I have only one pair of good boots. I seldom get to use them, but they were the first thing I packed. For fifteen days I traveled through central Africa. Into the middle of the continent, and the middle of some of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. Africa Inland Mission’s objective was to gauge the state of the church here, if there was one, and to learn how to re-engage these lands with a renewed missionary effort. What do you take on a trip like that? Good boots and a Bible. A notebook and an open mind. And, if you dare, an open heart.

Into Sudan, Congo, Chad, and the Central Africa Republic. Four countries with a combined land mass equal to two-thirds of the United States, but without the roads. So where the Land Rovers wouldn’t go, we traveled by air, motorcycle, dugout canoe, and foot – over thousands of miles of savanna, rain forest, mountain and desert. The landscapes were forbidding, and beautiful; giving way to sunlit villages of thatch and meandering footpaths, where smiling children and women carted the wares of life atop their heads.

But one has a sense, on a journey such as this, that there’s more to the story of the people and the land than you can catch at a glance. Where your boots meet the rich, red African soil, and where your itinerary makes time for a cup of tea and a conversation, you begin to see the real picture. It is largely a disheartening one. From the southern mountains of Sudan, all the way inland to Lake Chad, these four unique nations share one tragic history. Each gained independence from colonial rule somewhere around 1960. And each replaced one kind of oppression with another. What followed has been decades of human conflict and unfathomable suffering. Economies and communities were destroyed. Infrastructures crumbled. People scattered. The wicked prospered and the righteous lost their homes.

All four countries in recent years were listed among the ten least stable entities in the world. But those are only the political woes. For most of the people here, generations of spiritual darkness rooted in Animistic beliefs have led to a culture steeped in fatalism and fear. The “spirits” which they believe control their world are the most prominent and powerful forces in their lives. And the influence of Islam simply brings more fearful uncertainty.

My boots plodded through the thick elephant grass in the Datooga Mountains, tracing out a path up a hillside and back in time to an era when missionaries lived and worked here. Their house, like the Bible School they built, lay crumbling and bare, returning to the clay from which its bricks were cast. Sudan’s war in the 80’s drove them out and shut down the school. The Church scattered, but somehow, survived. Even grew.

How is that possible? It’s been said that “the local church is the hope of the world.” Jesus said as much. He told his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.” And in central Africa, glimpses of that hope still remain. But they are like the courageous flickers of a lamp in danger of going out.

I sat and listened to James and John, two young Sudanese pastors aptly named, as they told the story of reclaiming a village for the Lord, and how they fought for it, literally, on their knees next to a slab of concrete that was once a whole church. I listened to a Zande choir rock their church, and my soul, with the sound of drums and voices lifted above the vaulted roof of a sanctuary built long ago, above a canopy of trees in the rainforest of C.A.R. I traveled down the Chari River with pastor Samuel, his face a mixture of uncommon humility and unpretentious humanity. We ventured onto the waters of lake Chad and prayed. Prayed, boldly it seemed, for the Gospel to one day take root this far inland. And for his little mud church upstream to simply stand. I saw Pastor Lalima praying over a thousand ravaged and displaced people in Adi. I saw the gleaming faces of the graduating class from the Bible Institute in Obo. I saw an old man, his life long ago transformed, rebuilding that old Bible school there in the Datooga Mountains.

The local church is the hope of the world. And it’s the hope for central Africa. It is God’s chosen instrument to transform lives and bring people into His Kingdom. It’s his instrument to preserve a community, a country, and the world from the debasement and destruction of sin. “But what if the salt loses it saltiness?” AIM’s Central Region coordinator simply looked north to answer the question. North Africa used to have a vibrant church. Today, it’s all but gone. He warned that this could happen here too. Are we a generation away? Less? The hard truth is that the Church in central Africa is but a remnant. Dealt a double blow from war and syncretism. It’s been scattered, persecuted, diluted. And, if you ask them, abandoned.

AIM’s initial missionary effort in these lands was not perfect. But the roots planted by those first pioneers somehow endured a forty-year absence. The danger now is that the “living stones” of the Body of Christ are looking much like the actual stones of many of the buildings. Crumbling. One wall where there should be four. Choked and overgrown with weeds. Over 124 million people live in these four nations. More than 220 unreached people groups. And a singular, impoverished church begging for help to reach them. It’s time AIM returned to central Africa.

Whatever the continued missionary effort looks like, it must be made of disciple-makers. All throughout this region, there are places where the church does not yet exist, and places where the church is barely holding on. And over countless hours in countless meetings with pastors and church leaders in the region, I heard their pleas. They ask for missionaries: people who love Jesus and are willing to share their lives and talents, to perhaps meet a practical need, while all along addressing the most important one – transformational discipleship.

It requires a coming-alongside to teach, speak courage, and ultimately go out together as One Church to the unreached. Central Africa’s transformation will begin here; in the hearts of people who are transformed into Christ’s likeness. Making more disciples who then make more. Is this vision for central Africa even possible? One thing is certain: we can no longer wait for it to become easy.

By day twelve on our fifteen-day trip I quit admiring my boots. I had grown to resent them, as well as the socks I had been wearing for three days straight. My feet were aching and slightly blistered. Gore Tex doesn’t really breathe when it’s 117 degrees. Some days prior, our pilot on the trip made a comment about feet that came to mind. I mentioned something about the “feet of those who bring good news” and he chuckled.

