Esther Mombo starts us off

Kabarak University campus

Every morning it is the responsibility of a different area of the Quaker world to offer a one and a half hour period of morning worship and the week began, appropriately, with East Africa.

Theologian Esther Mombo of Bware Yearly Meeting brought the message which set out the context and issues that face us during our time together. She grew up in a Quaker family in western Kenya, and credits her mother and grandmother in particular for nurturing her faith. She attended what is now Friends’ Theological College in Kaimosi and went on to postgraduate study in Europe, where she was able to attend the 1997 FWCC Triennial gathering in Birmingham.

She greeted us as people who speak many tongues, but who, this week, are speaking in one tongue.

Some of the highlights of her message for me were:

Salt and Light were, and still are, important metaphors.

The context of Jesus’ time was discrimination and marginalization, and that is still the context in which we live. We have divided ourselves by race and ethnicity, which can be used to exclude. In this situation, we Friends have to be Salt and Light.

A major challenge for Christians is how to live in peace with neighbors of other faiths, especially, at the current time, with Muslims. Christians are called to live at peace with their neighbors.

Another is denominational rivalries, and, among Friends, rivalry and tensions.

The social context in which we live includes:

• disintegration of families and communities; 

• the impact of some diseases to marginalize; 

• human trafficking, which is modern slavery;

• sex tourism

• gender injustice which still exists even when there are laws prohibiting it;

• medicine is unreachable for some people.

• sexual minorities continue to live in fear of marginalization, in the name of religious community;

• environmental degradation which is creating dustbowls.

There is extreme poverty in both rural and urban areas, and the gap is increasing. ‘Some can make ends overlap, while some cannot make ends meet

Conflict, violence and war are endemic in most of our communities, in homes and in the wider world. There are ethnic clashes, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide.

In all this, we are called to be Salt and Light.

Quakers were a group who challenged the ills of their day.

Quakers were among the first who said that women were humans.

Early Friends were Salt and Light in their own context. In the 21st century, much of that zeal has died. Yet we read in scripture that if salt has lost its effectiveness, it is only good to be trampled underfoot.

Some Christians take pride in statistics. The issue is not numbers, but influence. There is a disconnect with what is preached. There is more pride in numbers than what we do.

It was said of the Christians in Antioch ‘See how they love each other.’ Not ‘See how they talk about loving each other.’ 

Some traditions give life; other traditions need to be done away with. 

The context of Salt and Light is brokenness, rottenness. 

You don’t see salt; you see its results. Society will be influenced by us. We influence by being.

But the salt has to be contaminated, to be mixed in, to be effective. We have to get involved.

Light is different. It is visible. We shine better when there is darkness, not light.

By avoiding issues, we are hiding our light under a bushel.

Don’t complain about the darkness: light a candle!

Friends presentations start the conference

On Monday there were 22 presentations, with the Friends featuring significantly. Adriana Cabrera of Bogota Monthly Meeting started us off with some challenging questions, then Bernabé Sánchez of Honduras YM read the paper on the Peace Testimony by Heredio Santos of Cuba YM. (The two Cuban Friends had not been able to get visas to enter the Dominican Republic.) Linnette Garcia of Jamaica YM spoke about prison visiting ministry, and Lon Fendall of Northwest YM read the paper from William Bertrand, Evangelical Friends Church Eastern Region. William is responsible for the Friends churches in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He felt he should not leave Haiti during the election period. Fortunately there are other Haitian pastors here, from the Church of the Brethren.

Oto Morales of Ambassadors Friends Church in Guatemala talked of engagement in civic and political life. I think that Friends have always been more willing to engage with ‘principalities and powers’ than the other peace churches, which are ambivalent about this. I sense an interest from their members in the quiet ways in which we have been able to influence public policy.

Delia Aspi Mamani of Quaker Bolivia Link said there are now 26 Alternatives to Violence (AVP) facilitators in La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochamamba. After some challenges they have been able to get into prisons, including the San Pedro Jail for those convicted of drug trafficking. It was good to hear her pay tribute to the work of facilitators whose travel we (FWCC) had been able to fund.

Martin Gárate of Chile, and Jesus Huarachi of Peru spoke next, followed by Daniel Mejia of Honduras YM, the pastor at San Marcos, and Lilian Hall of the Managua Friends Worship Group, an agronomist who has spent many years in rural Nicaragua, and who now runs Pro-Nica.

Jorge Laffitte of AFSC presented research results. The rural image of Latin America, he said, belongs to 1940, not 2010. It is an urban society with rural pockets, and unlike other parts of the world where there are wars between nations, the violence is urban. After South Africa, Latin America is the most violent area of the world. Violence, as measured by the homicide index, is now moving from the big cities to medium-sized towns. Criminalization of youth is noticeable, and there will be no peace in communities without inclusion and relationships.

