Kenya mission started

[Marianne Kieffer]

This winter I was able to travel to the African continent for the first time of my life. It was an easy beginning: I could visit my former neighbour John and his family, and was being prepared by his sister Charity who still lives in Germany. Being there, I was managed by John's sister in law, Nancy, who is an engaged teacher and mother, still going to school herself also, and by Virginia, who helps grandma Florence as a house-girl, could not study because her parents could not pay for the school, but speaks a very good English and has a lot of knowledge. And little Peter, 5, Nancy's son, became my good friend, being already able to communicate in English, like almost everyone in Kenya.

 

Kenya was an easy beginning in Africa also because the climate is quite moderate. Nairobi at a height of 2000 meters has mostly around 25°Celsius during the day, and of course colder at night - I was deceived that Africa was so cold here! A short travel to Mombasa made me have some heat that came close to that of the hot summers during which I worked in New York. And like in New York, I found just two half days to enjoy a kind of holiday on the beach.

 

All the rest of the time, I made a lot of contacts, going out with the family to where their life takes place:

 

a wedding in the Paradise gardens, where I met many teachers and the school director who invited me to visit his primary school 

 

a funeral that was quite touching because a young mother had died in Canada, and her parents had taken the body home, the children and the husband also were there and spoke on the stage of a modern church in the form of a big white tent,

 

a school graduation where teachers celebrated the success of their studies, and where a lady in traditional dress, director of a childrens' home, about whom Nancy announced to me that she was "the best", gave a very good speech in English, of which I understood every word, and which made me quite happy because she promoted the same ideas that my generation fought for in Europe in the 70ies and 80ies: listen to the children, make them participate, guide them with love and not with violence: she spoke of "positive discipline" and "negative discipline", the latter not being recommended, and that she used to enter a school class and start telling an interesting story, so that the children listened and did not make noise, and she said: you need to be as active as the children!  - I liked all that, and it's like I used to do,

 

a Christmas visit to the relatives of "my" family who live in the home area and do farming - it was the most touching experience to see the old hut made of branches and clay, and the way of life in between variated cultures of bananas, maize, yams, with some cows, goats and hens

 

a fund-raising for the equipment of young musicians, in a church in that same home area of the Kikuiu, an extremely touching experience when little children gazed at me, having probably never seen a white person, and some approached me very carefully, touched my white skin and caressed me with the innocence of children that are being well cared for and educated with love by their parents and the whole village community,

 

and visits at several churches, a traditional Anglican church, a new Kenyan Anglican church, and a very young church with only 15 members, founded by Pastor Lucy after she got a spiritual call at night, being told she should become a prophet and help especially the poor. She was very close: she rented a little building from "my" family where I stayed. And her way of working is also very close to mine. She has long opening hours where she receives people with their troubles and prays for them, and many improved their situation, their health and their finances afterwards. One was healed even from Aids, and one succeeded to go to Germany where she is working now as a nurse - Lucy showed me her photo.

 

I promised to send clothes and other things for John, who has a too small shop beside a busy road where at rush hours you cannot breathe, because the cars in Kenya still blow out very dirty gases, and for the two young churches so that they can give things to their poor members and needy people, and I promised to send a laptop to Nancy, who as a teacher and student still does not have internet access. I bought two mobile phones in Nairobi, as I had forgotten mine, and came to know the difficulties that people have there to get good quality phones. I left both phones, with photo function, to John and Virginia. Nancy had bought a good phone for her daughter, 15, but nobody knew how to take the photos out of the phone, and I went with them to find who could do it.

 

A young theology student who is going to be pastor soon and is already working for the new Kenyan Anglican church, invited me to the youth Sunday school, and we spoke many hours about drugs and sex, and all the dangers for young people. He proposed that they would also do like me, and go out to find people who had problems in their lives and help them - cheap drugs, little pills, are getting more and more a problem in Kenya. The future pastor himself took such drugs for several years, and stopped them, and now he wants to help others. The actual pastor said that his brother is having an alcohol problem. So, they also think and will do the way I work, not approaching people an authoritarian and offending way, but meeting them in their situation with understanding, and even sharing their experiences, but having secure ways out of trouble.

 

I was not able, like in Germany, France and New York, to write and produce publications and go out on street-work with fund-raising. There is still too much of the belief that white people must be rich, and must give something. However, I had the impression that Kenyans do own and govern their country themselves, and a reasonable way, and that the difference to our culture and life quality is not that big, and will even become less in the future. So, Kenyans will surely understand that they can support by themselves the projects that will grow there. And I saw they are really able to donate for their churches and for good purposes, like the family that lost its mother/daughter, or the young musicians, brothers who also lost their mother when they were children.

 

On the morning before I left, I was in the primary school were Nancy is a teacher. In Kenya the primary school goes until 8th class, and is free nowadays. I was invited by the director to his office, he showed me the newspaper of his school, and that made me happy. I promised to keep contact. In Nancy's class I saw that a 6- year-old boy kept on drawing all kinds of objects from his illustrated school book, exactly right and even in perspective, like also children and a car, and I must say, I saw many children drawing, but never a 6-year-old who was able to do that! I got his family's address, they are not practicing muslims. I wish to help talented children in Kenya to develop and to use their abilities for the happiness of the rest of the world. Who wants to come with me to Kenya next time?