“Don’t know why they’re called beautiful,” he said. “The missionaries who have served here have trashed their feet. Only God could call them beautiful.”

This is a hard place. This is a hard calling. How do you live in a land of persistent instability? How do you minister to the spiritually oppressed and oppressive?  How do you learn the language, understand the culture, navigate the government abuse? How do you throw up your hands in frustration and embrace a friend at the same time? What do you do when the next war touches you, and it’s your turn to flee? What if you lose all your stuff? What if you lose more than just your stuff? What if it’s worth it?

I sat in the dark; in a semi-circle of Congolese pastors at Aru. They asked us, unashamedly, why the missionaries are not returning. “Because it’s hard” we told them. “Sometimes they hear the news of this place and are afraid.” And one of them said something I cannot forget.

“In the past there were missionaries who loved us… and they accepted to suffer with us.”

And I wondered if the past was just that. Past.

I don’t know what to do with this. God is calling me to something, but is it something this hard? I have these feet, and they can go. They are able, even if they are not experienced. But the question I’m asking is this: are they willing? Willing to walk some of the earth’s most beautiful and devastated lands? Willing to stand side by side with those of my African brothers and sisters? Willing to be trashed in the process, and one day be called beautiful? Are my feet willing to move against the fear?

I don’t know what to do with this. But one thing I know I can’t do anymore is walk away.

Rwanda has come a long way since 1994.  As you descend into Kigali international airport, the sun glints off the corrugated roofs that decorate rolling hillsides, and many people on the plane will leave the country a couple of weeks later convinced that Rwanda itself is a glimmer of light in a ‘dark continent’ that often seems to make the headlines for the wrong reasons.  Significant aid money and foreign investment are driving an ambitious development programme that is producing tangible results in health, education and infrastructure, but those who stay here for any length of time soon become aware of a heaviness in the atmosphere that cannot be solely attributed to the sub-tropical climate.  Clouds of a different variety still hang over Rwanda.  The annual week of mourning remembers the dead but also traumatizes many of the living, and there are daily reminders of the genocide in the war of words with France and the war of attrition a few miles over the border in Eastern Congo, where the humanitarian catastrophe caused by ethnically-motivated fighting has claimed 5,000,000 (yes, that’s five million) lives since 1998.  How can we not lose heart?

Perhaps a better question is how can we lose heart, when Rwandans themselves – who have suffered so much – refuse to do so?  Rather than blame God for their problems, they look to Him for solutions and recognize the need to depend on Him in a way that they never have before.  ‘We are in God’s hands now’, they reason.  Nominal Christianity has had its day here.  90% of the country was ‘Christian’ before 1994, but too many churches now serve as memorials for that statistic to be taken seriously.
Here’s a statistic that should be taken seriously – only 5% of the country’s proliferating evangelical churches have a pastor with any kind of theological training.  This is a problem in most African countries, but it seems to be particularly acute in Rwanda where the very events that led to a new spiritual openness have deprived the country of the people best placed to fill in the blanks.  A generation of pastors who were not prepared to condone genocide either fell or fled in 1994.

By 2001, the Church was starting to look forwards instead of backwards, and the scale of the task ahead of them became apparent.  ‘We realized that we needed our own college’, says Pastor Karangwa, President of the Evangelical Alliance of Rwanda, a grouping of thirty different evangelical denominations.  In a country infamous for division, this bold demonstration of vision and unity was something that AIM felt compelled to encourage, and we agreed to partner with the Alliance as they developed a facility to equip church leaders for the unique challenges of ministering to post-genocide Rwanda.  Slowly but surely, the Faculté de Théologie Evangélique au Rwanda (FATER) has grown in size and effectiveness.  It is now in its third set of rented premises, teaching evening classes in the classrooms of a local school and using the conference room of a neighbouring church for office space and a library.  The plywood partitioning gives our accommodation a very temporary feel and it will soon be time for us to move on again.  With a growing library, faculty and student body (now up to 62) we are working closely together in every sense, and we desperately need our own set of premises.  You have to see the funny side when your lesson is drowned out by a rainstorm or when you see the older students using torches to read their exam papers in the gloom provided by a couple of 60W bulbs, but if we are serious about training men and women to lead Rwanda’s churches, then we have to aspire to something better than this.

And so we find ourselves on the brink of some momentous changes in the life of the college.  As Rwanda joins the East African Community and the Commonwealth, we are having to teach in English as well as French and we are now known as The Rwanda Institute of Evangelical Theology, as well as FATER.  To make this transition we need to recruit English language teachers and we are also looking to take on additional theology lecturers.  We are keen to maintain the balance of Rwandan and ex-pat staff that we currently have, with a view to the college being led by a Rwandan principal within a few years.

Other challenges include the need to pursue accreditation and to move ahead with the building project.  We currently have a piece of land and a set of plans, but the realization of those plans is in the Lord’s hands.  We are keen for the Evangelical Alliance to be the driving force behind the college’s development, but as they seek to raise money from local churches, we recognize the need to partner with them and give Christians from around the world the opportunity to invest in something that will help to establish God’s kingdom in Rwanda and to empower the Rwandan Church to look beyond its own borders to the unreached peoples of Africa.

