Quakers in Kenya: Exploring the Faith of East African Friends

Download the transcript and discussion questions.

Discussion Question

1. Dr. John Muhanji said, “We believe in a healthy community that is informed, a healthy community that is having education. If you have to create peace, you must be healthy to go and create peace somewhere else.” What does a “healthy community” look like and how might it spread peace?
2. Consider the characteristics of the Quaker church in Kenya. What can you learn from these Friends?

Georgia Sparling

Hi everyone. Georgia here. This week’s episode is going to start in just a minute, but first I wanted to say a big thank you to those of you who have already become monthly donors. As many of you know, we are asking that 30 of you dear listeners become new monthly supporters by the end of June. I’m so happy to report that we are just over a third of the way there, but that means we still need about 20 of you to raise your hand and join our team. This is all about creating a sustainable, listener-supported community, and we are serious when we say every donation counts. Head to QuakerPodcast.com, click Support at the top of the page and find out how you can help us reach our goal. Thank you. Here’s the episode.

Dr. John Muhanji

When Quakerism came to Africa, it has to be contextualized to the African perspective in order for us to connect with it. If we have to do it the British way, we don’t connect. And that’s why silent worship could not be an African connection. Because African spirituality is found in sound, in making noise, then you get your connector to a spirituality. Silence does not connect you to spirituality from the African perspective.

That’s why many churches, you will come here, you will find them that are singing and having drums and beating them up and down and dancing up on the road and dancing.

Georgia

Hi. I’m Georgia Sparling. Today we are talking about Kenya and I’ve got a special guest host! Say hi!

Hannah

Hello there, I’m Hannah Mayer.

Georgia

Hannah is our operations manager at Thee Quaker, but she actually got to go out on assignment recently.

Hannah

That’s right, it was my very first time ever doing interviews or using recording equipment or anything like that.

Georgia

And we really threw you into the deep end, didn’t we?

Hannah

Haha. Yeah… you did. It was a little stressful, but a good experience on the whole.

Georgia

Glad to hear it. So you were going to Kenya anyway for a wedding and we were already planning to do an episode about Kenyan Quakers.

Hannah

Right…it was just too good an opportunity for the podcast to pass up! So I really couldn’t say no.

Georgia

You really couldn’t, but yeah this episode is all about Kenyan Friends who make up the largest population of Friends in the world. And we really wanted to explore what Quakerism looks like around the world. Last season, we had a really popular episode on Quakers in Australia and we have plans to visit other countries to learn about how Friends practice their faith, what unites them, what makes them different.

And today, we’re going to explore those topics with Kenyan Friends. What do they believe? What challenges are they facing? How and why have their numbers grown so much? 

But before we jump into that, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your experiences, Hannah, since I’ve only gotten to speak with Kenyan Friends remotely. 

Hannah

Well I was pretty nervous to go. I just knew that I would be surrounded by a lot of unfamiliarity because I’ve never been to Kenya. I mean, I’ve never even been to Africa before and then I had interviews and recording equipment to manage that were pretty unfamiliar too… but it’s a gorgeous place! I spent pretty much all my time in Kisumu, which we’ll hear more about a little later in the episode, but it’s a sizable city right on Lake Victoria, and it’s got these weather patterns that reminded me of San Diego, like mid 80s during the day and low to mid 60s at night. Just dreamy, you know? 

Georgia

Yeah that sounds like heaven because it is already humid and humid here in Mississippi.

Hannah

Yeah no it really was delightful, and another really lovely thing — there was this super strong culture of hospitality. Like everywhere I went I was offered mixed tea, which is this reality yummy sweet black tea that’s pretty ubiquitous there, and everyone was excited to feed me and just make sure I was really comfortable and you know, taking really good care of me. And it was also a really full trip. 

We were there for this wedding, which was actually two ceremonies on different days. And the day in between I went to Friends Theological College (which is also known as FTC), and got to talk with its principal, Dr. Robert Wafula,

Georgia

Yeah we had talked to Dr. Wafula briefly before your trip, but I hadn’t realized until your interview that the college is actually the training ground for Kenya’s Quaker ministers. So what’d you do when you went to visit the campus?

Hannah

Dr. Wafula took me to join their school tea time, where I met some of the students and faculty, where I learned that many are already pastors in their own right, which is really cool. I also got a tour of campus, and it was really= beautiful. After Dr. Wafula became principal he established a forest on campus as a way of providing a quiet space in nature for students. It’s actually part of each students’ duties to plant a tree and tend to it during their time on campus, which, I don’t know, I think that really lines up with the Quaker stewardship testimony to me.

