I am looking for…

I am looking for Friends with connections to Kenya, recent experience of working in Kenya and with other skills to offer to help British and Kenyan Friends make connections and witness together.

I would like to talk with Friends about my trip to Kenya. If your Meeting would be interested drop me a line or post a comment and I’ll be in touch in due course.

If you would like to learn more about the world family of Friends, please sign up for the course that Quaker World Relations Commitee is running at Woodbrooke, 3-5 September 2010, called ‘World Family of Friends. See http://www.woodbrooke.org.uk for more information and booking details

Fire! Fire! Don’t panic!

Something that made me chuckle today was the notice of what to do in case of fire in the KCB, a bank in Kenya, particularly in the Eldoret branch.

There is a numbered list of instructions, which includes:

1. Shout Fire! Fire!

6. Don’t panic or cause other people to panic.

Just wanted to share…

Eldoret testimonies

Today, Tuesday, we went to see local Friends in Eldoret where we are staying. Eldoret is the sort of place that if you are a tourist you will probably pass right through or use as a base for going somewhere else. Apart from living and working there, I haven’t yet worked out what there is in Eldoret for the casual tourist. But I am not a casual tourist.

You might not have heard of Eldoret. If you have heard of the place it might be because of the post-election violence in 2007-8 but I can’t think offhand why else you would know about it. According to my Kenya atlas, Eldoret is one of eleven towns and cities with a population of over 500,000 in Kenya.

The town centre never stops, according to Phori, who spent a night at the White Castle motel last week. At least the Uganda Road never sleeps and neither did Phori. He saw fruit sellers, trucks thundering by, taxis and buses. People coming and going. So it is a major hub. Eldoret is in Rift Valley province, about 4 hours drive from Nairobi but more if you go in a matutu.

There is also a population of Quakers and there are four Friends churches in Eldoret, with hundreds of members. We went to Eldoret Friends Church to meet our fellow Friends and talk with them. We shared our experiences with each other, little snippets of our lives and testimonies to living in the Light of the risen Christ. It was one of those days that I will treasure forever but rather than tell the stories that I heard here, I will save them initially for The Friend magazine.

Suffice to say, when I left and we headed off for lunch at Eldoret’s finest and perhaps only vegetarian restaurant (our second visit in 3 days) for a fine curry and chapati, washed down with ginger ale, I was emotionally tired but also totally and utterly inspired. Once again, despite our differences we were united in our prayers, in the songs we sang together and all convinced that we are a part of the world family of Friends.

Giving thanks for journeys

Giving thanks during journeys has fast become a focus during my stay in Kenya. It started when Oliver Kisaka told a story, while preaching, about giving thanks to God in prayer. Oliver had a car that had an oil leak problem that seemingly couldn’t be fixed. When he asked God for help fixing it, God reminded him that it was God who had given him the car and so shouldn’t Oliver be giving thanks instead? Oliver agreed and gave thanks. Not long afterwards, the problem was fixed.

To cut a long story short, I have not been without journey issues this week.

The culmination so far, was travelling at around 5km per hour in an old Toyota Hiace minibus along the main route for trucks coming and going from Mombasa and the Kenyan coast through to Uganda, DRC and back. At night. On a bumpy road. With pot holes as wide as our car and as deep as from my feet to my shins. There were no road markings and it wasn’t until I was on this road, on this journey that I realised how valuable ‘cats’ eyes’, that we have on the roads in Britain, are.

But as Phori said, when we were safely around the table giving thanks in prayer and fellowship and celebrating our adventure at 9:30pm, ‘if, when we travelling so slowly, we had known that we were around the table at 9:30pm giving thanks it might have made the journey that much easier’.

Quite! It would have made us feel a lot better. But as it was, travelling at 5km/h we gave thanks, we prayed, we talked and we sang our hearts out. A better fellowship we could not have known.

And, after a while, our prayers were answered and the 80km/h limiter in the bus didn’t always kick in at 5km/h. So we could travel that little bit faster (you don’t know how fast 40km/h can feel until you have been travelling at 5km/h with Congolese and Uganda trucks blasting past you up hill!