At times the challenges that lie ahead seem daunting and I am tempted to ask myself that question: how can we not lose heart?  But then I look at one of my students, Gratien, a pastor in his fifties, who did not lose heart when the militia hammered on the doors of his church and demanded the lives of the 300 people that he was sheltering there.  I remember what Gratien told me about how his time at the college has transformed his ministry and given him a new confidence to teach God’s Word to those who are often tempted to lose heart.  And I look at Phanuel, who found the answer to his own question and is now back in Rwanda.

Click to see the photo album

In 1994, one million Rwandans were killed in the span of three months. Killed not by a bomb or weapon of mass destruction, but by a million weapons of small destruction, garden tools mostly. Killed not so much by an army, like the genocide of WW2, but neighbor turning against neighbor.

This is a hard fact to ignore, even fourteen years after the Rwandan genocide, as you walk the streets of Kigali. You find yourself mentally subtracting fourteen years from the age of each person you meet, thinking of the atrocities they witnessed as a child, or worse, the atrocities they may have committed. For a country with a population of only eight million, the death of one million at the hands of their neighbors means nobody was unaffected. Everybody who survived lost somebody, if not their whole family. Many personally witnessed rape or murder at close range. Most had their lives threatened. And fourteen years later you can still feel the tension and pain people are carrying.

One Rwandese youth I visited with after church told me “Nobody trusts each other. They may smile when they meet you, but as soon as you go they stop smiling and consider you their enemy.” He had fled Rwanda as a four year old, grew up in Kenya, and recently returned to Rwanda. He told me how he wished he could go back to Kenya, where people were friendly and he had friends. “I have no friends here. You can’t have friends without trust.”

Ethnic and tribal tensions

But even Kenya is not exempt from ethnic hatred. Back in January this year, when some Kenyans were erecting roadblocks and checking IDs, turning against each other with machetes, and burning down churches full of people, the comparison to Rwanda was often invoked. It was shocking at the time, but not completely unforeseen. Throughout the continent, tribal tension is present but often invisible, under the surface, and pushed down. But when the opportunity presents itself and the flame of anger is lit, terrible things like this can happen.

So as I walked the streets of Kigali, I found myself asking, “where does that kind of hatred come from? How can these people possess that level of animosity that would make them turn against and kill their neighbor they’ve known all their life?”

As I considered this, I realized we all carry this capacity within us. Scary to think, but true… there’s not much that separates me from them.

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.’ But I tell you anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement.” Matt 5:21-22

My sin has earned the same penalty as the man who cut down his neighbor in the middle of the night. We both earned eternal separation from God. Mercifully, my debt has been paid and I won’t have to pay that eternal price, although my sins still earn me my share of consequences. The people of Rwanda will be dealing with their consequences for a long, long time.

The church in Rwanda

We were in Rwanda to produce a video about a bible college, the Rwandan Institute of Evangelical Theology. This college was created by the evangelical churches of Rwanda after the genocide, to train pastors who can help heal the nation and mature its believers. It’s the only evangelical bible college in the country who accepts students from any denomination, and the students there come from all backgrounds and experiences.

We interviewed one student at the college who was pastoring a church in 1994 and had to fend off wave after wave of militia coming to kill the hundreds of people seeking shelter there.

We also interviewed other students who were pastors in 1994 but knew little of the Bible, or what a life transformed by Christ looked like. It wasn’t a surprise to them that the people doing these terrible things were people in their churches, because much of Rwandan society was superficially religious. Now these pastors have recognized this and are students of theology, building congregations who know and follow Christ.

The struggle

In a church in Nyamata, I stood in a crypt filled with the skulls and femurs of the ten thousand people who were killed there. The bloodstains are still on the walls, and the clothing of the victims that fills the benches of the church still carries the stench of death and decay. It was overwhelming, not just the sight and smell, but surrounding myself with something so terrible.

As hard as it was to take in, I’m glad I was able to experience that, to get a greater sense of the kind of evil that lives in the hearts of man. To get a greater sense of the battle we are engaged in, which is mostly unseen but occasionally has visible manifestations like the Rwandan genocide. Surrounded by those bones, visualizing the magnitude of what had happened there, I had a real sense of Satan’s involvement. The organizational effort to rally a million people to turn against their neighbor has his fingerprints all over it.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Eph 6:12-13

And fortunately for us,

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the [king] and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.” 2 Chr 32:7-8

The truth in those verses makes me encouraged, and not surprised (though greatly saddened) when I think of what happened in Rwanda in 1994. It also makes me want to do the best I can in producing this video to support this small, strategic bible college. That’s my part in the battle against the powers in this dark world.

Aba na aba kwijaza kibaba.

Little by little, the basket fills up.

The truth of this local proverb is exemplified in the day-to-day life of the Mwani, a least-reached tribe living on the northern coast of Mozambique, and the ministry of the AIM missionaries who work among them.

Of the 100,000 Mawani people, a third of the tribe lives in the city of Mocimbao da Praia. A walk through town reveals remnants of Portuguese glory. Wide, paved avenues intersect rutted, muddy roads. A sprawling city garden going back to wild engulfs a cage that once housed a leopard – now just a rusted reminder of the ill-conceived and ultimately unsuccessful attempts of colonial powers to subjugate the beauty and strength of this African nation. But to truly glimpse the heart of Mwani life, one must walk farther down the road, through the neighborhoods and markets, down to the shore.

