Baringo TLT - From Harm to Harmony in the Family

By Anthony:

It was wonderful to return to Kenya in March, to Mogotio specifically, to continue the Timothy Leadership Training program I started there.  We did the third of six manuals.  It is called "From Harm to Harmony: Overcoming Violence in the Family."  I think this manual has the most engaging, deep, and personal topics.  It was hard to finish the manual in three days because there was so many long discussions.  As a facilitator, I have to balance letting everyone talk who wants to, and also making sure we keep a good pace.  It is such a privilege to do this for my work, to help people think through these topics and study the Bible together.

One problem we continue to have is time keeping.  Many people do not come on time, so they either miss lessons or the rest of us have to sit and wait for them to arrive.  But that problem has been solved!  We initiated the fine system.  For coming late, you have to pay 50 shillings (50 cents).  No more are people coming late!

Interesting things happen when you visit rural areas for trainings.  First, I was ambushed by sheep running through the church gate one day and they got poop all over my trousers as they went between my legs. Second, another day I stepped on a piece of an acacia branch on the ground on accident, and one of the thorns went through my shoe.  Imagine a nail sticking up out of the ground.  The thorn was two inches long at least and went through my shoe and into my foot, but thankfully I did not end up with an infection.  Third, we stayed at the Bishop's home during the week in the village (village means the rural area).  One day his neighbor made charcoal, let it cool, then put it into a sack and put the sack into his storehouse, but apparently the charcoal was not yet cooled enough.  During the night it caught fire and the whole building burned down.  Thankfully it was not the dry season anymore or there could have been quite the wild fire.  It was a big loss for the neighbor so we went over and prayed with them.

This TLT manual covers such things as how we should honor people because they are made in the image of God, healthy marriage relationships, healthy relationships with children and other family members, overcoming sexual addictions like pornography, reporting abuse and counseling victims and perpetrators, and attitudes we should have toward others.

Some interesting questions people brought up that we discussed:

• "Men and women are both made in the image of God.  What about people born with both male and female sex organs?"
• "Some people have grown up without a father.  Since God is spirit and not male or female, can we call God 'Mother'?"
• "Is there such a thing as rape in marriage?"  I was surprised to learn that most of them quickly said "yes."  This was not the case in discussions in Uganda about this.
• I asked, "what percentage of families in Baringo are polygamous today?"  The answer was that 50-60% of families in Baringo county (where Mogotio is located) are still polygamous, and every church has polygamous families in it.  But you cannot be a leader in the Anglican church if you have more than one wife.  The church allows people to be full members if they got saved when already in a polygamous family, but once saved, church members are not allowed to marry another wife.

Other topics we discussed that I found very interesting, and I think were helpful to them:

• Caring for children with disabilities, and supporting the parents of children with disabilities.  In many African cultures, including in Baringo, parents are told that they are cursed, and that must be why their children were born that way.  Sometimes children with disabilities are kept inside the home all day because of the stigma and the shame the families feel.
• The issue of shame transfer in rape, how victims are shamed and sometimes blamed, specifically looking at Amnon and Tamar in 2 Samuel 13.
• Understanding our love languages and our spouse's love languages.
• The sins of "beating our spouse" (physical abuse) and also verbal abuse.
• Alcohol addiction.  We talked about this for hours.  One interesting thing was that they still use wine in all of their churches for communion.  One member used to be an alcoholic but he said the wine does not give him a problem with temptation.  I'm thinking maybe this is because communion wine is quite different from their local brews in taste.
• While talking about communion, it came out that some of the churches are almost Roman Catholic in their practice.  Some pastors are afraid that they have to drink all the wine and eat all the bread, and not leave any leftover.  It appears some pastors in the Anglican Church believe in transubstantiation whether knowingly or unknowingly, but my TLT group said this belief is not the view of their denomination.  Transubstantiation is the Roman Catholic belief that the bread is actually the body of Jesus, and the blood is actually Jesus' blood, so that we are really indeed eating Jesus.  In contrast, the Anglican Church of Kenya, and the Christian Reformed Church, believe that Jesus is spiritually present with us in a special way during communion, but his body is in Heaven, he is still incarnate. 

More discussions:

• One of the most vigorous discussions that I could barely control, which involved yelling and laughter, was whether families should have one big plate of ugali for everyone to take from as they eat, or if everyone should have a separate plate of ugali, or if the father should get his own bowl and the other family members share from one big plate.  It was a funny discussion, but it does have meaning, as different practices show different family dynamics.
• One of the longest discussions was about headship in marriage and church.  Specifically we looked at three different views of Genesis 3:16, the curse given to the woman, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."  Is headship part of the curse, or was Adam already the head of Eve before the curse but the curse twisted the headship from being one of service to one of dictatorship?  I did not tell them what to believe, but outlined some of the many positions, specifically the patriarchal view, the complementarian view, and the egalitarian view.  90% voted for the complementarian view, and a few people voted for each of the other views.
• We talked about FGM (female genital mutilation).  It doesn't happen much anymore and it is against the law in Kenya.  But just a few months ago apparently 100 women in Baringo voluntarily underwent the ritual at around the same time as their boys went through their circumcision ritual to become men.  Because the women did it voluntarily, it seems the government did not know how to address it.
• We talked about saying "I love you" to husbands or wives.  It is very counter cultural!  The men mostly all said that in the culture this is not necessary, uncomfortable for everyone, and love is shown through actions.  But the women said that they crave to hear their husbands say it!  So I suggested that maybe there needs to be a change and we shouldn't too quickly dismiss the issue because of culture.  Similarly it is rare for either husbands or wives to say "thank you" for something that is expected to be done as a duty.  But in the TLT group I had us take time to appreciate things about one another.  They realized it felt really great to be appreciated and are ready to go home and appreciate their family members!  One of the pastors said they should begin by appreciating their spouses on holidays like Valentine's day.  It was amazing to see how powerful the influence of Western culture is, both positively and negatively.