I want to mention two contributors from other churches that were particularly interesting: Olga Piedrasanta Ortiz, a Guatemalan Mennonite, described the Latin American Anabaptist Women’s Blog, to be found at http://teologasanabautistas.blogspot.com/

We also got a crash lesson in the background of the Dominican Republic and Haiti from a Dominican pastor. A quick gallop through history from the 1400s onwards, and an account of some of the origins of the difficulties in relationships between the two nations that share one island space.

It’s impossible in a blog to do justice to the words that were delivered, and the preparation behind them. I am doing just a brief overview. By contrast, my friend Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford of the Church of the Brethren is picking just a few speakers to cover in depth at http://www.brethren.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13059

Ann Arbor and Detroit

Friends from Toledo, Ohio and Birmingham, Michigan joined Ann Arbor Friends to hear Anne Bennett talk about some of her experiences working with Friends in Northern Ireland on peacebuilding and reconciliation. She decribed work done by Irish Friends at all levels from grass roots community work to strategic off-the-record meetings, and her own work with the latter.

With Anne's encouragement small groups considered issues in their locality and how they could make a difference where they are right now in reconciliation.

Next day, Anne spoke to the middle school students at Detroit Friends School. Thanks to Ann Arbor Friends for their gracious hospitality and a special thank you to Nancy and Thomas Taylor for hosting and planning - and for taking Anne to Indianapolis for her next Salt and Light event.

Safe travels, Anne, as you leave for Mexico City for the Casa de los Amigos.

Salt and Light in Illinois

Louise Salinas writes: A good-sized crowd from five nearby meetings showed up for the hearty potluck at Lake Forest Friends Meeting before Anne Bennett and Rachel Stacy spoke in what felt like an extended Meeting for Worship – intense, spiritual and moving.

In line with the bright sun streaming through the large windows at Downers Grove’s new meetinghouse, Saturday’s event was spent with cheery Friends who had more time to hear from Anne and Rachel. Here Friends talked about the issues of brokenness that are on their minds: access for all to resources such as water; the large number of incarcerated persons in the US, and understanding technology in our lives.

Kalamazoo

We lined up, from Britain, Indiana, Lake Erie and Philadelphia yearly meetings, around the table in Kalamazoo Friends meetinghouse. What a feast of autumn abundance. We talked, we ate, it was hard to herd us all upstairs for the program, but we went to hear Anne Bennett.

She told stories of people taking small steps where they were in situations of terrible loss and fear. Of men in Burundi trampling red mud and water to make bricks – almost dancing as they gave their time to re-house neighbors whose homes had been burnt. Everyone had lost family members in the slaughter, and there was always the possibility of more reprisal raids. She told us of women taking the practical steps of opening a laundry in a Balkan town where landmines were still hidden in side streets. It became a place to talk as well as to clean clothes, and is still a presence in the community. Just do what you can, where you are, was what I took away. Even if it doesn't make much sense at the time. Those small steps are part of the greater fabric of reconciliation.

She reminded us of our coping mechanisms. How we cope when we are with “others” – those with whose community we have historic issues or often recent grievances. – We navigate politely by talking about many topics except those touching on the things that separate us. How do we create the space, and time, and safety, to make possible those more difficult conversations, so critical for community and personal healing, possible?

I appreciated her accounts from long years of Quaker service, and I was happy that one of the things that we (FWCC) are doing is not only bringing speakers and programs to Friends communities, but also acting as a catalyst to bring those Friends together. As someone said last night: it takes outside visitors to get 35 Friends together on a Monday evening.

Salt and Light in Tennessee

My last Salt and Light posting was written while I was flying over the Alps, returning from Kenya, where I had been helping to plan the 2012 World Conference of Friends. Since only 1,000 people will be able to go to Kenya, it’s important to bring some of the spirit to local meetings and churches.

The first of these local events took place last weekend in the shade of deciduous trees in Tennessee, in a meetinghouse lined from ceiling to floor by windows. When the windows were open we could hear birds and the noise of huge acorns falling; we were truly in those woods.

Participants, hosted by West Knoxville Friends, came from eight yearly meetings: six in the USA and also from Ireland and Jamaica. Felicity McCartney, Ireland YM, and Sheila Hoyer, North Carolina YM (FUM), spoke of doing peace and reconciliation work in Northern Ireland and encouraged participants to consider ways to address conflict in their own lives and in the experience of their communities.

As with all FWCC events, we combined the worship styles of different traditions, singing hymns and having vocal prayer as well as waiting worship. We heard reports from all the yearly meetings, and were particularly interested to hear that Jamaica YM had used the text of being Salt and Light as the theme for its recent annual sessions. I am hoping that Jamaican Friends will host a local event next year.

