Learning more than just a language

Last Saturday I was sitting at breakfast with two of the Consolata Fathers – Fr. Samuel and Fr. Josephat. A number Fathers and students sleep in on Saturdays and so there weren’t many of us at breakfast at that time. I mentioned the snow storm that was forecasted for the northeastern US and was commenting on how beautiful the weather in Nairobi is. I understand I missed a lot of rain, which occurred before I arrived, but the weather here has been almost perfect since my arrival. It is sunny and in the high 70s F every day. It does get down below 60 F some nights, but I have as yet had to have to shut the windows in my room, which are always open. I know most people just think of Kenya as uniformity hot, but Nairobi sits at almost 6000 ft. above sea level, making the weather here much cooler than other parts of the country. This will not be the case when I move to Mombasa at the end of April.

The conversation about the impending snow storm somehow morphed into a conversation of resources in Kenya and from there into a discussion about how God provides for us. Fr. Samuel stated something to which I also subscribe, that is that God provides all that we need to meet our physical and spiritual needs, but that he disperses these gifts among all the people of the world in such a way that we all only have enough if we all work together. God does not leave us here on earth without the means to sustain ourselves both physically and spiritually, however, he doesn’t distribute gifts to each person in a way that makes each person self sustaining, but rather in a way that  everyone will have their fill only if we share of ourselves with others.

Maybe Fr. Samuel had in mind a passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which would be the second reading at Sunday Mass the next day. In that reading St. Paul says “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another, the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit; to another, mighty deeds; to another, prophecy; to another, discernment of spirits; to another, varieties of tongues; to another, interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.”  As I heard this read at Mass on Sunday I was struck at how this tied back to what we were talking about at breakfast on Saturday. We always say that God provides, which is certainly true – remember “God is good all the time, all the time God is good”. However, also contained in this passage from St. Paul is the fact that God does not bestow all these gifts on each and every person, but rather He distributes them individually to each person as He wishes.  He gives each of us gifts for some benefit, gifts that when combined with the gifts of our fellow brothers and sisters, provide all that we need to not only survive but flourish spiritually, as well as physically, using the resources God has bestowed on us through the planet on which we live.

What made this yet more meaningful for me is what happened on Sunday. As part of my language studies at the Consolata Language Center, immersion experiences are incorporated into the program to give students an opportunity to practice speaking Swahili – which at this point comes with great difficulty for me. The immersion experience I chose was to do pastoral work in Kibera with one of the Consolata seminarians. Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi and is considered by many to be the largest slum in all of Africa. The residents of Kibera live in extreme poverty. People there don’t have the means to earn a living and great majority of the people living in Kibera lack access to basic human services.

The seminarian that I’m assigned to work with in Kibera is named Francis. I will be joining Francis each Sunday afternoon to do pastoral work with small Christian communities in Kibera for approximately 3 – 4 hours. The stated objective is for me to have the opportunity to practice Swahili, but after my first trip there, I know that what will be even more meaningful to me is my experience of being there with the people who live and live out their faith life in the midst of so much need.

I’ll leave the details of my experiences at Kibera for future posts when I have more than one visit on which to base things. However, what I can say at this point is that I was welcomed warmly and allowed to participated as part of the community. Of course, everything was in Swahili and I could only pick out so many words that I understood, but I was at least able to get the general gist of what was going on. I had to introduce myself and say a few sentences about myself in Swahili. I messed up a little and the people that were there laughed, but I knew they understood what I was trying to say.

What I experienced at Kibera last Sunday was people coming together to pray and worship our God deep in the heart of this large slum which appears to be forgotten and hopeless. What I saw was people bringing their gifts and talents together in the service of the community as a whole in order to move the community together to grow in faith and love of God. I continue to have a lot to learn.