meeting of pastors

After a month and a half here in Chepolat, we’re finally seeing some progress in the peace and reconciliation side of our mission. On February 14th and 27th, we held meetings for first the Kalenjin, then the Kisii pastors of the town. From conversations with many locals, we found that in the area around the border town of Chepelat, even the pastors are still harboring distrust and hatred. We were of the opinion that if even the pastors, the ones who love Jesus, cannot love their neighbors, then there is no hope for the community, so we decided to start our ministry there.

On the 14th, we invited as many of the Kipsi pastors (the Kipsis are a subtribe within the larger Kalenjin tribe) as we could track down to our little church in a burnt out medical clinic. We invited them to come at 10 am, expecting them to be a little late. By 1:30, five had arrived so we started the meeting by serving bread and Fanta. We led the meeting, with Pastor George translating for the pastors who couldn’t keep up with our English, by asking three main questions: 1) what were the causes of what happened, 2) what is the status of peace now, one year later, and 3) where do we go from here. One at a time we presented these questions and all five of the Kipsi pastors gave us wonderful answers. They explained the events and the background of the tribal conflict in ways we had never heard, and showed us several new elements of the violence which we were unaware of. We had hoped that in the end, they would come up with the idea for a joint meeting with Kisii pastors sometime in the future, so that it would be their idea and not ours. They did this and even scolded us for not inviting them to this meeting. We were very happy to see their eagerness to work with pastors of the ‘enemy’ tribe.

On Friday, the 27th, we called the Kisii pastors together for the same type of meeting. Three pastors came and brought along three of their elders. We offered bread and Fanta and asked the same three questions. This meeting was very different though. The Kisii, as a people, tend to be very progressive, always forward looking and task oriented, where as the Kipsi are more traditional, more focused on relationships and holding on to their tribal customs. We noticed this difference at this second meeting. First, the Kisii pastors were cautious of us, not quite skeptical, but unsure of how to work with us, being so young and inexperienced. Several of them seemed to think that they should be the ones leading this meeting, not us. They noted our disorganization in calling and running the gathering and even asked us bluntly “what are you after in calling us together.” They certainly weren’t shy. They were very focused on the future, what types of programs to establish and how to bring many people to God, but needed a little push toward the idea of uniting with Kipsi pastors to achieve these goals. The three pastors seemed slightly less enthusiastic about working together with their Kipsi brothers but by the end we had a plan in place and were looking forward to this alliance, as they called it.

This second meeting was much more stressful for us, being put on the spot and just having things run less smoothly, but God used us in all of our inadequacies and youth. It was a blessing to be able to encourage these pastors to work together for peace and to initiate a revival of a pastors’ fellowship that died out during the violence. Witnessing pastors from both sides getting excited about meeting and working together for peace in this town was so encouraging and helped to remind us that our efforts aren’t what will bring peace to Chebilat. It will be God working in that strange and mysterious way of His that is so far beyond our comprehension.

In other news, since this week began the month of lent (we think?), we decided to make individual sacrifices. Taylor is giving up chocolate, Stefan cheeseburgers, and I will be abstaining from fast food.

Praises:
-God is moving!
-We were all more or less healthy this week
- The church building is consistently overflowing with new people
- We are going to have warm showers on Thursday night in Nairobi

Requests:
-Wisdom in helping to address disputes within the church
-Team unity
-Endurance in bringing the message of salvation to those we meet
-Possibility of having land donated for a permanent church building

Peace and Laughter,

Brook Musselman