To tie it all together, in Britain Yearly Meeting’s Quaker Faith & Practice book 13.21 states ‘travelling to visit and worship with Friends, both within our yearly meeting and beyond, is greatly to be valued’. I’m not sure that the writers had us in mind when they wrote this passage, but us three Friends from East Africa Yearly Meeting North, Central & Southern Yearly Meeting and Britain Yearly Meeting are certainly valuing our travel together!

Written on 15 December 2009.

some observations

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Some observations

I have injured my left hand. Clapping. I didn’t do any warm up exercises or cool down exercises before or after worship. I have clapped so much in the past week.

Why was Moses called by God through a burning bush? I have no idea. But that was the way.

One week ago I was in Heathrow airport, waiting to leave for Kenya. In one week I will be in Kisumu, preparing to leave Kenya.

Strong people reflect on the word of God.

I have unfinished business in Nairobi. I have about a hundred people to see and many things to do there.

Sometimes I do things outside of worship differently to how I do things while in worship.

If you ever have the opportunity to stay at the Mabanga Agricultural Training Cottage make sure that you do not get a room that faces the road in the Songa block. The road is the main highway to/from the Ugandan border.

We fly like eagles but when we get tired we stop flying and start running. When we tire from running we start walking. And so we go far. I watched an eagle this afternoon with Viv and Ruth. This beautiful bird seemingly effortlessly soared by.

Swahili is a beautiful language.

I seek God from within while others seek God from above.

No matter how hard I try, the mosquitoes will always get me. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t defend myself.

Stay the course. The Quakers who wait expectantly on God do not quit.

When traveling, texts from friends mean a lot. Receiving texts is the only thing thats free on my phone at the moment.

After one week I have not used: frisbee, flip-flops and flip-camera (the battery keeps failing and I don’t know why). It is something to do with things that begin with ‘f’.

If you don’t like ugali, rice, meat stew, kale and potato, don’t come to Kenya. The saving grace is the slices of fruit.

The sound of a tap dripping is a wondrous noise after going much of the day without running water.

Deep spirituality is a product of serious waiting.

A blessing

A blessing in disguise

Today has not exactly gone to plan. I missed the unprogrammed morning worship because I got up too late. Then we had a full group gathering, with Oliver Kisaka preaching to us on the Young Quakers Christian Association Africa Triennial conference theme, 1 Samuel 16:7 ‘divine perception’ and Oliver Kisaka was both challenging and inspiring. Later I joined the group going to the nearby waterfalls and I enjoyed that – not least time spent with Ruth in quiet contemplation overlooking the falls as the rest of our group marched and sauntered over rocks and up and down hills to see the river higher up.

On our return from our outing we found that our singing sessions (2h30 worth) had been cancelled as a wedding reception had also been booked into the hall in our conference venue.

As I write, almost five hours since our return from the waterfalls, I’m conscious of the blessings that have come my way just now. Today is a day of blessings.

Oliver set up the train of thoughts about blessings with his preaching. He described a process of a prayer that I remember well from my community church days. Prayer can be divided into adoration, petition, repentance, thanksgiving and praise, or so the description goes. It is thanksgiving that concerns me here. Look for things to be thankful for, said Oliver. Remember Job, who started with nothing and ended with nothing, but was still grateful to God, for example. Oliver also told some personal anecdotes, the main one of which included his thanking the Lord for providing him with a car with an oil leak, while he stood exasperated in a petrol station.

Then I read a letter in the ‘Saturday Nation’, a Kenyan newspaper. Entitled ‘Stop complaining and thank God’, the correspondent points out that Kenyans are great at complaining and not so good at being grateful. She uses the fact that getting a new passport now takes a matter of days and not the many months that it used to. She concludes: ‘Kenyans should thank God more than complain. Can you imagine how much more blessings we would enjoy if we thanked God more? I have learned that the more I give thanks the more blessings I get.’

Part of the crucial message in this letter is ‘blessings we would enjoy’. When I was copying the letter out, I wrote ‘receive’ first, but then checked back and saw ‘enjoy’. A positive frame of mind can do wonders for the soul.

And so it came to bear for me, with a wonderful afternoon, with a lesson in Kenyan Quakers from Wycliffe up first, which grew out of a conversation with Mac and Hetty and Wycliffe too.

