Sharing Our Faith (lindsay)

When the professional Digo dancers came to pull one of us into the dancing yesterday, I knew what I had to do. I handed Collin the video camera and bravely marched forth into the circle. I then proceeded to shake it like a polaroid picture. 

So, this morning, we remembered that one of us was supposed to give an encouraging word to the Christian Union at Golini secondary school this afternoon. I promptly reminded Collin of the dancing scenario and mentioned that nothing says "thank you" like deciding to be the one to deliver a Biblical teaching to a group of high school students. 

Collin and I shared the same major as undergraduates, so I have seen him give presentations to groups several times. I have also read papers that Collin has written, and I have heard him articulate his opinions on politics, social issues, etc. I know that he is intelligent and quite capable of communicating information. I knew that he could do well sharing something from his faith, but I was curious to see what he would say. 

Collin spoke about love and how the rules of the universe have been put in place for our own good--because God loves us. He talked about how God gives us a code of living, and when we break the code it hurts us. Just like a parent makes rules for the good of the child, God gives us parameters within which we live more fulfilling lives. He spoke about taking care of ourselves, too. We need to love ourselves in order to be able to love others well. He differentiated between self-gratifying behavior and true love of one's self. True love of one's self is to accept God's love. To see ourselves as He sees us. With unconditional love.

Today was unique in that we were specifically asked to share a Christian message with a group people. Usually here (in Kwale, and also on this blog), we try to focus on the concept of love as portrayed through the development work that we do here rather than use this blog or our time here as a platform for espousing our faith. This is, in part, because of the complex interplay of faith, social responsibility, development work. 

Terry is our bridge between the Digo community and our church in the US. We defer to her on issues pertaining to faith and sharing it with people. She has relationships with many of the people in the Digo community. Everyone knows that she is a Christian and that we are too. 

The three of us look at it like this: we try to live in a way that people will know we are Christians by our love. We also believe that true religion is caring for widows and orphans. We also believe that we only love God because He first loved us. We believe that people will only want to turn to God if they know His love. And how will they know it if we don't show them? We must show them, not just tell them. 

So for us, we don't do a lot of preaching. We don't do overt evangelism. We don't try to convert people to our religion. Why? Because people don't want or need a new religion here in Digoland. They've got plenty of religion. There is the Islamic religion, there is the Kenyan Christian religion, and there is African Tribal religion. Most Digo people subscribe to one or more of the above. So, if it's religion people are selling, no one needs it. In fact, an attempt to spread religion often leads to a swift rejection due to the animosity between religious groups here.

People here do need love, however. And love to them means food when they would otherwise be starving. Love means education and empowerment for vulnerable members of society (specifically divorced women, widows, and children). Love means showing understanding, compassion, and assistance to young girls who get pregnant and have their families disown them. Love means being responsible with our resources and not thinking that money solves everything. Love means deferring to the community as our guide for how we can partner with them to make their lives better. Love means being open about our faith in Jesus as the quintessential example of what true love is, but not making people feel indebted to convert in exchange for things that we believe are basic human rights. Love is accepting others as they are, as Jesus accepts us as we are. 

So, Collin's message is one that sounds simple, yet, we will spend our lives trying to learn and practice it more and more each day.