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2008-03-04 issue:

Kenyan Mennonites struggle to rebuild

Eastern Mennonite Missions team finds Maasai Mennonites keeping peace.

by Jewel Showalter

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As an eerie, hesitant calm returned to Kenya, about 20 Kenya Mennonite Church (KMC) leaders met with leaders from Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM) in Migori on Feb. 15, to confer, weep and pray with one another.















Tribal elders who invited Mennonites to plant a church and assist with spiritual and physical rebuilding stand in front of their burned-out homes and businesses in Chipirete, Kenya. Photo by Clair Good.

Representatives from the seven dioceses of KMC and from the Maasai community of Olepolos reported on how their churches have been responding to the post-election crisis that has displaced about 600,000 people and left over 1,000 dead.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before in our beloved country,” said Philip Okeyo, general secretary of KMC and bishop of the Nairobi diocese. “We are all grieving and in shock.”

Okeyo thanked EMM representative to Africa Clair Good and EMM President Richard Showalter and Jewel, his wife, for coming.

“While others are running away,” Okeyo said, “you have come to share in our sufferings. Others come to Kenya to be with the animals in the game parks, but you have come to be with us.”

The Maasai leaders said that when Clair Good and his wife, Beth, had come two weeks earlier at the height of the crisis, the leaders had been encouraged to stand firm in their commitment to peacemaking in the community.

The larger Maasai community reacted violently to the news that the incumbent president was reinstalled after a disputed election. Members of minority tribes fled to the Mennonite church in Olepolos for protection, enraging some in the community, who began to drive them from the region.

“When we tried to supply the refugees with food, the community reacted against us,” said David Shunkur, a leader of Olepolos Mennonite Church. “We wavered but then stood firm in our commitment to assist all peoples regardless of their tribal backgrounds. We moved the refugees to the police station for protection and went around the community trying to calm people down.”

Some Mennonites are also assisting those from their communities who have had their homes and businesses burned—adding their own funds to the relief grants from EMM.

Clyde Agola is pastor of Songhor Mennonite Church in the Kisumu East diocese, a volatile border region that has witnessed some of the most violent clashes.

Agola said that one day as he returned from working on peace accords with local elders, groups from both sides of the conflict, Agola was pulled from his motorcycle and beaten up. Only the presence of people in the crowd who recognized him and intervened spared his life. One of his friends rode off on the cycle, saving it from destruction.

“Many in your communities have lost their loved ones, their homes, their businesses,” Good told the leaders. “Yet you have reached out in love. Has the presence of the church made a difference? From 1997-2002, when we worked with the Maasai in Kenya, there were numerous tribal clashes. But this year no one was killed in the communities where there are Mennonite churches among the Maasai.—Jewel Showalter of Eastern Mennonite Missions

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