Later I had tea and a wonderful conversation with Benedict about God’s grace and how prayer can work in our lives. Benedict made several references to the US, which turned out to have been for my benefit as he thought that that was where I am from! With the misunderstanding cleared up, we got into talking about the role of the pastor in the Friends Church, how the responsibilities to God and the community are shared among the members of the Meetings in Britain and the role of young people within the Quaker faith.

From Oliver’s ministry this morning: ‘I may not have had the voice talking to me that Samuel had, nor a burning bush [as Moses had] but I’ve had a sense of purposefulness, the word from God – divine perception’.

With worship and fellowship with Quakers from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Lesotho, Uganda, the US, the Netherlands and the UK we are very much not all speaking the same language from our lips, but we definitely have a strong connection from the language of our hearts.
But I have been challenged in the past few days to think more about whether I could make more efforts to bridge the gap of the language from our lips and consider improving my French and learning more Swahili. The world conference of Friends takes place in Kenya in 2012 and it would be really useful to be able to speak more than just English then, whether I get to go or not. And languages aren’t just spoken abroad – we have many French and Swahili speaking Friends and others in London too.

Matters of the heart are no less important though and I’m dwelling in the spirit now as I write and generally among the presence of my brothers and sisters here in western Kenya.

Tomorrow we’re wrapping up the YQCA Africa Triennial and heading off in different directions. I’ll be heading to Kitale first, then spending a couple of days traveling among Friends in western Kenya. From Wednesday onwards I’ll be taking part in various young Friends conferences from the different Yearly Meetings. Then on Sunday I’ll be staying in Kisumu for one night with the indefatigable (praise be to God!) Eden Grace (from Friends United Meeting) and her family before flying back on Monday 21 December to London.

You can also follow Sarah Hoggatt on her Kenya travels at http://walkingthesea.blogspot.com/. R

Bonus paragraph while I wait for the internet connection to start up again:
And then, having had the internet working just fine for the last 45 minutes as I write, it starts raining as I go to upload my post and now I can’t get the internet connection working! This is the way the internet seems to be for me in Kenya. I haven’t managed to get The Friend’s website up once while I’ve been here, which rather smashes my case for Friends subscribing online with us. A couple of Friends in Kenya have asked here if it would be possible to get some kind of subsidised Friend out to them as the cost is prohibitive to them on their incomes, so that’s something else to ponder too.

Greetings from young people in Kenya

Dear Friends, I like to share with you the word of God in the next five years come. I have been praying for a long time to God to make my vision to reach there and observe how you practice Christianity. I would be proud if my vision succeeded. Yours Mukewa Brian

Dear Friends, I am proud of you. I would like to inform you that five years to come I would like to be there to know how you practice Christianity. Timothy Wanyonyi

These two messages are from young Quakers from Chwele Yearly Meeting. In 2012 Kenya will host the World Conference of Friends, so perhaps you will meet Brian and Timothy and their friends then if you come to visit!

From Kenya to Copenhagen…

Writing from Western Province in Kenya, close to the Ugandan border, it feels like I am a world away from Europe and in particular the climate change talks in Copenhagen. But the issues that are being tackled in Denmark are as real in Kenya as they are anywhere else. Writing in The Friend recently, Hannah Brock shared, from first hand experience, the difficulties and challenges that Kenyans are facing due to climate change.

Friends tell me their stories of livestock dying and crops failing, as well as the challenges of job opportunities as Kenya is also suffering economically as we are elsewhere in the world.

In his address to the gathering, Barasa Nyukuri shared his thoughts about the principles of servant leadership, tying his knowledge closely to scripture. It was a lively and engaging presentation. He told us about some key global challenges that need the application of servant leadership, including climate change and air pollution. The others were poverty, trade justice, disease, corruption and the challenges of the biblical livelihood.

I enjoyed the talk today because it can help me to grow as a good Friend’, said Lusike Joy from Chwele Yearly Meeting.

Meanwhile, as delegates from government from around the world meet in Copenhagen, Friends will be uniting in worship on Sunday 13 December. As a contribution to the summit, Norwegian Quakers are asking us to devote our worship to the summit, for peace and sustainability, for awareness of life and for the many wonderful creatures that we share this beautiful planet
with.

