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A sword has pierced our soul

11/4/2015

2 Comments

 
PicturePHOTOCREDIT: mwarv.click.co.ke
for Daystar University Chapel
April 7, 2014 


Today, we are a region in mourning.

Just three days ago, we lost one hundred and forty-seven of our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, relatives, friends, acquaintances, fellow citizens, in a horrifying attack in Garissa University College. 

And today, our East African Community sister country Rwanda commemorates the 21st anniversary of the beginning of the genocide of 1994, a horror that also washed over their country and claimed over 1 million lives in about 100 days.

Both these great losses occurred during the Easter season, when we remember the greatest sacrifice of all; that of our Lord who was innocent, but tortured, mocked, flogged and crucified by our sin.

Even in our grief, we are triumphant, because we know the Resurrection. We know that even as Jesus was whipped by the soldiers, mocked by the crowds, crucified on the cross and taunted by the thieves on Friday, Sunday was coming when the stone would be rolled away and the Lord would appear in the flesh.

However, it is still too soon, and the pain is still too fresh, for us to celebrate the Resurrection when Kenyan families still haven’t identified, let alone buried the victims of the Garissa tragedy. We do know, though, that our sister country Rwanda has emerged from the ashes of 1994 to build a new nation. But even in Rwanda, everything isn’t perfect. Some pain never heals, and like our Lord’s pierced hands and side, the scars will always remain. However, the power of the Resurrection is what keeps us believing two thousand years later. It is the same power that can propel Rwanda to greater heights, and that can help Kenya win the war over terror.

All the same, it’s important for us to remember that there’s no Resurrection without the story of great love, and later great trauma, of the people who loved the individuals who were so cruelly taken from the world. And today, I’d like us to reflect on one such story.

The story of Mary.

From the very beginning, Mary the mother of Christ knew her son was special. His birth was announced by an angel. He was conceived by immaculate conception. When he was born, expensive gifts were brought by the three wise men. Shepherds came to see him, angels sang “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2: 14). Mary and her husband Joseph took the baby to the temple, where the prophet Simon, and Anna, the daughter of Penuel, celebrated this child who would bring redemption to Jerusalem. Simon prayed “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2: 25-40).
 
But not everyone celebrated.  King Herod, fearing a threat to his power, panicked about the birth of Jesus, and had all the Hebrew baby boys slaughtered. 

So whether it was from the celebration or the Herod’s reaction, Mary knew that the child she was raising was no ordinary child. She probably knew that the hopes and lives of people would forever be changed because of her son.

But thirty three years later, Christ’s calling to redeem mankind would be like a spear through her heart. It’s not that Mary didn’t know. When she and Joseph brought the baby Jesus to the temple, the prophet Simon had warned them: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

But even then, I doubt that any warning could prepare Mary for the horror of seeing her son in excruciating pain, hanging on a cross, all because he had loved the rejected, fed the hungry, healed the sick and taught the people.

And that is the story that we’re witnessing 147 times today in Kenya, and that we witnessed a million times in Rwanda in 1994. In Kenya, parents took their children to school because they knew that their children were not ordinary. They had hope that these young people who were training to be teachers and other professionals, would touch the lives of thousands more. Although some knew the risk of taking their children to a school so close to the border with Somalia, and even tried to get their children transferred to another campus, they still sent their children to university because the hope for their children’s future was so much stronger than the fear of the present. Like Mary, they knew. 

But three days ago, a sword pierced their soul.

We must thank these parents for their step of faith, and pray earnestly that God may comfort them. Because no parent deserves to go through that kind of horror.

Similarly, in Rwanda 21 years ago, a sword pierced the soul of many families whose children, parents, friends, lovers, were wiped out, and with them, hopes and dreams for the next generation. Again, nothing could have prepared them for the heartbreak of seeing neighbors, and sometimes even relatives, turn on them upon incitement by the government.

But the excruciating and cruel manner in which innocent lives are taken away by people for whom politics is more important than humanity – be it Herod ordering the slaughter of baby boys, the Roman soldiers crucifying Christ, the Interahamwe slaughtering Tutsis or Al-Shabab killing in the name of Somali Islamic nationalism – is not the end of the story. There is Resurrection. The sorrow of Mary Magdalene, who was with Jesus’s mother at the cross, would soon be replaced with the joy of seeing the risen Lord, whose resurrection was announced with the question “why are you looking for the living among the dead?”

So we too, with our tears, must also see our fallen children, our fallen brothers and sisters, as rising from the tomb. We must tell the world that 147 people’s lives are snuffed out, but they are alive!

They are alive because we remember them by naming them. We can name Isaac Pop Bushen, Branton Wakhungu, Aban Kumba Daniel, Peter Masinde, Selpher Solo Wanda, Erick Ondari Nyabuto, Doreen Gakii, Adley Mose, Ruth Esiromo, Solomon Oludo, Mary Muchiri, Lydia Obondi, Tonie Wangu, Joy Chepkorir, Gideon Bryson Mwakleghwa, Priscilla Kathure Akwalu and others.

