The African Christian Church and Schools

The Africa Christian Church and Schools (ACC&S) is one of the two indigenous church denominations that we visited in Kenya. We visited the ACC&S for three days and really got a good overview of their structure. On the first day we went to their headquarters and bible school. The moderator (highest position within the denomination) and some other leaders met with us and made themselves available for some questions and discussions.
On the second day the ACC&S development director, Henry, took us to a village called Maai Mahiu in the Rift Valley. Even though the people in the town were not directly affected by the violence following recent elections they hosted internally displaced peoples (IDPs) in one of the church yards. Some of the pastors and post-elections violence victims met with us to tell us their stories. On January 2, 2008 around 7pm people from nearby villages started coming to the town looking for shelter. People in the market did not know how to help them but directed them to the African Inland Church (AIC). About 40 pastors from the area and all different denominations soon met and mobilized their congregations to bring food to the AIC in Maai Mahiu. The area in general is very modest and I am sure people did not have all this extra food just lying around. At the end the churches of the region hosted this IDP camp for over two months including children’s programs and daily adult devotions. Two of the post-election violence victims told us of their story. They were sisters-in-law and both families had lost everything during that time. They had recently travelled back to their homes and found everything destroyed. They were quite certain that they would never be able to return. This was an incredible testimony of Christians coming together and helping those in need.


On the third day we travelled far into tea country to visit some of the ACC&S Guardians of Hope (people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS) programs. I was very impressed by how hard-working these people were and how much they could accomplish with so little. The ACC&S gives a cow to each family in this program and I could not believe the difference one cow could make. The first born calf is returned to the program but that is all the family has to repay. The manure from the cow greatly increases crop productivity in their gardens, the families receive milk and can breed cows. It was really interesting to visit these families in their homes. The landscape of tea country has also burnt itself into my memory. It is absolutely beautiful.
I will try to write at least one more reflection on Kenya before we leave Canada…so stay tuned.

Reflections on Kenya

Since my return I have been surprised how many people ask me about more information on our blog, specifically about my trip to Kenya. So I have decided to write some more detailed reflections concerning my time in Kenya over the next couple of days.

The last Kenya update was about Garissa and after reading my update I feel I left out so much. We arrived in Garissa during the late afternoon and I was a bit oblivious to the safety issues that a big group of white people represented in this place. I just wanted to walk out of the gates of the hotel that we were staying in and see the market and meet people. Garissa is just so different than any other place I had visited, a city in the desert... so exciting. But contrary to my hopes we did not leave the hotel, instead Mohammed, a young Muslim Somali/Kenyan man met with us in one of the hotel meeting rooms. Mohammed shared his story with us... his mother was a Somali Muslim and his father was a Kenyan Christian. You can imagine how complicated his childhood was. He grew up Christian but later converted to Islam. His life story does not make us Christians look good. Well his story was very insightful into how deep the divide is between Christians and Muslims in Garissa and that conversion from one faith to another is not always an individual decision. Mohammed joined us for dinner and I sat next to him. I had so many questions and tried hard not to overwhelm him. We had a nice talk about the differences and similarities between Christianity and Islam. At the end there were many things we did not agree on but I think we both felt that we had learned a lot about each others faith.

The next morning in Garissa had a full schedule. First we went to the Tuberculosis Clinic that Mohammed is responsible for and then we visited an elementary school.

The TB clinic was very interesting, wee did not get to visit with any patients as the size of our group would have been too overwhelming but we got a tour of the property. The buildings were more than modest and the kitchen looked like it was from the Middle Ages. The purpose of this clinic is to provide patients with food as the medication to treat TB, which is provided by the goverment free of charge, must be taken with a good meal. Mohammed and another woman administer the medication and provide healthy meals.

For the school visit the Praxis students were split up in groups and we had to preprare lessons for each class room. Most groups told a bible story but replaced overtly Christian symbols. The purpose for the visit was to teach these mostly Somali children good morals and thereby show that Christians have good values. We had learned that Christians are perceived very negatively by many Muslims in this area. We had a great time with the children and I think they enjoyed our visit as well. We left Garissa right after the brief visit at the school.

Many of the Praxis students felt that the visit in Garissa was too short. I think one of the strangest things about the Garissa visit was that because there were so many white people in our group we represented a security risk. Our leaders did not feel that it was safe for us to stay in Garissa any longer than we did.