Georgia

Yeah I really love that. That’s just I mean, very sweet but also I don’t know it just seems like a really cool experience that the students can take with them.

Hannah

Right? I want to learn how to tend a tree. And they also have a lovely chapel, which is totally round and organized with chairs in a circle. And, you know, that’s a set-up for Quaker worship that feels very familiar to me. They host meeting there every morning, and actually, every Thursday it’s unprogrammed worship, which is kind of unheard of in Kenya, so I thought that was really cool. 

They also generate their own power through solar panels on their buildings, which I think a lot of US meetings and Quaker communities would like to do that. Some of them have, but most of them have not figured out yet, I think.

Georgia

Wow. That’s remarkable. Thanks for sharing that and for taking on this brand new experience.

Hannah

It was, truly, my pleasure. 

Georgia

One thing I do want to note is that you also visited a Quaker church on Easter while you were there.

Hannah

I did.

Georgia

And we are going to share a tiny bit of that in this episode, but next week, we’re devoting the whole episode to the vocal ministry at the Friends Church Manyatta. So we’ll have Hannah back on then.

But without further ado, I think we should get started with this episode.

Since I first started interviewing people about Quakerism, I’ve been told many times that Kenya is. where. the. Quakers. are. And if that were true, then we certainly had to do an episode on them. I did a little research, and everyone is correct. 

In 2012, which I know was a long time ago now, there were nearly 150,000 Kenyan Friends out of 377,000 worldwide, that’s according to the Friends World Committee for Consultation. Today, that number is closer to 450,000. And Kelly Kellum, the director of Friends United Meeting, estimates that there are at least another 450 or 500,000 who fall into the category of being culturally Quaker — meaning they have some sort of association or maybe were raised Quaker, but aren’t found on any membership roles. So in a country of about 54 million, that’s about a million people who would identify themselves as Quaker in some way.

So, for this episode, I wanted to understand how Quakerism took hold in Kenya and also what makes Kenyan Quakers distinct. To do that, we, meaning Hannah and I, spoke with a variety of Quakers. Many of those were leaders — pastors, principals, people with director in their title, but I also wanted to hear from regular, every day Quakers, so I called up a young woman named Laura Nayere.

Laura Nayere

I’ve actually been raised and born in a Quaker church. So my parents are Quakers. That is the only church that I’ve known since I was born. I’ve grown up knowing the morals, the values, the doctrine of Quaker all my life.

Georgia

Laura attends the Friends Church of Ngong Road, the biggest Quaker church in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya. She is a journalist and a TV producer with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation. And she is very involved in her church and so I asked her to tell me more about it.

Laura Nayere

I’ll describe it as a church that carries all the work that Jesus started. So we are literally finishing the work that Jesus did. And one of the things that I love about Quakers is the simplicity. Not that we don’t want to live a lavish life also, but you believe that Jesus was simple and because we are following his doctrine, of course we are simple. So being into the Quaker Church has taught me that life is, of course you have to love Christ. You have to be his friend because even the Bible says, you are my friend if you are called by my name.

So we believe if we are called by his name, then we are friends. That’s why we call it Friends church Quakers. So we are the friends of Christ. 

Georgia

As you may have surmised from Laura, the Kenyan Friends Church is evangelical. There isn’t really a non-evangelical branch as far as I can tell. And that’s probably because Kenyan Quakerism was introduced in 1902 by three men from the American Midwest.

Kelly Kellum

Willis Hotchkiss, Edgar Hall, and Arthur Chilson

Georgia

That’s Kelly Kellum, the general secretary of Friends United Meeting.

Kelly

I think that probably to understand that, you kind of have to understand what was happening in the, in Christian communities in the Midwest at that time, where there was a lot of revival activity. This was the same time that Friends were in the Midwest, were adopting the pastoral system of, of worship and leadership.

And it was also a time when there were a lot of student revivals that were happening on college campuses. And out of that came a really robust missionary call and purpose, of which influenced many Friends as well.

Georgia

The three men came over with an organization that eventually became Friends United Meeting. Today, it’s an international organization.

Kelly 

We have 37 yearly meetings

Georgia

23 of them in Kenya

Kelly

And we work together in collaboration with those yearly meetings to provide engagement and outreach opportunities globally.

