Peace, within and around.

During the past week we have had the oppertunity to connect with a number of the Kenyan partners that Dana's parents work alongside. These groups have formed in response to local needs or concerns and include such inititaives as HIV/AIDS education, Food for Work (in response to the current drought), peace, water & food security, and support for children without parents.

Wehanya, a young twenty-something man, has been working in his home town, inspired to pursue and promote peace amongst his own people. He told us about events that occured in his grandparents generation that have caused deep, generational animosity and hatred, intentionally taught and passed on from parent to child. During the era when the British were leaving Kenya, his tribe, the Kikuyu, became deeply divided into two factions, those who supported the revolutionary Mau Mau and those that supported the British (the Home Gaurd). This resulted in violence, discrimination and broken trust that has profoundly effected this people group.

Wehanya, sensing that these entrenched perspectives among his people needed to change, began speaking with his grandparents generation as well as his own peers, wrestling with how to bring peace between families that have harboured hate while living in the same village for nearly 60 years. This has included inititives of bringing both factions of his grandparents generation together to work toward reconcilation, forgivness and grace. While he admits that this work for peace is difficult, and may not be embrace by the whole of his grandparents generation, those within his own generation have begun to throw off the shackles of mistrust and hate.

Beyond this, Wehanya and other who have joined him have begun to work towards a deeper sense of peace, recognising that having the absence of violence needs to be pursued but must be complemented with peace between genders, food security, spirituality, inter tribal relations and within the family. It is inspiring to see a generation respectivly challenging and inspiring themselves, their parents and grandparents to seek peace as a whole way of being, having it permeate customs, work, relationships and individual souls.

I do not know if there is a Swahili or Kikuyu word describing this deeper and holistic peace, but I believe the Hebrew word for this idea is Shalom. In this Advent holiday season, we are inspired to pursue and expereince this of kind peace within and among us.