I will try to write more tomorrow.

More Updates Coming

Just so you do not think we have abandoned the Blog, I am leaving this message. More updates about what happened throughout Leona's trip to Africa will be left shortly. Since it is less than two weeks before leaving for Germany we have been a little preoccupied with making final arrangements.

One thing that really complicated things is the hail storm which we had in Pickering on Monday. We were supposed to hand over our car to the people who are taking over our lease on Tuesday. The car was hit so badly with hail that we were unable to do so. At this moment our car is in the shop getting fixed as it had around 100 dents because of the hail. Luckily we have good insurance. I love these little lessons about trusting in God to work things out.

CSBS- Update

Just a little interesting antidote from the CSBS conference. When my brother and I arrived at the UBC campus we checked the schedule and made our way over to the Hebb building where we were going to listen the Hebrew Bible session. We were greeted by a campus employee who informed us that the entrance we should use to arrive at the session of biblical studies was in the alley behind the dumpsters. Apparently a fitting place for lofty conversations concerning God's written word.

CSBS Vancouver

I (Christopher) will be leaving to go to Vancouver for the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS) annual meeting. This year it is held at UBC. Meetings are held throughout Canada. Since the meeting is so close to my parents house I thought I would take the oppurtunity to go. The meeting consists of session in which various scholars present papers based upon research they have been doing throughout the year. This is normally a good place to test out a new idea. I submitted a paper based upon the thesis which I wrote as part of the requirements for my MA degree at McMaster Divinity College (Hamilton, ON). I am presenting on Tuesday, June 3. The paper is titled "These are the Days of the Prophets." I have posted the abstract below. I hope to publish this at a later point.

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The scholarly conversation concerning Ezra-Nehemiah has largely been focussed on diachronic methods. Tamara Eskenazi was the first to consider Ezra-Nehemiah synchronically. Her work was an exceptional as well as essential step forward. However, her focus on the unity of Ezra and Nehemiah causes her to overlook the plot structure of Ezra 1–6. In this study a plot structure is outlined for Ezra 1–6 based upon the עלה (go up) imperative and the בנה (build) imperative which are given by Cyrus in Ezra 1:2–4. The Judean people are able to accomplish the עלה imperative without conflict, but the בנה imperative is not completed so easily as the temple rebuilding project reaches a standstill in Ezra 4:24. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah then intervene and become the catalyst for the resolution of the narrative (5:1, 6:14). This study highlights the narrative role of the prophets in Ezra 1–6.

Kenya Update No. 5

Here is another update from Leona.

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On Monday we drove to Garissa. That was so interesting. Here in Nairobi it has been warm for a couple of hours during lunch time but otherwise kind of cool, but still nice. When we drove to Garissa you could really feel the weather change. It was so hot and sticky when we got there and it is only five hours of Kenyan road (which is full of pot holes sometimes and therefore a slower drive). It really felt that we were driving into the desert. Nairobi is very green and as we got farther away the landscape became very sandy. Closer to Garissa we saw many dried-out rivers, Camel herds, and just incredible poverty. The conditions that people lived under are hard to describe. We saw many little huts (if you can even call them that) that were made out of sticks. And another thing that I found so interesting was that we were driving throught the desert and there were people walking along the road, I could not figure out what they were doing there. We could see for miles and there were no houses or anything in sight. And it was not only a few people. It was just so interesting and shocking. We were only in Garissa for one evening and one morning and we saw some things there, but I thought that the drive was the most interesting part.

Kenya Update No. 4

I (Christopher) was sitting in the Tim Horton's at Warden and Eglinton and my cell-phone rang and it was Leona calling from Kenya. This may have been one of the more expensive phone calls in our life, but it is obviously worth it. She was visiting her former co-worker in Nairobi. The group had a free afternoon to tour the city after the church service on Sunday.

This week they are making the trek east in Kenya to Garissa from Nairobi. She mentioned that she kissed a giraffe twice the previous day and has been seeing a fair amount on interesting wildlife. One of the components of last weekend was to learn how to bargain at the local markets. The African students were to aid the Canadian students. When I talked to her she said that she had used her new found bargaining skills to purchase numerous interesting items.

Hope you are enjoying these updates.