Churches

Yesterday Howard and I experienced Christian Church services here in Kisumu. Howard attended St.Lukes (which is twinned with his own St. Lukes church back in Cheltenham) and I accompanied Edwin Ochieng (Chairman of Kisumu Links and sister cities) at St. Stephens Cathedral in Kisumu town centre. Both churches were very well attended, there were around 400 people at St Stephens, several sat or stood outside listening to the service via loud speaker!The services here are much longer than back home, both of them lasting over 3 hours! As guests of the church we were both invited to say a few words to the congregation. I was only made aware of this the night before (just before going out for a few social drinks) but I had a feeling it might happen so had been giving it some thought. I have been reading Barack Obama's first book: 'Dreams from my father' (his father is from this region of Kenya) and there is a part in it (pages 292-293) which I thought would be worth drawing on. I thought I'd type up what I said here as it definitely captures how I feel about Kisumu and Kenya.

Hope

I want to talk about an inspiring man and a passage from his inspiring book: "Dreams from my father" by Barack Obama. In this passage he talks about hope. He is reflecting on a sermon he heard when he was working as a community organiser in one of Chicago's most deprived neighbourhoods. He writes this:

The title of Reverend Wright's sermon that morning was "The Audacity of Hope." He began with a passage from the book of Samuel - the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting titled 'Hope'.

"The painting depicts a harpist," Reverend Wright explained, "a woman who at first glanceappears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

Obama continues to quote the Reverend as he relates the story to the troubled Chicago neighbourhood Port-Au-Prince:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-Au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere... That's the world! On which hope sits!"

What Obama is saying is that despite the problems we might face: hunger, deprivation, depression, pain, poverty, hardship and the greed of others; despite all these things we can always hope. The Reverend Wright ended by talking again about the painting:

"And yet consider once again the painting before us. Hope! Like Hannah, that harpist is looking upwards, a few faint notes floating upwards towards the heavens. She dares to hope... She has the audacity... to make music... and praise God... on the one string... she has left!"

Kenya is so very different to the UK. Kisumu is so very different to Cheltenham. Kenyans need to find that audacity Obama is talking about, the audacity of hope. They need to stand above all of the difficulties they face, big and small and hope and believe that they can overcome them. I've been here for two weeks and seen many, ma ny problems, from accidents that happen to cyclists because they have no reflective clothing, lights or helmets to major problems caused by the changing climate and global warming. If I was a leader, at any level, here in Kenya I think I would be overwhelmed by this and not know which problems to address first.

What I do know is that I, like President Obama, would be optimistic, I would hope. There are enough people in this wonderful country who are committed to postive change, enough people who look outward rather than in, enough people to have the audacity to hope.

I am only the leader of a small charity, Global Footsteps. We are based in Cheltenham in the UK, but we have members all across the world, some of them are here today. We exist to link communities and people together to promote intercultural understanding and environmental education. We do this through holding international youth conferences every other year and by linking schools, charities, community organisations and churches. I hope that we can link this church with one of a similar size in Cheltenham. And I hope that by doing this both Churches will benefit as they learn from and help each other.