The Beach
The word mwani literally means “beach” and life in Mocimbao da Praia is tied inextricably to the ocean: crafting boats, mending nets, and most importantly, catching fish. From a distance, the coastline seems picturesque: an idyllic locale for a stroll or a swim. The briny, ebbing eddies seem to beckon and call forth cadence, but the reality is less appealing. The problem: the Mwani fear latrines. According to their beliefs – a syncretistic amalgam of traditional animism and Islam – majini or evil spirits live in such holes. So instead of using latrines, the people make their way each day down to an otherwise pristine beach.

Boats of every size and shape dot the coastal waters. After fisherman cast their nets onto the waves, teams on the beach assume the arduous task of hauling in the catch. Strapped into makeshift harnesses, the men pull in unison with all their weight and will, and slowly but inexorably, step by step, the nets are drawn. When the fish have been gathered and aching backs have been stretched, the process begins anew. Other fishermen spring to mind when watching this work: James and John, Peter and Andrew – all leaving their boats on the Sea of Galilee for a more important work – another job requiring patience, perseverance, and teamwork. Sometimes the nets come up empty. There is no guarantee of a catch at the end of the day, but the work continues. “I will make you fishers of men….”

Approaching the fish market, the open sand gives way to expansive hills of shucked and discarded oyster shells. Nearby, the mongers proffer their catch amongst the flotsam and jetsam: squid, sting ray, barracuda, tiny sardines, massive grouper. Scattered phrases in Portuguese can be heard among the crowds, but most speak Shimakonde or Kimwani. These languages – like most of Mwani culture – were heavily influenced by Arab sailors who navigated the East African coast centuries ago trading for ivory, precious metals, even slaves. To benefit financially and to avoid becoming slaves themselves, the Mwani adopted Islam, in part, as a means of survival. Now, within the reckoning of local culture, being Muslim is tantamount to being Mwani.

The Fields
While the men pass their days at the shore, Mwani women toil in the fields and gardens, planting and harvesting manioc root, beans, sorghum, and a staple of cultural and spiritual significance – rice. According to the Entwistles, two AIM missionary families working in Mocimbao da Praia, the rice harvest marks the pinnacle of animistic activity. Barred from the Mosque and largely disenfranchised from the formal Islam practiced by men, Mwani women strive to ensure a bountiful crop by holding ceremonies and séances and enlisting the help of Curandeiros, healers and spirit mediums, to placate the dead and communicate with demons. In exchange for a white chicken or a bit of money, a Curandeiro will fend off danger and disaster by marking the boundaries of a paddy with magical dawa or medicine, warding the perimeter with beads and bottles, swatches of red or white cloth, even bones.

“Rice is a major part of their culture, a major part of their lives,” relates Sharon Entwistle concerning Mwani women. “When the rice is ripe, that is when the demons begin to attack. The women will have ceremonies where they negotiate with demons and try to figure out how to get the demons to leave them alone. In speaking with my friends, they tell me, ‘We know we can negotiate with the demons today, but tomorrow they will be back,’ but just for the relief of a few hours or a few days they will continue with the ceremonies.”

In spite of this cycle of fear, the crop must be gathered. After the rice is harvested and dried, the women pour the grain into a wooden mortar and pound the kernels with heavy poles. Emptying the contents into a shallow basket, the women vigorously shake the husked rice. Clouds of chaff dissipate in puffs of dusty waste as the quality product is winnowed from the dross. After one last shake, they pour the rice back into the mortar and pound it again.

The young Mwani church has gone through similar trials. The worries of the world and the daunting bonds of culture have pounded the burgeoning yet vulnerable body of believers.

“There are times when people are coming to the Lord,” Steve Entwistle admits, “You’re excited. You think that you’ve got the core group of a blossoming Mwani church, and then within a month or so, several of those same “believers” have fallen away and you are left with maybe two or three. That’s happened a couple times with us, and it’s been discouraging. But one thing that we have realized is that [our ministry] is about being steadfast, being faithful to the calling that God has given us.”

The Market and Neighborhood
Crossing from the fields into the markets and neighborhoods, sights, smells, and sounds bombard the senses: the aroma of spiced potatoes and flatbread frying in hot, brown oil; bolts of colorful cloth rolling and furling from a merchant’s stall; the measured, ringing hammerfalls of a jeweler shaping delicate needles of glowing metal into rings of gold.

Pacing among the wooden stands or sitting amidst the baskets in the dust are Mwani children. With the adults busy at the shore or in the fields, kids as young as four or five years old spend their days hawking wild fruits, homemade bread, or doce – a simple confection made from sugar and crushed peanuts.

Those without such responsibilities run wild. Throngs race up and down the street, recklessly chasing a homemade soccer ball fashioned from an inflated condom wrapped in plastic bags, lashed together with string or strips of old tires scavenged from nearby rubbish heaps. There is little else they can do. With no supervision and a very limited education system that leaves many illiterate, future prospects seem bleak.

With such concerns in mind, some Mwani and Makonde Christians in partnership with AIM missionaries opened the Mwani Community Center known as Tumaini, a local word meaning “hope.” At Tumaini, children, youth, and adults can visit a lending library, enroll in preschool, take classes in English, play volleyball or even shoot baskets. This haven within the neighborhood – a tangible demonstration of the love of Jesus Christ – provides opportunities for relationships and discussions about matters of eternal significance.

