Guardians of Hope Christmas Gathering 2010

Guardians of Hope Leadership in Kenya

This past Tuesday, we had a great day celebrating Christmas, and a full year of ministry among the Guardians of Hope in Kenya, with several of our colleagues. We met together in our yard for a Kenya style Christmas dinner picnic -- although we did opt for beef over goat!

Cheese!

Henry & Julia Mwangi

It was such a treat to get to meet the spouses of some of our colleagues and to hear about the customs and traditions that each of their cultures have around Christmas. Interestingly, while cooking is generally seen as "women's work" in Kenya, when it comes to slaughtering and roasting a Christmas goat on an open fire... now that's "men's work"!

Nothing more primal then a man and his barbecue!

GOH leadership team, Kenya

ACC&S GOH project officer, Patrick & Mary Maina; CBM Africa team leader, Colin & Karen Godwin; Our little Ava; ACC&S development director, Henry & Julia Mwangi; our friend James and ABC development director, Triza Mulandi; and Erica & Aaron. (Missing is Elizabeth from the ABC and the CBM African development director, Ruth Munyao).

Merry Christmas!

Guardians of Hope Leadership Gathering

GOH 2010 Leadership Gathering

Nairobi, Kenya

This week, Erica and I had the joy of facilitating our first GOH leadership gathering at Heart Lodge, near our home on the outskirts of Nairobi. This has been an incredibly helpful time as we build trust and understanding, and gain a much broader picture of how Guardians of Hope is functioning within each of the partnerships and regions where we are serving communities affected by HIV and AIDS.

The meetings began on Monday morning with an opening challenge on empowerment by Colin Godwin, Canadian Baptist Ministries Africa team leader: At the centre of all Christian service, we are to give power away and to rely on God's spirit to remain our true source of power. In essence, this is what we should be doing as we seek to serve others as the Church. The danger lies in the fact that many of our well meaning efforts can have the very opposite affect -- unintentionally the church can create dependency and, at our worst, exploit the very people we are trying to help.

Times like this of stepping back and examining the work we are a part of, can help us gain perspective on the ministry in which we labour.

Scott Lewis and Colin Godwin

We have been blessed to have several of our Canadian Baptist Ministries colleagues speak into the Guardians of Hope and bring their own perspective and strengths. It was an answer to prayer that we were able to coincide these GOH leadership meetings with Scott Lewis' first trip to Kenya as a Sharing Way program officer for Africa. Scott's good humour, humility, expertise, and first hand experience in community development in Southeast Asia, has made his time with us both encouraging and insightful.

Ruth Munyao sharing during the Monday sessions

We were also glad to have Ruth Munyao, The Sharing Way's Africa coordinator, join us for part of the meetings as we looked at our expectations around leadership roles and our various systems of management within each of the partner organizations.

Our Africa leadership team members

Elizabeth, Isaie, James, Henry, Patrick, Laura and Triza

(Sadly, we were not able to include Eduardo from Angola in this round of meetings)

GOH leaders meeting with Iftin community facilitators and members of the Ililili Self Help Group, Eastleigh

On Tuesday morning, we took a short break from our meetings to travel into the Eastleigh Community Centre to visit with participants in the Iftin Women's Self Help project. We had the pleasure of spending time with Somali and Oromo women who have formed a group of 18 members and have been working together to improve their lives over the past year. They call themselves "ililili" which in their mother tongue means "flower" . It was a great opportunity for the GOH leaders to see another perspective on the challenges of empowering people within marginalized communities.

Elizabeth sharing her thanks to the women of Iftin

On Tuesday afternoon, we were also blessed to have Tim and Diane Bannister join us for discussions on how we can better integrate short term volunteers into the Guardians of Hope program. Given the wide geography (and often remote locations) and nature of the varies GOH projects, the leaders have faced many challenges in connecting volunteers to groups beyond brief exposure visits. It was very exciting to work together with the Bannisters as we begin to explore new possibilities with having visitors strategically coming alongside of groups and communities. We are not there yet, but already we are beginning to look at new possibilities.