In our base groups on Friday afternoon, participants at the Young Quaker Christian Association Africa Triennial were asked to consider the issues of environmental justice and peace and to think and share about how they can apply servant leadership themselves and in their church to these issues.

So Friends in Kenya and from across Africa are tackling the issues raised by Norwegian Quakers and those at Copenhagen, together.

Praise be to God.

God is bigger than…

God is bigger than…

At some point along the way on Monday I learned that our driver, Armstrong, is a Quaker. This may come as no surprise to anyone who knows something of Kenya for there are upwards of 300,000 Quakers in this country, but to me it was a welcome blessing. A sign that I am in safe hands.

Armstrong arrived at Savelberg, our Christian Retreat Centre in the heart of Nairobi, at early doors on Monday morning prepared to drive us to Nakuru. He shared a little breakfast with us (we had bread, peanut butter, jam, sausages – sounds a bit like my kind of heaven) and then we set off, only an hour later than our intended starting time of 8:30am. This wasn’t Armstrong’s doing – there’s something in the air in Kenya that means that things don’t always start when you mean them to. At this point I must give a big shout out to Theoneste who patiently waited for me at the Friends International Centre on Sunday and was completely cool that I was three hours late! Thank you Theo.

God is bigger than the air we breathe

And we went off in our 11-seater minibus (a Toyota Hi-Ace) through Nairobi, travelling through areas that I found mildly haunting since I had watched the film District 9 on the plane on the way over. Looking out of the bus window was sort of like watching some scenes from District 9. Comparative levels of poverty, compared to my sheltered life in the minority world. There’s a distinction between my sheltered life and life in the minority world because I have a flat in London and as Bainito pointed out, when he was in Birmingham, UK, he saw homeless people begging in the streets. But what I could not see was the richness of these Kenyans’ lives – are they happy people? Do they have communities? What values did they hold and could they meet their own expectations for their lives?

I had already learned a little about some Kenyans’ lives as I worshipped among 250 Quakers at Friends Centre Ofafa (within Nairobi Monthly Meeting). Having arrived very late even by Kenyan standards (I missed most of the singing and the dancing), Hetty (the other British Friend attending the Young Quakers Christian Association Africa triennial) and I had to introduce ourselves in front of our Kenyan sisters and brothers. I had already picked up that if the person at the front with the microphone said ‘Praise be to God’, the congregation called back ‘Amen’. So I said ‘God is great’, hoping to get back ‘all the time’, to which I would have replied: ‘All the time’ and they would have answered ‘God is great’. Unfortunately they just said ‘Amen’ so I had to introduce myself. I’ll try a ‘God is great’ later in my visit.

So what did I learn about these Friends’ lives during the hour or two worshipping with them?

First I learned about the lack of jobs among many members of the community. Enough so that a Friend gave a special announcement about a number of jobs that had been advertised recently by the government and gave details about how to apply.

Second I learned that the recently published draft constitution of Kenya is so important to the church and its people that they replaced the sermon with a commentary on this people’s document. Get this, I’m not writing about something that happened after Meeting – this was using the slot in their Meeting to share the news and a church perspective on a law.

I wish that I could remember exactly what Oliver Kisaka said but I can’t. General themes included that God’s law is most important but people aren’t very good at living by God’s laws so they need to make laws to try and keep themselves in check. Additionally, thinking of the ten commandments and how God gave them to his people, this community was not God’s only people, but a people that God wanted to develop as a model community, the chosen people. Oliver expressed the church’s belief in the importance of the family as being at the root of their community.

Oliver also raised a question about the government’s obligation to end poverty. Though in this case the response of the church seemed to be that those that didn’t work shouldn’t eat, as God says in the Bible. Presumably they just meant people unwilling to work. Just like in Britain, there may be resentment about people getting something for nothing from the government.

God is bigger than the world we live in

Later we, the UK, US and Dutch contingent of Young Friends ate eggs and bread in the church office. We ate with a number Kenyan Friends, including Oliver and his wife and the clerk of the Meeting, as well as some of their Young Friends. I wish that I had written some names down because I’ve had so many new ones pass through me in the last 39 hours that I can hardly remember any!

