Kenya--June, 2011

In June I was invited to Kenya by Wilson Gathungu and a team from Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City where Wilson has been a student. In a class with Terry Rosell on Christian ethics Wilson wrote about the political violence in December 2007 and January 2008 around the national election. Rosell challenged Wilson that what he wrote shouldn't just be a paper but a project. Wilson in response established the Kenya Peace Iniative, a project that took him back home to do the organizing work for a major effort at conflict transformation training and grassroots reconciliation activities.

Terry's wife Ruth is also a professor at CBTS, and she grew up as a missionary kid in Kenya and Tanzania. Terry and Ruth and their four adult children took on the KPI as a personal concern, helping to raise the funds and go to Kenya to participate in the project. One of their children, Nehemiah Rosell, participated in an 11-day training I led in January 2010 to train people to do the kind of training I do. In additional my wife Sharon joined the team. We ended up with Sharon, Nehemiah and I as the training team with Terry and Ruth providing devotional leadership.

Meanwhile Wilson was doing some of the best organizing work I've ever seen. He pulled together a large planning team that drew from the two major conflicted ethnic groups as well as two other groups. Church leaders from various Christian denominations got excited about the training as well as many university students and leaders from various social and political sectors. Wilson used the planning process to draw many people from communities throughout the Molo District into the initiative. Then he worked out follow-up plans that built naturally on what we were doing. He did fantastic work in both design of the project and in the hard nitty-gritty work of contacting and organizing people.

There were 5 days of the centerpiece project our team led alongside Wilson. The first day was hands-on reconciliation work with the 50 participants from the various ethnic groups and organizations. We went to one of the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. Then we built two homes--one for a Kikuyu family and one for a Kalenjin family, with Kikuyus, Kalenjins and others working side-by-side. I helped in hoisting up the roof beams. Sharon took off her shoes and jumped into the hole in the center of the house where mud was made with foot power to then plaster the walls.

Later in the afternoon we went to a school that was near one of the hottest spots in the violence. We planted a "peace forest"--over 50 trees with students of various ethnic groups joining our mixed peace workshop participants in planting the trees as a sign of peace. Then we all ate "out of one pot" from the different ethnic dishes.

For three days Sharon, Nehemiah and I facilitated a conflict transformation training. We covered topics of conflict resolution, nonviolence, trauma healing and reconciliation. We utilized many simulation games and other participatory activities. People commented about how there had been many structured dialogs by various groups to try to build peace, but they had never learned so much as at this training. That's the value of experiential education!

On Sunday our team went to a Kalenjin church only a few yards away from a Kikuyu IDP camp. Wilson had organized the people from the church and the camp to get to meet each other. They joined together in worship with Wilson preaching on reconciliation. Then people from all the various churches and communities in Molo District gathered in Molo Town. We had a big march with the Salvation Army band leading the way. We headed toward the soccer stadium for a peace rally.

Just as we came on the road to the stadium the skies opened with a torrential downpour that lasted almost an hour. We were all soaked and huddled under the only shelter in the area which was too small for us all. Pastor Grace, who had been in the workshop, praised God for the rain (we were on the edge of the drought area that was to make awful news in Somalia and parts of Kenya a few weeks later). She led the band out into the mud, celebrating. I would have called the rally off, but people aren't so easily discouraged in Africa! When the rains stopped everyone gathered by the soaked stage. The music started, and they did the whole program. I was the main speaker, preaching on Romans 12.21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Since nobody else shortened what they did, I didn't cut it short either. We had a great time closing out an amazing chapter in the journey toward reconciliation in Kenya.

Wilson has continued building on what we started. We regularly connect with and consult with participants from the workshop. I'll be returning in June 2012 before the next election to continue to build on the work Wilson and others have been doing.