But we can also remember them by honoring the dreams which they and their parents wanted to fulfil by sending them to Garissa University College. And this is where I call upon you, Daystar students, to take your studies more seriously. We teachers are unhappy to see parents pay fees for their children, and the children skip class, crashing their parents’ dreams, while confusing many other students who are struggling to raise fees to finish the semester. Remember that for each one of you, when you were born, the universe lit up and celebrated this great life that has joined the world. Each parent, each teacher, each preacher who has spoken into your lives saw potential in you and invested their dreams in you. When you were born, God smiled and said – did you know that my son or my daughter will bring healing to the sick, knowledge to the illiterate, hope to the nation? 

Do not let yourselves, your sponsors, your country down. Embrace the power of the Resurrection and remember the hopes invested in you, the youth of Kenya, hopes that Al Shabab tried to wipe out three days ago.

In dedication to the grieving parents and families of our heroes who fell in Garissa, I would like to play this song “Mary did you know?” by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene. It is normally played as a Christmas song, but I think it points out what Mary might have been remembering as she watched her son die such a painful death

I dedicate this song is to the parents of Kenya. To the parents of the 147 students who were brutally massacred in Garissa. They knew that their children would one day rule the nations, but Al-Shabab had evil ideas in mind. But those Garissa university students can rule through you, students of Daystar. Do not let your fallen heroes down. You must fulfil your parents’, teachers’, communities’ dreams, prayers and hopes which they see live eternally through you. Do not let a sword pierce their souls by neglecting to do what God has called you to do at Daystar. AMEN. 

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Study to set your own nations' destiny

9/4/2015

1 Comment

 
PictureCredit: Tony Karumba: Getty Images
On April 8th, the Rwandan community at Daystar University held a film screening to commemorate the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. Of course as we planned, we couldn't imagine that in Garissa, a horrific incident was going to happen. I also fell sick and could not attend the event. So this is the message I sent to the gathering. Mungu ibariki Afrika.

Dear Daystar Community

I'm very sorry that I'm not able to join you today to discuss a country that is as close to my heart as Kenya; that is Rwanda. Twenty-one years ago, I was about your age, looking forward to graduating and getting a job, when news of the slaughter in Rwanda started to reach us in Nairobi. My mother, who worked with an international organization, would tell us that she has been unable to reach her Rwandan friends. Meanwhile, we saw in the press pictures of rivers full of bodies.

But it took me another 10 years to understand what happened in Rwanda. And I consider myself lucky to have understood. Many Africans still don't, because we're not teaching African history as we should. And that's why every year, we must remember the people who were tortured, raped and killed in Rwanda because their government lacked the political knowledge and courage to build a Rwandan nation. We must remember those who lived to tell their story. We must remember and support Rwandans as they rebuild their country.

Of course, we also remember that just like the genocide against the Tutsi, we Kenyans have suffered a shocking event in this season when we remember the death and resurrection of our Lord. As we remember with Rwandans, we also mourn the students and staff of Garissa University College who lost their lives, once again to cowards who make political decisions with guns, rather than with their brains. This year, let as mourn as the East African Community, and vow to build a community where we use love, words and ideas, not hatred and killing, to make political decisions. 

As students, in honor of those we mourn and remember today, you must study. Study your history. Study for knowledge, not exams. Study to set your own nations' destiny - not to implement the hateful destiny that the killers in Rwanda imported from colonialism and that the killers in Garissa imported from Syria.

I thank you for attending this forum. I also thank the organizers of this forum, and hope that we can have another one soon which I will be well enough to attend.

Mungu ibariki Afrika.

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When we remember, we believe

24/6/2014

 
PicturePicture courtesy of the Rwandan High Commission to Kenya
Address at Kwibuka20 commemoration
Mount Kenya University, Thika
14th March 2014


Your Excellency, Yamina Karitanyi, the Rwandan High Commissioner to Kenya,

Hon. Ezekiel Mutua, Ministry of Information
Your Excellencies, High Commissioners, Ambassadors and Representatives of Countries represented here,


Students and teachers, and our generous host, Prof Stanley Waudo, Vice-Chancellor of Mount Kenya University,

Fellow East Africans,

I am always humbled to talk about the horror that visited our Rwandan brothers and sisters in April 1994, when families were tortured and wiped out because of the ethnic tag “Tutsi.” No matter how much I read and listen to the testimony of victims of the genocide against the Tutsi, I can never imagine even half the horror they must have felt to see their fellow Rwandans, emptied of their humanity, turn against their neighbors, friends and relatives and deny the humanity of others.

We must honor the memory of the victims. We must pray for the survivors who lived through the horror, and pledge to support them and Rwandans in their recovery, in whatever small way we can. And what is our support?
We in the universities may have no millions stashed away to open a school for people who need education. We may have no medical training to heal those still traumatized. All we have is our intellectual training. Frantz Fanon, the writer of the classic The Wretched of the Earth, when speaking of the anti-colonial wars in Africa in the 1950s, said that while the contribution of politicians is on the military battlefield, the contribution of intellectuals to the war for freedom is on the battleground of history. So my remarks here today are my small contribution to the journey of Rwandans as they “Remember, unite and renew.”

But while this commemoration is about Rwandans, I must address the reality that right here and now, I am speaking mostly to Kenyans. And standing here, I am requesting Kenyans, boundaries away from Rwanda, though in the same East African community, to remember what happened in Rwanda, to unite with Rwandans, and to walk with Rwandans as they renew their commitment to humanity, to living together in peace and dignity, and to prosperity.

But why must Kenyans remember the genocide against the Tutsi?


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    Wandia Njoya

    African. Woman. Wife. Teacher.

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