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.
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