08023
January 9, 2008
Divine intervention
Kenyan churches, including Presbyterian congregations, assist in peace effort, relief work
LOUISVILLE – Until Tuesday, things in Kenya had been relatively calm, albeit tense, and a key religious leader was attributing the peace partly to efforts by various churches.
“This (Jan. 8) is the second day that we have seen a bit of calm,” said Bishop Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), a grouping of 140 denominations and 35 councils of churches from 39 countries in Africa.
The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, which has contested the results of Kenya’s late-December presidential election, had suspended planned rallies, a decision “that has contributed to the calm, because the police have consistently refused to allow the meetings to take place,” he said.
Additionally, re-elected president Mwai Kibaki invited the ODM — which has claimed the election was rigged against its candidate, Raila Odinga — to dialogue on Friday (Jan. 11), Dandala said.
But things swiftly changed again Tuesday when Kibaki named his cabinet, prompting renewed rioting by ODM supporters. Odinga also has rejected the offer from Kibaki for bilateral talks on Friday, calling the meeting a gimmick.
Still, in the midst of the very fluid conflict, Kenya’s religious community continues to try and help facilitate peace.
Church leaders, including those from the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) and other Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partners, have rallied their efforts in the last two weeks to bring an end to the violence and provide relief to those affected.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, invited to the country by Dandala and the AACC, led the faith community there in talks last week with the various parties involved in the conflict, including Kibaki.
“I think that visit played a very key role in profiling peace,” Dandala said before this most recent wave of violence.
Some religious leaders have been invited to take part in the Jan. 11 meeting, and Dandala said church leaders are analyzing how those who were invited can “actually represent all the voices.”
“The most difficult thing to resolve in all this is going to be this sense by the ODM of having been cheated out of the election,” he said.
The churches in Kenya also have developed four commissions — political, humanitarian, communication and spiritual — to better address the conflict.
“These four (commissions) have gone a long way in really giving shape to the response of the churches,” Dandala said.
And, he said, the churches have acknowledged what role they may have played in the situation. On Sunday, Jan. 6, there was a “wonderful service organized … for church leaders where they were confessing to one another … about what they may not have done well.”
“It was a powerful, powerful service” and “they even tackled the whole issue of ethnic tensions,” Dandala said. “The church itself is not hesitating to say that the things that have divided the community have also divided them as church leaders, but they are trying very hard to work through those things.”
The largest question for the church in Kenya is “how do we be a church, a church that is of everybody,” said the Rev. Phyllis Byrd, a PC(USA) mission co-worker and coordinator for the denomination’s Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program in Kenya. “It is possible to transcend our personal issues” to be the people “that God has called us to be.”
“My concern is for the whole country,” she said. “How do we be a church for the whole?”
Byrd said some of the greatest needs are in the townships, and the effects of the violence and conflict include food shortages and limited access to money.
“By far the people need monetary support,” such as food and clothing, she said. “And also to think about what does this mean long-term.”
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has established a special account for Kenya disaster response and relief, and also is working to provide support to the PCEA through Action by Churches Together International, a Geneva-based international alliance of churches and relief agencies of which PDA is a member.
“We need prayers,” Dandala said. “The strength of the church leadership here depends also on the prayers of the larger community.” |