Georgia

So Hotchkiss, Hall, and Chilson were three missionaries from the United States who brought Quakerism to Kenya during the British colonial expansion into East Africa, and that expansion included a new railroad. The government assigned missionaries entering the country to specific regions and that went for our three Quaker missionaries.

Kelly

They got on the railway and they went inland as far as they possibly could and that was to Kisumu at Lake Victoria. And from there, they were sent off into the hills where they then established the Kaimosi Friends Mission, which was a place that they had this sense of divine leading that this is the place where friends need to find themselves .

Early on, Friends’ evangelism model really was a holistic type of approach where we will certainly want to proclaim the gospel but at the same time provide medical support, provide education as well as provide a means of economic support.

Georgia

As they became more established and provided schools and hospitals and job training, more Kenyans began to convert to Quakerism. More missionaries also came to Kenya, including some from the UK, and new meetings were established.

Among those missionaries were Kelly’s own grandparents who moved to Kenya in 1923.

Kelly 

My grandfather established the Quaker education system that is actually in place now within Kenya, which became the foreground of establishing the Friends Teachers Training College as well as many of the 1,400 Quaker schools that are present in Kenya today. My grandmother was a nurse, and she was involved in two hospitals, the Kamosi Hospital, as well as the Lugulu Hospital in Kenya.

Georgia

The Lugulu hospital is still operated by Quakers today and actually, many present-day Quakers in Kenya can trace their religious and familial heritage to the early Quaker converts. I called up Dr. Esther Mombo, a professor of theology at St Paul’s U niversity in Limuru, Kenya. She is also a third-generation Quaker. Our audio wasn’t great, unfortunately, so I got a voice actor to read Dr. Mombo’s words.

Dr. Esther Mombo

My grandmother on my mother’s side was among the first Quaker women in her village, or the first woman to break up with tradition and join the Quaker school or Quaker community as they were at that time. So I lived with her and a lot of my theology, my Quakerism, actually emanates from her. My interests also, she had a great impact on me as one of the first Quaker women preachers. So her life and work had a great impact on me in terms of choosing to study theology and also to study the lives of the Quaker history.

Georgia

The Bible was central to the missionaries’ work and it left an impact on Dr. Mombo’s grandmother.

Dr. Esther Mombo

The Bible actually was a textbook that was used for reading and writing, but also something that they read and memorized. So my grandmother would talk about Bible stories, not necessarily reading them, but just telling them as part of their life story.

So the message of Jesus Christ in terms of the love of God to the world, sending Jesus to die for the world and asking people to be converted, to accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ, that’s the message that they were introduced to. As well as that, they were then introduced to the Quaker ethos of peace, of justice, of truth, of stewardship.

Georgia

Yet becoming a Christian and a Quaker came at a cost. It meant leaving behind the religious beliefs of your tribe. Dr. Mombo has interviewed women from that first generation of Quakers and she said some lost marriage prospects because of their conversion and worse.

Esther Mombo

So for them it was not just accepting the Lord’s book of Jesus Christ, it was also to prove by breaking off some of the cultural practices. And hearing the stories of these women, some of them even faced physical violence when they broke up with that taboo. My grandmother would say her brothers beat her up.

Georgia

By the 1960s, though, Quakerism had become well established in Western Kenya, but change was coming in the form of a national rebellion.

In the 1960s, the country finally won independence from England, and that vacuum of British leadership left foreign missionaries in particular danger. Many of those missionaries left Kenya in the 1960s, including Quakers. And while this somewhat coincided with plans to hand leadership to local Friends, it left a gap in leadership whose repercussions are still being felt today.

Kelly

And maybe this taps into the sin of colonialism as well.

So what happened was during some of that transfer, there were some individuals who were not prepared for the roles and responsibilities they inherited. And there were some that was given tremendous power as well as access to resources, which unfortunately used that for their own personal benefit and not for the benefit of the mission for which it was intended. And that then created a lot of internal tensions. That kind of sparked the divisions that has been part of the story of East African Friends.

So whether all these yearly meetings will be reunified in the future, we don’t, you know, that may be a miracle too much to hope for. The seeds of some of that is rooted in, in how the missionaries left and we have to answer to that in the most humbling and transparent ways, I think, in order for there to be full healing and restoration.

