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Kisumu Report 2007 Local Leadership Formation Seminar Kisumu, Kenya October 1-26, 2007
This year’s course was held in Western Kenya, with 11 pastors (including the synod bishop) and 2 laypeople who serve Methodist Church Kenya from throughout that region, which MCK calls the Western Synod. With the completion of this course CFS has been able to offer this seminar to a cross section of about 36 people, from a pool of about 300 MCK pastors, or roughly, 10% of the total, and 5 of the 10 synod bishops.
Our Goal The Center For Sharing’s board of trustees had initiated a three year strategic plan for the years 2005-2007. One of our four goals was to offer a servant leadership course in Kenya due to:
We feel very privileged that we have been able to offer a course during each year of our strategic plan. Last year, we made a decision to offer one more course in 2007. We wanted to give it one more year, and then wait and see if any Kenyan leadership might emerge around the call of starting a home grown servant leadership movement in Kenya.
The Context Kisumu is Kenya’s third largest city, which sits on the shores of Lake Victoria. However, this region, known as the Nyanza Province (one of 8 in Kenya) is currently the poorest region in Kenya, with 65% of its people living on 1 dollar/per day or less income. The province is also battling one of the highest HIV+ rates in the world, with roughly 1 of every 4 children now orphaned.
It is an area rich in natural resources. But due to its distance from the centers of power and commerce, it feels neglected and abandoned. There is little development, no tourism, something Kenya is famous for. The average resident of Kisumu spends approximately 110 minutes/day collecting water according to an article in The Nation news (Oct.5, 2007).
The course was held at the Imperial Hotel, which we chose for food safety, security and the comfort of air conditioning! One of the two best in Kisumu, it caters to international travellors and is a conference center. Most of the ministers told us they had never been invited inside this hotel. They were shocked when they received an invitation letter from their Presiding Bishop to come there…for a whole month. Daily Schedule We followed the same schedule (8:30-4pm Monday-Friday) this year as in the past: 8:30am: Gather, Devotion led by a different pastor each day Session 1 Tea: 10:30-11am Session 2 Lunch 12:30-2:30pm Session 3 Tea: 4pm
Mini Courses Covered Week One: Life of the Beloved (Like bread, God chooses, blesses, breaks, gives us) Dream Of God (God has a vision for the world; I have a place in it)
Week Two: Servant As Leader (lead by empowering in service of God’s dream) Cry Pain, Cry Hope (the tomb can become a womb/connection between your misery and ministry)
Week Three: In The Name of Jesus (willing to be led, like Jesus) The Enneagram (personality mapping)
Week Four: Christian Leadership (spiritual leadership is moving people onto God’s agenda). The Path (building a personal vision/mission statement)
Methodology of Teaching
For the exercises we do in class, through which we try to illustrate various principles of servant leadership such as teamwork, community building, trust, listening, etc… we try to use inexpensive, readily available tools so that participants can use the ideas when they return to their circuit communities. One of their favorite exercises this time was when we used two towels, placing them side by side, with half the group on one towel, and half on the other. They were given the instructions to turn the towel over without getting off the towel, or letting their feet touch the floor. We told them there was a hard way, and a servant leadership way of accomplishing the task!
Field Trips
This time we took our group to visit two HIV+ widow programs, one orphan preschool and a vocational training center for young pregnant/single mothers.
The girls were rejected by both family and church. Philemina, who took in their children, was so devastated by what had happened that she decided something had to be done to reach out to young girls with no support, no hope. They now are planning on a center that will house 700 girls. Our ministers were very touched by her story. We had just studied the connection between our brokenness and the possibility for new life as we let God transform our minds. We think they got the message!
The widows in Ugunja meet in support groups organized through St. Paul’s Methodist Church, under the leadership of Aggrey Amundi, a natural born servant leader. Somehow, he has managed to gather 365 widows into groups for education, support, nutrition, medical and health information and spiritual development. They are learning to live with hope. One of the speakers asked our group what viruses we are living with?!
Women are often blamed and kicked out of the home as the men become ill with AIDS. The custom in that region has been for the wife to be inherited by a male relative as another wife, when the husband dies. This causes further HIV infections and grief for the widow. So, this group is going to battle for title deeds to any land/houses their husbands had when alive. Normally, women have no rights to ownership. One widow had just received her title when we visited. The whole group was thrilled for her.
Observations This group began the course with a lot of frustration that they were forgotten by Nairobi…stuck out in a corner of Kenya with no resources and no support. One was quite depressed due to the hardships they live on a daily basis. But, by the end of week 1, God allowed them to see that a lot of their low spirit resulted from a low threshold about what was possible for their lives and communities. As their minds began to open to the possibilities, they just came alive. They began to share ideas and dream together in the evenings about income generating projects that might help their church families, and perhaps pay their salaries! It so happened that two of the ministers also have outside jobs with NGO’s, and know how to write grant proposals. So…we asked them to lead a workshop for the group on the basics of grant writing. Then, we asked each person to think up a project, and write a grant! The group critiqued each one, made changes where needed, and then turned them in to us. It was really exciting to watch these guys work as a team and come up with great ideas, which in turn energized them so much.
By the end of week two, they had decided to write up a Servant Leadership Declaration for Western Synod! They read the document to the Presiding Bishop when he came to give his closing speech for the seminar.
This group also wanted to know how to take the course material to their lay leaders. So, we shared some ideas. MCK has some 900 churches, including church plants and mission areas. It makes a lot of sense that the fastest way to spread SL through MCK would be to train lay leaders in each congregation, who could then hold classes for community members.
In addition, several participants want to go for their masters in SL at PAC U. There is much excitement about the possibility of forming an SLD organization in Kenya.
The presiding bishop told us that he would be willing to call together a committee from those who have attended one of the three courses, in order to determine the way forward. In the meantime, we are in email contact with several who seem most interested in carrying this vision on. I think of a favorite book by those great practitioners of experiential education, Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, who wrote about their methods and the impact of it on empowering participants to act as change agents, in their book “We Make The Road By Walking It.”
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Our sessions are held in a conference room with chairs arranged in a circle, no desks. We call it experiential education because the participants provide most of the information, through the sharing of their own lives, thoughts and experiences with each other. Reverend Justus Wamalwa exclaimed, after the area spiritual autobiography exercise, in which the group tries to come up with a history of their country/region, “how can we fail this course, when most of the material comes out of us?!” This style of education is foreign to them. They are used to the lecture method during which they take notes and listen, but do not speak or offer their own insights on the subject.
When we arrive in a new city, we try to find out who is out in the community serving those in need. It is always very interesting to discover why people have started ministries.
TEMAK, the vocational center was started by Philemina whose two sisters got pregnant, got AIDS, and died, leaving their children.
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