New Life GOH

The Guardians of Hope NEW LIFE Group

Machakos, Kenya

On Wednesday, we travelled Southeast of Nairobi with the GOH leaders to the town of Machakos to visit the New Life Africa Brotherhood Church and the Guardians of Hope group that meets there.

The group members working on tie and dye

The group is made up of both men and women, most of whom are living positively with HIV and AIDS. They come together to support each other and to care for over forty AIDS orphans from within their community. "We come for encouragement," shared Elizabeth Wausi, "and support one another through many activities." The activities of the group are many from a weekly merry-go-round savings program, micro credit and income generating activities, to counselling, home-based care, improving kitchen gardens, nutritional education for members on Antiretroviral medications and sponsoring orphans with school fees. "We share our experiences, support each other and plan for the future!" Elizabeth told us.

One of the great successes of the New Life Group has been the groups ability to access outside programs for support. The Africa Brotherhood Church's development program has been able to attach a community care worker, a public health worker and peer educators to the Guardians of Hope. These people work together with the group and the local hospital to help people access voluntary testing and counselling programs, access free medications and follow up people on long term treatment programs. This cooperation between the hospital, church and community is what makes the Guardians of Hope such an effective response to HIV and AIDS.

During the weekly Tuesday meetings, the guardians in New Life dedicate a part of their time to income generating activities. One of their more successful ventures has been producing household detergent. With a 400 Kenyan shilling investment for ingredients, the group can sell the detergent for 600 shillings.

Henry, Ruth and Laura taking great interest

in the detergent making demonstration

Elizabeth Wausi with Isaie Gakwerere

trying his hand at making detergent

"It smells like lemons!"

The guardians in the New Life group purchase their own products first, whether it be soap or fabric, they want to be their own best customers. They then take their wares to the local market where the funds earned go toward paying school fees for HIV and AIDS orphans being cared for by the group. This past year, the group has sponsored 42 children in attending school. The money earned is also used for small business loans for individual group members, who use the low interest loan to strengthen their personal income. This past year, ten members took and re-payed small loans that helped to boost their businesses.

Elizabeth speaking with guardians outside of Machakos

Sister Esther and her daughter Grace

As the pastor of the Africa Brotherhood Church in this community, Esther joins the Guardians each week during their meetings and provides spiritual support and visitation to the group members within the community. Please keep Esther, and other pastors working with Guardians of Hope, in your prayers as they serve their communities in such a vital way. The Gospel message of acceptance into a compassionate community of forgiveness and grace is at the heart of Guardians of Hope.

Guardians of Hope

Putting our heads together

Teresia Mulandi, Ruth Munyao and Erica

at our home in Nairobi

September has been a very intense month of evaluation and planning meetings for the Guardians of Hope (GOH): Our partners and GOH colleagues have been putting their heads together around how we can improve our shared work in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and strengthen our work in improving the lives of orphans and caregivers affected by the virus. In October, many of our key GOH leaders will be gathering together with us in Nairobi. We will be meeting with The Sharing Way program officer for our region, Scott Lewis. This will be an important time of learning from each other as we establish a way forward. Please be in prayer for our partners in the Africa Brotherhood Church(ABC), African Christian Church & Schools(ACC&S), the Igreja Evangelica de Angola(IEA) and the Association of Baptist churches of Rwanda(AEBR) as they prepare for this gathering and continue to serve those struggling most acutely with HIV and AIDS within their communities.

James Odera, Laura Muema and members of one of three discussion groups during last weeks leadership meetings with the Eastleigh Community Centre

This has also been an busy time for our brothers and sisters at the Eastleigh Community Centre as we work together through an evaluation process of the centre's ministry and programs. This has been a valuable time for Iftin as we become better integrated into the community centre's strategy for sustainable community development and discuss how we will move forward together. Please pray for the community centre as we seek to draw upon all that we have learned and discern how we might improve the way that we use the resources which we have been entrusted.