“We’ve seen some inroads into the community,” Steve affirms. “Initially, there were people who were angry; there was a lot of distrust. But the fear that surrounded Tumaini like a cloud has dissipated. As we continue to show love in the community and try to be friendly with people, slowly but surely, those barriers began to just fall away.”

Outside the gates of the community center, a dozen men gather to play a mancala-like game called Mbao, tossing smooth stones on to a hand-carved board with practiced negligence. Months ago, some of these same men vehemently opposed the establishment of Tumaini, even sabotaging construction efforts. Today, many see the value of this positive presence in the neighborhood.

“Things are different now. There is more openness, for sure. We are known as Christians in the community and very often we will be asked, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘Why have you come to Mozambique?’ and we are able to come right out and share with people. The time of the closed doors has gone.”

The Church
Passing through the rest of the city, many other places merit a visit: the hospital where Dan Entwistle cares for the region’s sick children; the prison where Steve shares candy and the Gospel each week; the house of Fatima, a young friend and neighbor who died of AIDS shortly after putting her trust in Jesus.

At the end of a long walk through Mocimbao da Praia and Mwani life, one might neglect to notice the small church building – a modest house of mud walls, thatched roof, and earthen floors. There is no banner or marquee, no milling crowd outside, but inside gather the faithful few – 10 believers out of 100,000 Mwani.

After a morning spent telling the biblical story – from Creation to the Cross – to a gathering in town using vivid, laminated illustrations, Steve offered some insight into AIM’s ministry in Northern Mozambique:

“It’s not about the numbers. It’s not about seeing quick results. It takes patience. It takes love. It takes an attitude or perspective that sees the long haul, the eternal picture. God is the one who is really in control, not the missionary, and we trust Him for the results.”

Good things may come slowly, but they do come. By the power of the Holy Spirit working through the servants of God, patience and persistence can yield abundance. Seeds are being planted. The nets are being drawn.

Little by little, the basket fills up.

Aba na aba kwijaza kibaba.

A ladies’ Bible study has been meeting at the house of our hosts. At some point in its growth, the question was raised as to whether or not a secret church should sing out loud. Worshipping together in this manner, they decided, was well worth the risk of being caught. But the decision to sing was costly. Before we had arrived, a hostile neighbor, suspicious of the workers’ true intentions, lifted a cell phone over the wall and recorded some of the singing. As we pulled out of the driveway on our way to visit another worker, we received word that a radio broadcast across the city had exposed the meeting and several ladies had already been kicked out of their homes and beaten. One lady’s five-year-old son was missing. We heard that the police were coming and would arrest any woman attending the study, and in light of this news the next meeting was cancelled. We continued on, riding in the back of a pickup truck, wondering what was behind the eyes of the masked women and robed men we passed along the street.

Persecution for your faith is not a light burden, but there is one far heavier for these foreign workers. They believe in the Gospel of Truth so strongly that not only are they willing to risk their own lives for it, but, grasping tightly to the knowledge of eternity with a loving God, they are willing to risk the lives of the people with whom they share their faith. “The war for souls is very real here,” I thought. I felt it as tangibly as the blazing sun on our backs. “This whole country is caught in one of Satan’s greatest deceptions. And here, I am the enemy.” Just then, as if to confirm my thought, a wad of spit landed with a smack in my friend’s face.

We’ll be talking about that one for a while, my friend and I. Knowing him, though, there will come greater injuries in the war for souls than merely being spat on. Later that day, as we sat and talked to another worker, a sizable rock came sailing over the wall and landed inches from her feet. She didn’t even flinch, but smiling knowingly looked up at us and brushed it off saying, “we get these “gifts” all the time.”

The next day, relieved to hear that the believer’s five-year-old boy had been found, we visited a local woman who was a friend of our hosts. In studying the culture they have found that a mark of an honorable rich person is the giving away of food to the poor. So, they went out this day to give, and we went with them. It was a quick visit, and we had been invited to bring our cameras. Shortly after we left, the neighbors, suspicious of us and angry over the cameras, came and harassed the woman, dumping out a large gunnysack of flour she uses to earn a living.

We talked to a group of men about Islam and their country. They claimed religious freedom, but it was easy to see that only the foreigners have that freedom. Anyone from this country naturally has to be a Muslim. I asked if they knew any local Christians. “No,” was the simple answer. How would it be for a person of their culture to become a Christian? “It would be very bad,” I was told, “I’m sure you would feel the same way if a Christian became a Muslim. If a person is a Muslim they should stay a Muslim.” But what if a person of their culture, I asked, had come from somewhere else and had always been a Christian? Would he be accepted? An icy pause was the response followed by a resolute, “They would never come here.”

So who does come here? Who are these “workers” who so willingly leave the safety of their homeland and embrace great risks for their faith– risks that missionaries have not regularly faced since the early days of Missions when death from malaria was so common? Who are these that find in their heart an ability to love the people as God loves, who grieve the sight of so many lost souls, who value faithfulness to God’s truths more than anything?

They are surprisingly ordinary. They have no more ability than an average person. They have no more courage than what God gives them for any given day. They are very simply those who have responded wholeheartedly to their Father’s instruction for them to Go. They are Christians.

“What do you see?” Bernard Kabaru asks.

He glances first at the faces of his workshop attendees, then over his shoulder, to the wall. A picture of an empty, destroyed house is projected there.

“What do you feel?” Kabaru continues.

