CMS-Africa Chronicles by Brenda Oirere
Love, Faith, Hope
I always look forward to Tuesdays at the office- ‘Prayer time’. You would be having an awful day and be assured it would cease to be when you get to that boardroom.
I mean, I would rather we hold prayers somewhere else as the boardroom symbolizes fear and authority which do not sit well with most people…. correction* people like me, nonetheless that is the biggest space we own as at now before we relocate to our skyscraper, did I mention the great views? How its closer to the main road and the mall? Don’t get me wrong, I do not shop in malls, I just window-shop. **sad face.
Okay, my mind is wandering I was trying to put across how much I adore Tuesdays. There is something about people letting their gut down, taking a swing at leading a sermon at the office and encouraging you. For some, this will be the only opportunity to share a sermon and maybe for some its normal which again rings a bell, that maybe, we all aren’t that different from each other. We are just differentiated by tiny facets that each of us possess differently.
This particular Tuesday was going to find me out of office, thus missing the awesome sermon and as fate had it I would be doing something like a community outreach. This is a first for me, so I am as green as they come.
As we find our way to Diguna Youth Camp, after nearly half an hour of getting lost, my colleague and I let out a sigh of relief and hope that we are not too late for the conference.
As we are ushered into the hall, most of the seats are empty, and young people are lumped up in groups and hardly notice us as we walk to the front. This is a great honor to me as I have never been ushered in anywhere except the principal’s office when I was in high school for not attending morning preps - how petty!
Anyway a tall, sharply dressed guy comes to greet us and informs us that many people had not yet made it to the venue because of the heavy rains in Nairobi. We sigh with relief as that hinted to the much needed, few more minutes to prepare and dot the i’s and cross the t’s….
I wasn’t the speaker so I have no i’s to dot and no t’s to cross, so I pull out a book I have been reading like I always do, when I am at public places and in no need to engage people.
The room was filling up fast enough, its demographics queer though (as in the guys are tall, like really tall, the ladies too are tall and endowed with an exemplary shade of dark skin. Everyone looks like they would be fit for a modelling contest, given the recent celebration of colored people on the runways.
That got me thinking…. why are we suddenly being so visual and vocal about dark being beautiful? Are we really accepting it or are we only accepting it to fit in?) I learn fast enough the gathering is for young men and women from South Sudan albeit, a number of Kenyans were part of the crowd.
My knowledge on the political situation in South Sudan and its impact to the people is limited to the news I watch on television, though, I was a bit enlightened when I watched ‘The Good Lie ‘. The producer perfectly blends comedy, Christianity, humanity and tragedy. I got to know firsthand the plight of Sudanese war victims. You can watch the trailer here. Seeing all this faces of young men and women, to me, they were all victors.
I was given an opportunity to introduce myself and as I stood before these young men and women, I had only three things I wanted to talk about:
- love
- Faith
- Hope
From what I gathered, reconciliation had been the main reason for the conference. The participants were mainly refugees in Kenya having lost their relatives and only survived by God’s grace. If there is one thing post-election violence in Kenya taught me in 2007/2008, the only way to start living again is healing, and healing begins with reconciliation.
Reconciliation only begins when people hope that better days are coming, when they are able to love one another and when they believe that they can achieve a common goal with their counterparts.
Why love, faith and hope you ask?
The greatest commandment is Love. “: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and” Love your neighbour as you love yourself” and on this two hung all the laws of the land. Most African countries experiencing political tension are likely to be divided along tribal lines.
What if we were not divided at all? What if we loved each other? Families would still be together, people would go to school, our economies would improve. But love of one another is not as simple as it is on paper, because the hate has been passed on from generation to generation, the only hope is one Day God will create a generation that can forgive and the leaders will not only lead but preach reconciliation.
In every situation of our lives, we have to believe that somehow God is present. Jesus gave us hope when he left us these three things when he ascended into heaven;
- He will be with us till the end of time.
- He will not only intercede for us to God but the Father will answer our prayers because we have Loved His son Jesus. and
- He will send us the Holy spirit, to guide, teach and remind us of His love for us.
As we are reminded in (Matthew 11:28)-“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. There is no problem that God can’t solve, nothing whatsoever.
There are many times in the Bible where Faith was highlighted. The centurion, the woman with an issue of blood for 12 years, Job and many others which you can find in this link. Particularly, Jesus told his disciples… “I assure you that if you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you can say to this hill, ‘Go from here to there!’ and it will go. You could do anything!” (Matthew 17:20).
I sat down feeling like a victor because as much as I might not have said a life changing thing, I had gotten a chance to speak on something that mattered to me, that inspired me, and that moved me. I have over time learnt to understand what matters to me and as such advocated for it or let people know about it.
The conference turned out to be great, you could see a glimmer of hope in these young people’s faces and that a new generation is coming, a generation that not only knows God but one that follows His ways. That gave me hope too that with more and more of these gatherings, we would have a better South Sudan in coming days!
For the first time I understood what someone once said, “working in mission, you get to experience God in ways that you would not have experienced Him before”