Most of us were able to stay to be able to worship with West Knoxville Friends and we shared some of flavor of the weekend with them over potluck lunch. With thanks to all those Tennessee Friends who volunteered time and a host of skills to launch this program (we are looking forward to sixteen local events in just six weeks) I am now moving through the changing tree colors to our next stop: Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Crossing cultures...

We have come to the end of two weeks of intense meetings, coping with (depending on where we came from) varying levels of jet lag, culture shock, theology shock, and probably internal shock- absorber shock as our minibuses navigated potholed roads. It has been exhausting. I need time to be quiet and reflect. But I am very glad to have been here as part of a group of international visitors to worship with Friends from Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, and to receive Kenyan hospitality.

How can we help those coming to the world conference from outside of East Africa to prepare for the experiences? At the heart of our FWCC work is going to those places where the differences exist: the differences of culture, language, history, belief and ways of worship. We leave our comfort zones and travel into places where we feel strange and confused, sometimes like helpless babies, but there are Friends in these new places to welcome us in. We cross these boundaries not because of some notion that it is intrinsically useful, but because it is who we are as a People. We are a mixture of all those differences, so we have to find ways to navigate them, if we are to allow the Light to shine through us as a global faith community.

The boarding pass is printed...

- so it looks as if I have a flight. My cousin told me that volcanic dust has shut down Irish airports again. Even though the dust won't reach Kenya, it could delay my departure and my return if British airspace gets shut down again. I don't want to even think about it.

Just visited my 104 year old aunt (my mother's older sister) and she is ready to go with me to Kenya, but that isn't going to happen. She doesn't look a day older than she did last June when I last saw her, and she was only 103.

This morning I picked up the Lonely Planet guide to Kenya, and I was able to find on the map not only Nakuru, site of the first of three meetings, but also Bungoma, way over in the west near the border with Uganda.

Hard to imagine as I sit in an airy food court close to East Midlands Airport in the middle of England (on my way to dropping off the rental car at Heathrow) that this time tomorrow I should be in Nairobi, resting at a guest house.

On Thursday morning we will all be on the road to Kabarak University in Nakuru, which the Lonely Planet describes as "a pleasant town." There we will not only work out a schedule for the entire time of the conference, we will discuss on excursions and perhaps decide in which rooms activities will happen. We will be there for six days so expect the planning to be detailed and meticulous!

Among the things we will be considering are the balance between:
-being together as 1,000 Friends and the need to be in smaller groups.
-being challenged by unfamiliar worship and beliefs and ensuring there are points of familiarity and retreat.
- concentrating on the theme, the worship and "the serious stuff" and opportunities for relaxation and fun, which can also build relationships across cultures.
-allowing for flexibility and also having anchors.

I have no idea what access there will be to the internet but whenever I get the chance, I will post again. Please beam prayers for safe travels who all of us who are headed to the International Planning Committee - from Australia, Cuba, Jamaica, Nepal, South Africa, the US, the UK, and of course our Kenyan hosts who will be busy beyond belief for the next couple of years.

Traveling mercies

Sunday night, I was back in Philadelphia; my return from vacation in Ireland having been delayed a week by a cloud of volcanic dust coming from Iceland. It was a scramble to catch up on work and re-pack for travel to Africa. By Friday my jet lag had disappeared, but now I am back in Britain (picture shows a May day in Hampshire), so my body has to revert to last week’s time zone.

I am on my way to Kenya, to three different meetings, in three different locations. The meetings have grand names: International Planning Committee, Africa Section Triennial and Central Executive Committee. Translated, this means I will be helping plan a World Conference of Friends that you will be able to attend in 2012, at the university where the conference will take place; I will be worshiping with hundreds of African Friends and watching how they carry out their Quaker business, and I will be part of the body that governs FWCC at the global level.

I have never been to Kenya. My Kiswahili is embarrassingly inadequate, and my facility in other Kenyan languages is nonexistent. The information from the US State Department about dangers to travelers in Kenya is hair-raisingly scary (I wish I had never logged on to report my travels there), and on top of all that, my flight from London to Nairobi was canceled from under me earlier in the week. On the bright side, I have been booked onto new flights. Yesterday I found out the name of the guesthouse where I will be staying between my arrival in Nairobi, and I have decided that since God wants me to be doing this wild and crazy work with all its challenges, God will take care of me by bringing people into my life just when I really need them to tell me what to do next.

I have no idea what kind of access I will have to the Internet, but here at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 glass cathedral, I am setting up the blog and stepping out in faith at many different levels. I’m almost ready – but I would appreciate prayers for, as Kenyan Friends say, Traveling Mercies, that I and all of us who are traveling to Nairobi, through the Rift Valley and on to Western Province, will be safe.