So Armstrong drove us to Nakuru. Along the way he played a tape of worship songs that included at least one Delirious? Song so I was happy! Before I came I downloaded quite a lot of songs from spotify so that I can listen to them offline and included 8 Delirious? Albums and a whole host of other worship albums. I presumed that I’d probably want to listen to them here and so far I do.

When we started this journey I didn’t know that Armstrong is a Quaker and I just thought that the worship songs were a nice touch. After one particularly audacious overtaking manoeuvre, when Armstrong next looked in his rear view mirror I (sitting at the back in the middle for leg room) gave him a kind of hands-clasped-in-prayer-with-thanks wave, which he later asked me about what exactly I was doing then! Giving thanks and appreciating his skill, I said. And meant it. Truly.

A slight aside just now, I’m writing at night and you know how if you get one itch, then you can easily get more. A few minutes ago I saw a mosquito in my room and just now I’ve got the feeling that there’s another one got at me, then another and then another. But I can’t do anything about it unless I shift the mosquito net from being over my bed to try and include my chair and desk too.

I can’t remember when I learned that Armstrong is a Quaker, but I think it was when Marieke, one of the Dutch contingent, suddenly discovered that Armstrong was the son of a woman that she was hoping to meet. Marieke’s parents lived in Kenya many years ago and married in Nairobi and they had a friend from those days who lives in Nakuru who she was hoping to visit. And by something of quite a large coincidence, this woman’s son drives a safari van and just happened to get this job of driving us today. So Marieke and Armstrong are kind of Friendly cousins.

And along the way in Armstrong’s van we saw all kinds of animals, mostly domesticated creatures, but also zebra and baboons and gazelles. And we saw the Rift Valley from a viewpoint on top of a hill and later we saw a lake that is well below its traditional size.

The Rift Valley is phenomenal. I really didn’t come to Kenya to look at scenery or animals. But today (writing on and after Monday 7 December 2009) a safari trip had been built into our schedule and it seemed like a good way to unwind, And besides, the bus ride from Nairobi to Nakaru was a chance to talk with some of my fellow international visitors to the Young Quakers Christian Association Africa triennial, ask them questions and learn from their experiences. And so it was with the safari too. The other people on this trip are all really quite remarkable people and it is a pleasure to have their company, as well as time with our hosts.

Later I learned that the coincidence wasn’t as great as it could have been, since when Bainito had arranged our travel he had asked around Nakuru to see if any Quakers were working in the safari/bus industry and might be the one to approach about fixing our travel. And someone had recommended Armstrong and so over he came. There’s something to be said for using Quaker businesses when you’re a Quaker, if you can and similarly using a company because you know that they have a Quaker working for them. Making Quaker connections doesn’t just have to be about in the context of our Meetings, but also in our daily lives.

So what did we see on our safari? Rhinoceroses, flamingos, a tortoise, jackals, giraffes, zebra, gazelles, a secretary bird, baboons, eagles, monkeys vultures, that sort of thing. Oh and three lions. There is something quite thrilling about seeing lions in the wild, they really are majestic creatures. We weren’t particularly close to them, but not so far that camera zoom lenses couldn’t handle capture them.

But most exciting of all, our driver is a Quaker and tomorrow he’s taking us to the Mabanga Farmers Training Centre, near Bungoma, as we get ready for the start of the Young Quakers Christian Association Africa triennial.

Completing the job

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bury/8361356.stm

(The video won’t be available to non-UK viewers.)

Danny Nardiello ran through on goal, only had the keeper to beat, shot and scored! Only he didn’t score because the ball got stuck in a muddy puddle just in front of the goal line. Unfortunately for Danny, he hadn’t followed through and Bury goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel was able to collect the stationary ball. There’s a lesson for us all in there somewhere, about how we need to make sure that when we start a job, we finish it.

If you’ve ever done Myers-Briggs you’ll know about your personality type and the types that you might need around you to complete your team and how together you will get things done. Jesus had great insight for this and he just knew about who he needed in his team. We call them the disciples, but there were other people too who Jesus relied upon to do his great work and help him finish the job.

It is important for us to take the time to seek God’s guidance to find out who is in our team and make sure that we treat them with the respect they deserve and together we’ll complete the job.