The picture changes. Two young women and a child sit in front of a dilapidated tent, obviously a scene from one of the many Internally Displaced People camps that cropped up around Kenya after the country’s peaceful landscape exploded with post-election turmoil just four months ago.

The women aren’t smiling. The child isn’t at school. This isn’t a home.

Kabaru, a representative from African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministry (ALARM), frowns at the picture.

The pastors sitting in a semicircle look at the picture thoughtfully. Emotion draws its expression on their faces. A deep line here, down a forehead. Wrinkles etched outside eyes. A frown traced around a mouth.

“Desperate,” a man says.

“Discouraged,” another one suggests.

Kabaru shifts in his seat to look at his workshop attendees more directly.

“Is this wound in us?” he says, gesturing to the images projected onto the wall.

Heads nod slowly, eyes still looking at the homeless women glowing from the wall. A man drops his chin to his chest.

This scene, and these feelings, aren’t uncommon today in Kenya.

The semicircle of pastors, part of the larger Seminar on Reconciliation put on by Scott Theological College’s Institute for Church Renewal, would be a good place to start to get insight on how Kenyans—specifically Kenyan Christians—are doing in these months after the chaos.

Ministering to those who will minister . . .
Pastor Steve Munyambu struggles with a strange dichotomy.

His home and belongings torched just hours after the election results were announced, he comes to the seminar with mixed feelings.

“I’m not sure whether to minister or to be ministered to,” he says, shrugging his shoulders slightly. He looks at the other pastors standing around him, and they tip their heads in understanding.

Manyambu isn’t the only one here who has been personally affected by the country’s troubles. Churches in America and England chipped in to provide 30 scholarships for other pastors living and ministering in Nairobi’s slums, some of the hardest hit areas during the violence and looting. So, just as these pastors can represent their flocks, they can also shed some light on the thoughts and feelings of their individual sheep.

Kabura’s ALARM workshop on trauma healing was just one of a handful made available to the seminar’s participants. A similar organization, Peacebuilding, Healing and Reconciliation Programme (PHARP) also presented a short program on repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.

As the pastors were given opportunity to explore and tend to their own wounds through these workshops, they were also equipped to lead their congregations in efforts of reconciliation.

“As a church and observers, we are brought into the situation—and we can be brought into the solution,” Pastor Kariithi Ngari, from Karura Community Chapel, said in his mobilization workshop. He urged the church leaders to be relevant in their preaching and teaching, so the church can address the needs of people outside the church.

“Your people must know more than theory,” Ngari says. “They need to know what they can do.”

Nevermind the Nakumatt thermostat…
And there’s a lot left to do in Kenya to rebuild the relationships and stability this country once enjoyed. Pastors and Christians might find themselves swimming upstream, said Lt. General Lazaro Sumbeiywo.
In his keynote address, Sumbeiywo explored the history behind the tribal conflict in Kenya and warned that the simmering racial distrust that caused the outbreak of violence wouldn’t go away overnight, though some Kenyans would like to brush it under the rug.

“Some Kenyans have the notion that just because Nakumatt (a large supermarket chain) is open, everything is OK,” Sumbeiywo said. He stressed that the cessation of violence isn’t synonymous with peace, and that there are underlying issues that the church needs to address in its people.

And, from what the seminar’s participants said in a sharing time, it seemed as if these pastors were ready to go back to their congregations and begin the long process toward reconciliation.

“I think we failed as Christians, and especially as Christian leadership,” one man shared. “But the only way to healing is to share between people. To say, ‘You’ve done this, and I did this.’ We need national healing.”

“And we can spread out awareness from this nucleus, from this seminar.”

At the moment, there’s a lot that stands in contrast in Kenya.

Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki.

Orange Democratic Movement and Party of National Unity.

And, perhaps most of all, Kikuyu and Luo.

Or, given the day, any of the other lines able to be drawn between Kenya’s many and varied tribes.

There’s the haves, and the have-nots. The settled and the uprooted. The predators and the preyed upon.
Here in this cavernous church overlooking the Rift Valley, the contrasts—though perhaps not always as sharp—continue.

The cold, two-story stone shell of this AIC church in Kijabe, Central Province, gives way to a warmer inside. The windows glow with the late morning sun, casting shadows beneath row upon row of thin, wooden pews, some askew from last Sunday’s crowd.

But this Friday portrays a slightly different scene, as a line forms at the door. These are IDPs—internally displaced people—who have come from all over the Rift Valley, forced from their homes by the post-election turmoil in this country. They’ve come to the AIC for help—food, clothing, and a message from the church.

Soon, the sea of benches is one-third full, mostly with women, their heads covered in brightly colored handkerchiefs, their hands holding plastic bags or woven baskets, or their youngest children. A man with traces of gray hair bows his head, holding his worn cap between his knees.

Above them, a long wooden sign declares Psalm 118:1, “O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.” Some are asking, why would a good God let such a bad thing come upon our country, upon us?

The people share their stories—stories of despair, of lives turned upside down. My home was burned. My own neighbors suddenly became my enemies. I saw my friends attacked with machetes, arrows or spears. As the testimonies come, the calm of this tucked-away church contrasts more clearly with violence outside its doors. The echoes of clapping and singing are a far cry from the crash of glass, the pop of tear gas cans and crack of guns not so far in these peoples’ pasts.

