have responded by releasing $3000 in immediate relief funds, channeled through the Mennonite Church and KEDHAP, a community based organization, in that area.  While far from adequate, these funds have enabled the local leaders including the Mennonite church leaders, to distribute water sanitation kits, blankets to the most elderly persons in the camps, and food—with a priority for nursing mothers.  National television filmed the distributions.

“The quick action you have taken has made people realize they are not alone,” says Mennonite Bishop Clyde Agola.  Drawing from experience in the post-election crisis of 2007 and 2008, the churches have stepped up to the plate.  Even though they are among those affected, church members are manning each of the camps, communicating with each other on needs and incidents, and recording detailed information on the families represented so that any aid can be distributed in an orderly way. 

Comparing notes; officials from World Vision, Mennonite Church, and Anglican Church

After years of serving the community through development projects funded by MCC, EMM, and Jubilee Trust, the church has gained respect and credibility.  “Through all of this, we are seeing God’s grace shine through the church to the whole area,” comments Aram DiGennaro, EMM’s Regional Representative. 

EMM is now accepting contributions to provide immediate relief.  When the pressing crisis is resolved, we will prioritize long-term peace building efforts in that region.  This response will be implemented jointly with Mennonite Central Committee, and will be channeled  through Kenya Mennonite Church and other development and peace partners.

Inside one of the classrooms of the primary school where people have taken refuge

A displaced Widow preparing lunch for her children

Distributing blankets to elderly women

Food given to lactating mothers first

Mission Accomplished? Mission Accomplished? Mission Accomplished?

"The LORD will make you the head, not the tail, if you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God"

The other day I woke up early to take a bike ride, and, since I was on my mountain bike, I decided to tackle a segment of the new Nairobi bypass, currently under construction. The topography on that side of Nairobi is a series of ridges and valleys, and the new "road" cuts across them at right angles.

At this point, the builders have bulldozed off the tips and dumped some gravel in the valleys, but sections are still steep or rocky enough to make passage, even foot passage, strenuous.

Amazingly, traffic has already begun! Foot traffic, that is--shoulder to shoulder, trudging silently, pouring in from the highlands towards town.  The incoming road has already rerouted travel and is carrying thousands of people a day--even though it's not even fully passable on a bicycle.

It occurs to me that this is an apt metaphor for what we have accomplished with the East Africa Regional office. At the end of 2011, a lot of people worked very hard to get us on the field for another term, avoiding a spectacular shutdown. Since December, we've worked very hard on less visible things like program reviews, accounting procedures, profitability at the guest house, and key relationships with our head office. We've engaged EMM’s administration in forward-focused, strategic planning for the major assets in this region, like Rosslyn Academy and the Mennonite Guest House. We're networking widely with partners and allies here in Kenya.

This is all part of getting enough of a road to walk on.

Not coincidentally, we are starting to get "traffic." Rod and Lucy Lehman arrived at the beginning of February to work with hosting at the MGH and liaise with Kenya churches. We've appointed Joe and Gloria Bontrager to work with leadership training in both Kenya and Tanzania, and Joe is arriving at the end of this week to work on project design. Duane Groff, an intern, continues doing youth work with refugees at Eastleigh Fellowship Centre, and we plan to grow the intern program.

After two decades of decline, with the old road getting more and more bush-covered and impassible, we may be emerging into a new era, clearing a new route: still rough, but comprehensible, direct, and appropriate.

It would be tempting to conclude that we've succeeded, when in fact we have only begun. A poor interpretation of the Mennonite ethos often exalts modest ambitions as a proxy for humility. We are a small congregation, but we can, after all, build the best walking paths out there.

Truly, many faithful labors yield modest results. But Mennonites often act as thought modest is the only way to go. Well, it's nice to have a better way to walk to work, but that's not enough for a modern city.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but modesty isn't working for us. Not working well, not working a little, it's not working at all. Our assets have been poorly-used, our program has nearly collapsed, and constituents have questioned whether EMM is really viable to represent them as a mission agency. One person even joked to me that the main qualification for being an EMM missionary is "your body has to still be warm"

Merely breathing is no longer an option for us, and it is certainly not a faithful interpretation of our position and calling. EMM and MCC have invested over a thousand years of missionary labor, and millions of dollars. Thousands of dedicated disciples still carry this place in their hearts. We have discerned a strong call to witness to the unreached, while bringing peace, health, and freedom from the demons of poverty.

And we are in the right place. After nearly 80 years in East Africa, we have garnered substantial assets. The most important is a broad and deep set of relationships with Mennonite and other churches. By mere accident, we have accumulated substantial valuable real estate assets which dwarf the rest of EMM's holdings worldwide. By virtue of our location in Nairobi, we're at the heart of the most dynamic center of non-profit and mission activity in the world. It's the most modern city between Cairo and Johannesburg, the third largest UN presence, following Geneva and New York, and the logical base from which to reach Sub-Saharan Africa. Investment dollars and aid dollars are flowing through at an astonishing rate.

The other day I met a woman my age who came to Kenya in her early twenties and started working on hygiene and nutrition issues for children. Her organization now employs 30 full-time trainers. And that's after only 10 years!

What are the possibilities for us? Could a dynamic church planter work alongside Kenyans and mobilize a generation of missionaries to branch out from a largely mono-ethnic church? Could someone trained in peacebuilding or international relations spearhead a leading peacebuilding program among Somalis, run by Mennonites and funded by American (or European) tax dollars? Could the best Mennonite business minds design a real estate development project based on our land here and contributing a million dollars a year to EMM's programs? Could hardworking, simple-living farmers coordinate a multifaceted development and discipleship project on the 1,000 acres a partner has been offered in South Sudan? I haven't found a solid reason why each of these possibilities could not become a reality.

Will there be suffering? Almost every day, yes. Will some of us die? Well, some of us have already given our lives along the way. Will it be harder than making a living in Ohio, more risky than investing in Boston? Yup. We better not be doing this to extend our life expectancy, or for our own legacy or happiness.

But legacy, and happiness too, are part of the picture. Each family working long-term in East Africa can realistically dream of building something as large as the entire rest of EMM. We are beginning to see opportunities far out of proportion with the size of our organization and our constituency. The doors are open, if we are willing to step through them.

Right now, it's just a footpath, but the superhighway is coming, built by people acting in faith, driven by the relentless and determined will of God.