The Nun-venture of a Lifetime: Part I

Sometimes all you need is a three-day retreat with Kenyan nuns to put everything into perspective.

            On Tuesday morning, I arrived at Chem Chemi Ya Uzima, a Catholic retreat and learning center sponsored by the Association of Sisterhoods of Kenya. Chem Chemi is in Karen, a beautiful, lush suburb of Nairobi that’s about 45 minutes from my apartment in Westlands. The quiet campus is absolutely beautiful, and I immediately felt refreshed just by being there.

            The CIRCA program manager (who is also my boss) met me at the gate and showed me to our classroom. Seven nuns greeted me softly, and I settled into a desk. My boss and I had previously discussed that during this week, I would be student-teacher-observer hybrid, helping her with administration and logistics but also providing insight for the Sisters as needed. We said opening prayers and began the workshop.

            CIRCA is a series of workshops designed to increase the capacity of religious groups to participate in interfaith community projects that sow seeds of peace in areas of religious tension. The AOSK sisters have already completed the first two CIRCA units, so it was time for Unit III this week. Over the course of several days, the CIRCA program manager and I helped the sisters learn how to facilitate a consensus building process with people of different faiths, and then the sisters began planning their own connector projects.

            Connector projects are an essential piece of the CIRCA program, and they fit in perfectly with the theory of change that CIRCA uses. The theory states that if religious leaders of different faiths can come together to provide some kind of service for their divided communities, those communities will not only benefit socioeconomically, but they will also gain understanding and be less vulnerable to religious extremism. Basically, it’s kinda hard for an Anglican woman to say she hates all Muslims after she’s spent three months building a children’s health clinic with members of the local mosque. This theory has been proven effective all over the world, and the CRS CIRCA project has successfully brought it into action in six African countries.

            Back to the Sisters: these seven ladies are from all over Kenya, and they represent diverse communities affected by all sorts of challenges. They are brave and smart and determined, and I have every confidence in them. After learning the core concepts of effective workshop facilitation and consensus building, the nuns put their new skills into practice with a role-play exercise. In the hypothetical scenario, the nuns played various community members who were in conflict because of a local safety issue that pitted Muslims against Christians. The Sisters devised a creative plan to make their land safer, employ disadvantaged youth, and bring people together to form an interfaith public safety committee. Talk about problem solving! After that exercise, I knew that whatever the Sisters’ real connector project turned out to be, it would be inspiring.

       This experience has taught me so much, and I’m incredibly grateful that I got to participate in and observe the workshops I’ve been helping to write. It’s one thing to sit in an office and work on these ideas, but it’s a totally different adventure to see them put into practice. The CIRCA Program Manager is a truly amazing woman who facilitated the Sisters’ learning process flawlessly, and it was a pleasure to learn from watching her work.

      I also learned a lot from the Sisters themselves, but I think the most precious gift from this week was my renewed commitment to this work. Peacebuilding might be the hardest job in the world, but these Sisters are not discouraged. They come from parts of Kenya like Garissa and Mpeketoni that have experienced devastating religious violence first-hand. Relations are tense, and people are afraid. But these nuns, these middle-aged, orthotics-wearing, tea-sipping nuns, are committed to change. They are protected by the Catholic Church; they could easily step back into their ranks and hide from the controversy in the safety of their convents. But these seven Sisters have chosen another path. They’ve chosen to work for a better, more peaceful world, even though it might be the most dangerous thing they every do. And if they can do it, so can I.