A woman stands to lead prayer, and the benches creak as some bow their heads. A man closes his eyes and massages his brow. A woman bounces her crying child. Some stare absently away, chin in hand. A grandmother clucks to a baby in her arms. Someone coughs.

And against the soft murmur of the praying woman, there is a bustle of activity in the back of the church, as a handful of volunteers prepares the food distribution for that day. A door slams. Shoes scrape across the floor as a man hurries from here to there.

Near the door of library-turned-storeroom is a yellowing paper sign: “What would Jesus do?” An oasis of congruency—surely, this is what Jesus would do.

The library tables and chalkboards are pushed back against the wall, stacked one on another. A bench usually used for churchgoers perusing books now holds a wall of containers of shortening. On the bookshelves, there are bags of salt. Empty bags and boxes litter the concrete floor; stray beans and fugitive kernels of maize are scattered here and there. Volunteers hurry to pack bags of sugar, rice, beans, tea, carrots and much more—nearly everything donated by the congregation of AIC Kijabe.
There is one final, sometimes painful contrast within these church walls, and it lies within the hearts of the people. All of them have been wronged, all have had hardship, but where there is anger and bitterness in some, there is hope and forgiveness in others.

John Mwangi, a Kikuyu, was working at a tea estate in Kericho when the decree was released: All Kikuyu and Kisii must leave. His own friends looted his house, beating others to the punch because—being close to him—they knew where he lived. They took everything, he says. They’re bad people. They don’t know God. You can’t even talk to them.

John says he’s willing to forgive these people. But will he ever go back?

The question twists his face, and a short exclamation comes out of his mouth.

“I won’t,” he says. “I can’t try.”

He shakes his head. No way.

Meanwhile, Harrison Munyua is ready to shake hands with his Kalenjin friends and customers, though deep lines have been carved between those tribes and his own Kikuyu people in his battered hometown of Eldoret.

Harrison, a radiator repairman, was warned by his Naandi friends to evacuate and escape the bloodshed in the town in western Kenya. He saw people being speared to death, and is thankful for his friends who rose above their tribal differences and helped him dearly.

He believes there are people who love the Lord among the Kalenjins, because if there weren’t, he wouldn’t have been warned to flee by the people he fellowships with at his church. His pastor, a Naandi, wouldn’t have invited him to hide in his house. Kalenjin police officers wouldn’t have helped him get to his wife and children by hiding him under the seat in their vehicle for an hourlong drive, ferrying him through dozens of roadblocks put up by angry mobs.

He hears what others from his area are telling him, about never going back. But he believes forgiveness is everything—and for him it means going back to Eldoret, living among the very people who looted his home and workshop, and trying to show them God’s love in that way. And, moreover, Harrison believes God can and is at work in the Kalenjin community, just as He’s worked in his heart.

A calm hope comes from the eyes of Hannah Wangui, an old mama from Molo, also in Rift Valley and a scene of a lot of recent violence. She sits, hands one on top of the other in the lap of her printed dress. She holds her head, adorned with a white handkerchief, high. A small smile makes her distinct cheekbones even more beautiful. Small winkles gather around her eyes and mouth, as she speaks words of hope and forgiveness.

Yes, she is homeless, a state delivered from the hands of her neighbors in Molo. But transportation and tough roads are the only things keeping her from going back there.
To her, it’s simple. She is receiving food and clothing from the church in Kijabe, but she doesn’t feel she belongs here. She doesn’t mind if she has a house or not—she knows the Lord has her, and she will trust Him to work through her as she goes back to live in Molo. Others around her are calling for revenge but she carries nothing on her heart against these people. She wants only to be a light in the darkness.

True forgiving, Mama Hannah says, means going back. When you don’t go back, she says, you are just saying you forgive them, but you are very far. You haven’t restored the relationship.
When you forgive someone halfheartedly, you haven’t done any forgiving.
Her prayer is that as she shows them God’s love, they will be convicted of the wrong they have done, and they will repent and be led to God. And it’s on that path that people will be brought together—even people of different tribes.

So, there are many contrasts in Kenya at the moment. But it’s the prayer of people like Harrison, and people like Hannah, and people like the volunteers at AIC Kijabe, that eventually the love of Christ will help to blur the lines, to reconcile the tribes and to restore Kenya and her church, for God’s glory.

The ranch owners called the police in two locations to report the threat. The police promised to increase the number of officers patrolling the surrounding area. The ranch owners knew this might not be enough. The ranch workers and guards, along with the ranch manager, organized themselves to patrol through the night. Some of the ranch workers from the Luhya tribe felt their families were also at risk. A Kikuyu domestic worker living in a small house near the main ranch buildings, offered her home to the wives and children who felt afraid.

The Luhya workers patrolled until midnight. Then a group of Maasai from the area, along with some off duty ranch guards appeared with spears and knives ready to guard their church’s guests through the rest of the night. The ranch manager spent the night riding his motorcycle around the farm and touching base with the various patrols.

After Kenya’s elections on December 27, 2007, a fierce dispute erupted between the two political parties. Supporters of the losing party, many of them Luo, attacked members of the president’s Kikuyu tribe who lived in Western Kenya. Other fighting broke out in Eldoret with Kalenjin people turning on Kikuyu farmers in the area. Several slum areas of Nairobi also flared up with clashes between Kikuyu and Luo.

In the town of Limuru, a group of young Luo men worked with a youth project. They organized environmental programs like planting trees. Others coached soccer teams for the youth in Limuru.