Georgia

So people kept talking about Friends United Meeting and Friends Church Kenya and I was a bit confused about how they operate and what their role is among the country’s 27 yearly meetings in Kenya. Yep, 27. They have a lot of meetings there. So Kelly helped to clarify that.

Kelly 

FUM has that more regional African focus and mission, whereas Friends Church Kenya focuses specifically on Kenya. Friends Church Kenya focuses on advocacy work. They’re the ones who represent Quaker groups to the National Council of Churches of Kenya. They’re the group that represents the Friends’ interest in any lobbying issues with the government, and as well as they deal some with some of the internal dynamics that happens when you have 27 yearly meetings in a really close proximity to each other and we’re trying to figure out how do we get along. And so that relational piece, the scope of that falls under Friends Church Kenya. For Friends United meeting, we really are focused on specific projects and programs.

Georgia

As far as beliefs go, the Kenyan Friends Church is unapologetically based on the Bible.

Dr. John Muhanji 

So we value the scriptures so much that it gives us the guidance, the leadership, whatever we do. 

Georgia

That’s Dr. John Muhanji, director of Friends United Meeting African Ministries, based in Kisumu, Kenya. I spoke with Dr. Muhanji last year for our very first episode — “Who are Modern Quakers?” and I went back to that conversation for today’s episode. Back then I really had no idea just how many different expressions of Quakerism existed, but I knew that Kenyans did not worship silently like the unprogrammed, silent meetings I’d heard a lot about.

While Kenyan Friends have pastors and other church staff, like other pastoral Quaker meetings, they have their own style of worship.

Dr. John Muhanji 

That means we sing, you come to our worship, prepare to sing, prepare to dance. And we will dance as we sing our hymns. We pray vocally, loudly, we don’t just keep quiet. 

Georgia

We’ll get into this a little bit more in next week’s episode, but Kenyan Friends have pastors and other church staff, similar to other pastoral meetings in the US, but they have their own style of worship. That’s audio is Friends Church Manyetta. But yeah, not a quiet meeting. 

I’m told that smaller rural meetings may tend toward more traditional music, while larger urban meetings have newer music and more instruments, but they’re all singing. While this, and the sheer volume of Kenyan friends can’t be rivaled anywhere else in the world, they are similar to Quakers around the world in a few key areas. For example, like most Christ-centered Friends, they don’t observe the Christian sacraments – no communion or baptism.

Georgia

Kenyans are also committed to the Quaker testimonies aka the SPICES — simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. It comes up often in conversation as it did when Hannah went to visit Dr. Robert Wafula, the principal of Friends Theological College.

Hannah 

I’m curious about what, what the tenets the beliefs of Friends in Kenya are.

Dr. Robert Wafula  

We share the same tenets, Quaker testimonies with the rest of the Quaker world. Quaker testimony of peace, simplicity, stewardship, I’m just mixing those spices. So we share all those Quaker testimonies, we embrace them. We we value them. 

Georgia

That is evident in Friends’ ministries, which mirror the work established by missionaries in the first half of the 20th century. 

Dr. John Muhanji

So we are a holistic ministry, not just focusing on spiritual matters alone because God did not put us on this world just to be praying and focusing on Him. He gave us the authority to pray, worship Him, but also empower ourselves to find what to eat and how to progress and improve where we are living. So that’s what I’ve found joy in doing.

We run several schools in Kenya and we are one of the churches that have a higher number of schools in this country. 

Georgia

There’s also a commitment to community health. 

Dr. John Muhanji 

A sick community is completely as good as dead. So we believe in a healthy community that is informed, a healthy community that is having education. If you have to create peace, you must be healthy to go and create peace somewhere else. 

Georgia

And peace is, perhaps, the most well-known characteristic of Kenyan Friends. Dr. Wafula says peace was embraced by Kenyan Quakers from the very beginning.

Dr. Wafula 

So I will say that the aspect of Quaker testimony has really helped the spread of Quakerism. And that’s what identifies us from other other churches, other denominations, other Christian churches, say Quakers, people of peace. They call it Watulamelembe in Kiswahili. Watulamelembe, the people of peace.

[Music]

Georgia

But what happens when peace breaks down? After the break, we talk with a Kenyan Friend who has repeatedly put her life on the line to bring peace to Kenya.

