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2009-05-05 issue:

Conference builds trust among Somalis

Muslims and Christians share what they appreciate about each other.

by Jewel Showalter of Eastern Mennonite Missions

Print Article

Even as Somali pirates terrorized key shipping lanes bordering their coastline, Muslim and Christian peacemakers gathered nearby for negotiations of a different sort.

Sheikh Mohamed Abdillahi Omar thanks David Shenk, left, for a Somali primer on peacemaking. Photo by Dave Robinson.

In a conference facilitated by World Vision, Feb.1-3, 2009, 30 international and Somali humanitarian aid leaders met in Hargeisa, Somaliland, to explore the faith foundations that form their respective commitments. The international attendees were Christians, and the local attendees were Muslim. 

Badru Kateregga, president of the University of Kampala, and David Shenk, a global consultant with Eastern Mennonite Missions, were invited to be conference facilitators. 
Thirty years ago, Kateregga and Shenk co-authored A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue. Their engagement in the Hargeisa gathering was a further step in their journey as friends who bear witness to their respective faiths in a spirit of respectful encounter. 

One of the poignant moments in the Hargeisa meeting was when Shenk and Kateregga shared the pain of dialogue that they personally experience in their relationship with one another.

As they shared it was evident that although dialogue contributes to respectful understanding, it does not erase the different faith centers that form the Muslim and Christian communities. 

As these two friends, a Muslim and a Christian, modeled dialogue, the group began to share with one another the faith foundations that form their commitments to compassionate service, something they had hesitated to do before, although they work and serve together.

A moment of transformation came when the Christians shared with their Muslim colleagues what they appreciate about them, and when the Muslims, in turn, shared their love and appreciation for the Christians with whom they serve. 

“It was a modest step in trust-building in a region where the walls that separate have become quite formidable,” Shenk said.   

The concluding dinner with 35 local Muslim sheikhs from Hargeisa was another highlight of the gathering. 

In after-dinner remarks, Shenk told the sheikhs that he represents the Mennonite church, which has a more than 50-year history of engagement in Somalia and is a community committed to the compassion and peace of Christ. 

Shenk also gave each sheikh a copy of a Somali primer with narratives on peacemaking. The primer had been developed by Somalis in a writing project facilitated by Mennonites. Shenk said the sheikhs were delighted with the gift and invited strengthened commitments to peacemaking and dialogue endeavors.

He is also hearing reports of how the Hargeisa gathering is encouraging similar conversations in the various locations to which seminar participants have scattered.