More discussions still:

• I learned that divorce is very uncommon, but separation isn't.  Kenya, and I think other African countries, have made it a very difficult process legally to get a divorce.  And it is also quite difficult between the families and clans involved, especially considering the issue of land.  In divorce, usually the children always go with the man.  Also, in cases of divorce, or even in cases of separation, it is common for the husband to request his dowry payment back from the wife's family.  I have heard of cases in Uganda where clans began fighting one another physically over conflicts like this.  This is one of the really unfortunate complications that the whole dowry system causes.  Because of the complications of divorce, people just get separated and live apart from each other, and many of the men take another wife, and end up being polygamous.  So while people like to say that divorce is extremely common in the US but not as common in Africa, I don't know if this is really true.  It seems to me from the discussions that separation is extremely common in East Africa.  For all purposes, it is a divorce in God's eyes, as these people live apart the rest of their lives.
• I learned that these leaders generally fear to get involved in family issues of people in the church or community.  It is hard to report cases of abuse, or hard to stick up for wives who have been beaten.  Some of the leaders have done so in the past and been ostracized by families or whole clans.  One pastor put a church leader under church discipline for regularly beating his wife, and the result was that the pastor was almost killed, and his bishop ended up having to transfer him to another area.
• Surprisingly, when talking about fair treatment in the family, they agreed it's good to make boys and girls do an equal amount of work, even though culturally that hasn't always been the case.  I was surprised because in TLT groups in Uganda, the pastors really resisted making that change, because they didn't want their boys to do "women's work" like fetching water or cleaning.  I think Kenya is a ways ahead of Uganda on the issue of gender equality in general.
• Another really big discussion was about teaching children about sexuality.  Probably it's true in the USA also, but most of them were never taught about sexuality from their parents.  The few that heard from their parents only heard, "don't play around with women before you get married."  So they learned only from friends or from experience.  Apparently, a lot of sex education used to be done during the male circumcision ritual for boys, and a similar ritual for girls to become women.  But as people have become Christians many of these traditions have been lost.  So these pastors said they need to reestablish that aspect of the tradition, to have the church teach these things to boys and girls.

I loved hearing their reports, hearing about what God has done through these leaders.  It is always so amazing.  Surely, there are always some goals that were not completed, and sometimes that is discouraging.  But even when their goals are not reached, good things have still happened and we celebrate those things.  Here are a few of the highlights from their reports.  These are things that happened after they took the Christian Stewardship manual and went home with action plans:

• Leaders from one church taught about tithing at their church and there has been a 25% increase in the offerings.
• One pastor, (my former Berea student), just got ordained and is now pastoring a church.  Since arriving there he has helped the church to begin taking good records of all the offerings and money.  He also helped the church to open a bank account to keep the money in a secure place. 
• The pastor of one of the largest churches of the group also had an action plan for the offerings to increase.  But his expectations were far surpassed.  The offerings at his church are 269% higher this year compared to last year!  He did a good job of setting a personal example in giving and teaching the church about giving generously as part of our worship.
• One woman had an action plan of cleaning the church compound regularly with the youth of the church.  She started with only 10 youth and gave them a meal each time they cleaned together.  But other youth from the community liked what they saw and joined in.  In the end 20 youth from the community got saved, and the church compound is looking very smart!
• Another pastor's church has really prioritized caring for the poor, for widows, and for children.  As a result of this loving activity in the community, there are 30 new members in the church since December!  She was especially excited to report that the church paid the school fees for one local child for a whole year.  (When we as Americans go overboard with child sponsorship, the local community can lose these amazing opportunities to show love, have the joy of giving, and building tight relationships in the community).

In this photo, everyone is waiting in a queue to see me.  I have to help them all revise their action plans and finally approve them.  But they help one another also.

This time it seems that the topic of alcohol and drunkenness really touched people's hearts because 90% of the action plans concerned this topic.  They all know "drunkards," (we would call them alcoholics), who live in their communities, and they understand how hard it is to overcome the addiction, and they understand how much alcohol contributes to broken families, violence, and poverty in their region.  Most of these leaders will be spending time befriending alcoholics, encouraging them to quit, explaining the health effects of addiction, and preaching to them the good news of the Gospel.  Their goals are that these alcoholics would quit drinking, come to church, and be born again.

Other action plans include personal reconciliation with a family member, teaching others the lessons in the manual, and helping married couples who are separated to reconcile and live together again.  Please pray for them that God would empower them and use them so that these goals will be accomplished!

Praying for their action plans:

Most of the participants (some left early):