Georgia

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Georgia

Everyone thought Kenya was a peaceful country and it had enjoyed an extended period of harmony until December 2007. Suspicions of election fraud showed the fissures that had been growing under the surface for some time, fissures along tribal lines that quickly erupted into a crisis that displaced more than 300,000 people and resulted in more than 1,000 deaths. 

Getry Agizah has a vivid memory of that election and its violent aftermath. 

Getry

So a lot of damage had happened and nobody was paying attention because Kenya was believed to be a peaceful country. Nobody thought we could kill each other.

Georgia

It was really a wakeup call for Quakers, and led to the foundation of the Friends Church Peace Team. 

Getry is a programme officer with Friends United Meeting and a part of the Friends Peace Team, which focuses primarily on peace and reconciliation. It’s a ministry that, in the years following the election, has sometimes put  sometimes puts her face to face with machete wielding militia groups.

When I talked to Getry she was in her car on her way to Kakamega in Western Kenya and we started our conversation by talking about the election.

Getry

People were unsettled, people were crying, they needed counseling, they needed medication. So we jumped in with teams of colleagues who had volunteered themselves and we were able to give a listening ear to those who were grieving. But we also had, as Quakers, we mobilized our Quaker hospital and got medication for families that needed to be attended to. We were looking at also a supply of sanitary towels for the women because where they are is not their home, but also trying to make sure that we mobilize food and clothes among the Quakers in Kenya and take them to these people. 

So we did an emergency response by giving those basics, but also counseling sessions with those who feel felt like they needed a person to hear them. They needed someone to talk to. 

Georgia

Getry told me about the peace team’s ongoing work to bring peace and reconciliation to Kenya.

Georgia

Since then, the Peace Team has also developed a curriculum for schools where students and teachers from multiple tribes often converge. Then in the COVID era, these Peace Clubs helped students amid rising suicide rates, a poor economy, and illness. 

Getry’s introduction to peace work started when she was a young Quaker, curious about conflict resolution after growing up in a contentious polygamist household. The wives did not get along.

Getry

And so it’s inflicted in their children. So my heart was full of vengeance because of the past I went through.

Georgia

But she felt a calling to peacemaking.

Getry

I normally tell people I’m not really a preacher but I’m a person who brings people together…

For me, my most strength part that I see God speaks is through the Psalms 23.

Sometimes you go to an area that is very violent, very fearful. We work with militia groups, but I survived. We go to places where there’s been an bandit attack. When we pass, people ask us, how did you even come through that road? It’s not safe for you….When God decides to send you go, you don’t resist because He has already prepared a way for you to go. 

Georgia

Getry remembered one particular training session.

Getry 

I’m training people in peace and conflict resolution, and they’re holding guns and machetes. For them, they’re protecting themselves. But they, after three days, they came without those machetes and say that actually, we want to also be saved. Sometimes people interpret peace work as salvation. And I think that’s when God decides to show himself.

Georgia

She told me another even more harrowing story.

Getry Agizah

I think I’ve had quite interesting encounters in my life. Some of them are threatening, some of them are just funny. But sometimes I ask myself, how can this happen? I remember this day I went to Kakuma Refugee Camp, which is in northern Kenya. It’s a big refugee camp where we have South Sudan and Rwandese and Burundi and Congo people. 

And on our way coming back, we were in a small car. We met bandits on the way, although they were hidden. So one of them tried stopping the car we were in, and the driver refused to stop. And what they did, they started shooting, and they shoot the tires of the vehicle.

Georgia

Getry hid under the car, unsure if she was really out of view, as the robbers plundered the vehicle. Then, after an hour or so of silence, she and the other survivors got up and walked to the nearest police post. Getry said her dress was covered in blood from the attack.

Getry 

I think I felt like it’s enough of peace work. I needed to be home and look for another career. …Why am I being killed for for what? But I still felt like God was giving me another reason to live. Because in my fear, I felt the people I went to visit in Kakuma and did a training with them were more important. If the bandits had targeted me, I would have as well have been dead. But I think I was escaped for a reason.

We eventually made it safe home with fear. But somehow when I was called to go  again, I didn’t even think twice. I was already on a motorbike going back.

Georgia

I only talked to Getry for maybe an hour, but I’m amazed by her commitment to peace. She finds herself in really dangerous situations and she stays there because she believes peace is possible in these areas where there is so much brokenness and mistrust. 

And peace is a challenge in Kenya, even among Friends. That’s one of the biggest reasons that the number of yearly meetings has climbed to 27. So, we’re going to take a look at the challenges that are facing modern Friends even as their numbers continue to grow. 