As the post-election period became more tense, several Luo people in Limuru town were killed in retaliation for the attacks on Kikuyu people in Western Kenya and Nairobi. Feeling nervous, the young men with the youth project ran away from Limuru. Fearful of entering public transport because Kikuyu youth would stop the vehicles and ask for IDs or ask passengers to speak so they could determine their tribal origins, the Luo hiked through a forest and dropped down the escarpment of the Rift Valley to the ranch. They knew about the ranch because a few years before they had assisted with a tree nursery project and had brought some of the youth from Limuru to help construct the church.

Other non-Kikuyu refugees showed up at the church and Pastor Philip and his church members welcomed the refugees with open arms, housing them in a small building next to the church. Pastor Philip, a Kikuyu himself, and the church members, mostly Maasai, provided food and worked with the ranch manager to obtain further food and supplies from a fund organized by nearby AIM missionaries.

At one point the church housed about 30 people who had come for protection. When the church heard there would be a bus carrying people to western Kenya from Limuru under police escort, they helped arrange for some of the refugees to get on the bus. Later another group of twelve were carried to Kisumu in a vehicle driven by some Catholic Sisters in the area.

At the time of the night threat, only five young men remained in the church center.

At dawn on January 30, 2007, the men who had patrolled through the night were tired but happy. No raiders had come. The five men who had run to the church for refuge were safe.

The future for these five men is uncertain. As they wait through this tense time, they have planted almost 500 trees as part of a reforestation project. One young man spoke proudly of his cousin who coaches the Kenya national seven-a-side rugby team, which had just flown to New Zealand for a tournament. Another young man said his father was the Anglican Bishop of Kisumu. Both men, despite the threats, continue to stand firm in their faith in Jesus Christ. And until the future becomes clear, Pastor Philip and his church on the floor of the Rift Valley continue to provide food and security for those in need.

What Hurts the Most
What perhaps tears at Pastor Steve the most, as he aches for his country, is what was lost in the Christian community and witness.
“I’m saddened by the simple principle that Kenya is being touted as 80% Christian,” he says. “When this happens, is the mayhem being caused by the 20% minority? No.”
Steve recalls confronting a group of men on its way to loot a burned-out church and urging the men to consider the magnitude of what they wanted to do. Among them was a young man Steve had stood next to on the day the man was baptized in the very church he was intent on looting.
“I believe that somewhere along the line, Christians did not live up to their calling,” Steve says. “Because if they did, with an 80% statistical figure, (the chaos and killings in Kenya) would not have happened.”
Those are hard words for the Kenyan church to hear, but ones men like Steve—who has clung to Christ and tried to honor him, even in this chaos—are in a place to say. And this is the pastor’s message for the church, and for the country.
“Don’t let your Christian God down,” he says. “If God is for you, live for him. Otherwise, cross over the line, so that we can know how many are called of God.
“I see this as a purging time for the church, so that the true believers are going to stand firm. And those who have just been Christian by name would be exposed, and the Church will be able now to move faster and farther.”

Hope for the Future
Pastor Steve has not given up on Kenya.
He relies on the Kenyan’s resilient spirit to help them bounce back. He knows they will want to move on.
“People will come back and want to piece their lives back together,” he says. “There will be a time for picking up the pieces. Some of the pieces will never be able to be matched together again.
“But at the end of the day, people will want to forge the way forward.”
And he trusts the gospel and their God will guide them.
“Sometimes, in the church history, God allowed persecution to be an instrument to spread the gospel, not only in terms of area, but in the intensity of the message.
“People became stronger in their faith. They depended on God more than in times before their persecution.”
And that is where Steve, along with many other Christian leaders in the country, is putting his hope for Kenya’s future—in God’s hands.

One best moment?

Perhaps it was the other day when Ellen, our sweet little two-year-old neighbor, peaked in my room where I was shaking off a rough day, and crawled up in bed with me for a nap, nestling her head against my shoulder.

But then there are those few small moments that wouldn’t mean much to anyone else. When our neighbor Ibiong asked me to take in her laundry if it rained. Or when she dropped off her kids for us to watch while she fetched water. Or when two of the neighbor kids sought refuge at our house when their parents were fighting.

And, then again, there are those moments, under a twilight sky, as the day is leaving and the night is falling dark on the smoking thatched roofs and simple swept compounds, when I’m simply sitting together with my roommates and my neighbors. Maybe we’re talking about their children and the crazy tricks they pulled that day. Maybe we’re telling a story from our homes, in a world entirely unfamiliar to our friends. Maybe they’re laughing at me as I stumble through the language. Or maybe we’re cracking peanuts in silence, gazing thoughtfully off into the valley or watching the children dip into sleep.

Whatever the case, in those moments, we’re simply being together.

And I enjoy those moments more and more.

God has put a love in us for these people. It has been a process.

The crowding shadows of faces that bombarded us when we first came to Lopit have become our friends. The squealing, swollen-bellied children, our playmates. The village struggles and joys, our own.

I’m happy here, and I ache for the day when Christ claims his first among my group of friends.

So maybe these are the best moments. Moments like now, when I can reflect upon where we once were and where we are now. When I can honestly say, I love these people. When I can fight off hopelessness, and hope in God, that He’ll use our living witness to His glory in these far-off mountains of Lopitland.