Here is another post from Howard following the latest Global Venture:
Death is reflected in different ways depending on the cultural & religious practices unique to that community.
In Kenya funerals of the Christian religions take place on Saturdays.
Priests both Roman Catholic & Anglican travel the length of the country to bury their dead in the place of birth or their home town on a Saturday.
When interviewing priests of both the Catholic & Anglican faiths the concept of cremation & burial in municipal cemeteries is usually unheard of. They couldn’t understand why funerals in Europe take place on weekdays. To them Saturdays is the most convenient day as people are less likely to be working on a Saturday. They were also very disapproving of cremation that is standard practice in most parts of Europe.
Apart from the Sikh & Hindu community cremation is unique to them and not normally practised by other religions including Christianity.
The Kenyan people have a very matter of fact approach to death & there way of dealing with it is very different to that of European traditions.
The death of a loved one is very much a fragmented (DIY) Do it yourself arrangement. Unlike in the United Kingdom where a funeral director takes care of all the arrangements.
On weekdays in the local market you will see carpenters making coffins along the roadside. A practice unheard of in many parts of the western world.
On Fridays the municipal mortuaries are open to the public to collect their loved ones. However there is a restriction. If the family don’t have the money to pay the mortuary fees they are charged rent for each successive day the deceased remains in the mortuary. This often means they cannot be buried the following Saturday as planned.
Having overcome the obstacle of mortuary fees and your loved one being released from municipal refrigeration the process is still very complicated.
Whilst in Kisumu I witnessed many systems of primitive carriage for the conveyance of a coffin. Two of these included balancing a coffin on the crossbar of a bicycle or using a beer crate trolley. One of the priests I spoke to said it was not unusual to put the deceased on the roof rack of a car. For those that can afford it a hearse may be hired. An African hearse is not the same as we are accustomed to in Europe. Very practical they will use a Ford transit van. The seats are removed on one side to accommodate the coffin with the family sitting in what remaining seating space is available alongside.
Death is always a very emotional time for those intimately involved. It is very important that this taken into consideration by those directly & indirectly taking part. My experience in Kisumu was that the selling of a coffin was no different to the person on the next market stall who may be selling fruit & vegetables.
However in a country that is very poor materially they remain very strong in their Christian Faith. The African people approach death in a way that most Europeans couldn’t cope with. This is to their credit and shows how much we take for granted in the Western World.
Despite them being poor we have a lot to learn from them in a very materialistic world. What is important is that they never give up on their faith. They are very strong people both physically & spiritually.
Howard Marshall. Kisumu, Kenya. June/July 2009.
Showing posts with label Christian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Visit To St. Lukes Parish
This blog is a little late, but better late than never! Its entirely my fault that it is late, but it is well worth a read....
Tuesday 07th July 2009
Visit To St. Lukes Parish, ACK, Manyatta, Kisumu, Kenya.
This morning I visited St. Lukes Church, Manyatta, where I was shown around the Parish & his Archdeaconary by the Pastor Canon Shadrick Jackim Owour.This was quite an eye opening experience as the Parish is in quite an impoverished slum area of Kisumu. Canon Owour s Parish was close to the epicentre of post election uprising of 2007. Only 100 yards from his church are the destroyed ruins of homes occupied by members of the Kikuyu Tribe.Despite the trouble church services still took place during that time of unrest. Many people could not get to church due to road blocks. At the same time time the Vicar could not always get out of the Vicarage to visit his parishoners for the same reason. When I interviewed Canon Owour later that morning it was quite horrifying what he saw and many experienced during that time of unrest. He and his wife kindly put people up in the vicarage who had lost their homes for their own safety as well as providing them with a place of shelter.
Outreach Projects.
Many of the roads around Kisumu are dirt tracks so Canon Owour showed me around the Parish in his much needed 4X4 vehicle. A lot of the communitities are not in the most accessible places and cannot afford transport to the main church at St. Lukes. As a result they have a number of Mission Areas where they are building churches accessible to the local community they intend to serve. I was shown 2 of these projects.
Herald Church.
This church when completed is in a rural area on the outskirts of Kisumu, close to where the post election violence took place. It is uncertain when the project will be completed due to funding. The churchs current structure consists of wooden uprights that supports a corrugated metal roof.
Riat. ACK Church.
This church is situated on higher ground with a scenic view of Lake Victoria in the distance. We were met by the Church Warden who lives nearby. He showed us the ambitious architects plans for a new church building on this site. Due to many factors including funding this project will be ongoing and will probably not come to fruition in many of our lifetimes. It appears to be a long term project. The existing church is a mud hut with a corrugated metal roof, which although functional is not ideal in the long term.I get the impression that people like churches, particularly in many of these rural areas as they bring small communities together. It doesnt matter what their religious beliefs are they often look upon the church as a source of help and support as well as being the focal point of that small community.
Howard Marshall.
Tuesday 07th July 2009
Visit To St. Lukes Parish, ACK, Manyatta, Kisumu, Kenya.
This morning I visited St. Lukes Church, Manyatta, where I was shown around the Parish & his Archdeaconary by the Pastor Canon Shadrick Jackim Owour.This was quite an eye opening experience as the Parish is in quite an impoverished slum area of Kisumu. Canon Owour s Parish was close to the epicentre of post election uprising of 2007. Only 100 yards from his church are the destroyed ruins of homes occupied by members of the Kikuyu Tribe.Despite the trouble church services still took place during that time of unrest. Many people could not get to church due to road blocks. At the same time time the Vicar could not always get out of the Vicarage to visit his parishoners for the same reason. When I interviewed Canon Owour later that morning it was quite horrifying what he saw and many experienced during that time of unrest. He and his wife kindly put people up in the vicarage who had lost their homes for their own safety as well as providing them with a place of shelter.
Outreach Projects.
Many of the roads around Kisumu are dirt tracks so Canon Owour showed me around the Parish in his much needed 4X4 vehicle. A lot of the communitities are not in the most accessible places and cannot afford transport to the main church at St. Lukes. As a result they have a number of Mission Areas where they are building churches accessible to the local community they intend to serve. I was shown 2 of these projects.
Herald Church.
This church when completed is in a rural area on the outskirts of Kisumu, close to where the post election violence took place. It is uncertain when the project will be completed due to funding. The churchs current structure consists of wooden uprights that supports a corrugated metal roof.
Riat. ACK Church.
This church is situated on higher ground with a scenic view of Lake Victoria in the distance. We were met by the Church Warden who lives nearby. He showed us the ambitious architects plans for a new church building on this site. Due to many factors including funding this project will be ongoing and will probably not come to fruition in many of our lifetimes. It appears to be a long term project. The existing church is a mud hut with a corrugated metal roof, which although functional is not ideal in the long term.I get the impression that people like churches, particularly in many of these rural areas as they bring small communities together. It doesnt matter what their religious beliefs are they often look upon the church as a source of help and support as well as being the focal point of that small community.
Howard Marshall.
Monday, 6 July 2009
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.
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.
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