During her visit to Kenya, Hannah talked with Dr. Wafula, the Principal of Friends Theological College, about the factors that have contributed to the divisions.

Hannah

There are a lot of yearly meetings. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Robert Wafula 

Geographic access was a contributor. And also some some you had meetings, sizes of course population contributed towards that. But then we have some that just became yearly meetings, because the leadership did not agree with one another. Yeah. Well, and also basically, they just break away, feeling that leadership has been concentrated in one one region or one area. And so our needs are not being met. So let us break off and form our own yearly meeting. But then the trend continues even the new the new splinter group as it becomes a year meeting, there is a group within that that will feel dissatisfied. And also break off. Yeah. So here in Kenya, the splitting of yearly meetings is basically not, it doesn’t happen on theological grounds. 

Georgia

When Dr. Muhanji became director of Friends United Meeting’s Africa Office, one of his goals was to bring unity to the meetings. They developed the leadership in church, and brought together yearly meetings who were in conflict.

Dr. John Mujanji

And I can tell you and I’m proudly speaking to say as I’m speaking to you right now, the Quaker Church is well united. The Quaker Church in Kenya is one, is carrying out its operation as a team and we continue to see the church grow.

Georgia

Through Dr. Muhanji’s efforts, as well as other Friends in leadership as well as Friends Church Kenya there has been greater unity among the yearly meetings in recent years.

There are regular meetings amongst the leadership as well as conferences where Friends from different yearly meetings come together.

It doesn’t seem likely that any yearly meetings will combine anytime soon, but one pastor I spoke with said that young people in the church long for greater unity among Quakers. 

Georgia

And retaining the young people in churches is a concern, as with many churches worldwide.

Laura Nayere, who spoke at the top of the show, said some of her peers are drawn to churches with different styles of worship, but also doctrines like the prosperity gospel — which promises blessings from God in the form of wealth while downplaying more instructional messages around sin.

Laura

And they want to go to a church where, you know, they’re being told it’s okay to do this because God will forgive you, but not being told, like in Quaker, not being told you are not supposed to do this, period.

Georgia

The role of women in ministry is also a topic of concern for some. Back in her college days, Dr. Mombo said she was one of the only women studying theology. Although women have their own ministries and women-focused meetings, Dr. Mombo says that churches are often still led by men. 

Dr. Esther Mombo 

My grandmother would talk about the Quaker women like Margaret Fell and others because that is what they were taught as they joined the mission centers. And she’d say that in the meetings there was no hierarchy. People would talk to God and God would talk to them.

them and everybody was allowed to minister. So that was for me fascinating. But when I went to a local congregation, I didn’t see the women minister, and especially women preaching. I didn’t see in the main congregations, because in our meetings, it’s programmed so there’s a structure of music, a structure of reading, or a structure of preaching. I didn’t see that. I only saw the women do it in their own meetings, but not in the mixed meetings.

Georgia

But these challenges have not outpaced the growth of the church by any means. While they partner with friends in the United States, Britain and beyond, Kenyan Friends are growing because their ministry is culturally Kenyan, says Dr. Muhjanji.

Dr. John Muhanji 

I want you to know that ministry is contextualized.

When Quakerism came to Africa, it has to be contextualized to the African perspective in order for us to connect with it. If we have to do it the British way, we don’t connect. And that’s why silent worship could not be an African connection. Because African spirituality is found in sound, in making noise, then you get your connector to a spirituality. Silence does not connect you to spirituality from the African perspective.

That’s why many churches, you will come here, you will find them that are singing and having drums and beating them up and down and dancing up on the road and dancing. That’s how they connect to their spirituality. And that’s what I would say Christianity is always contextualized to the cultural perspective. 

Georgia

As evangelical Kenyan Quakers, they have broadened their scope over the years.

Dr. John Muhanji

Some British Friends don’t believe in  doing missions work because they are still thinking that doing so is like when they were doing colonial work. This is completely different from how they did their colonial. We are not colonizing or trying to force people to become Christians. 

Georgia

Quaker missionaries learn the languages of the communities they will work with. And they also bring that holistic approach to their work.

Dr. John Muhanji

Converting them is bringing them into understanding and building schools for them, building some clinics for them and helping them to learn and become informed than ignorant. And as a result of doing so, we see the community becoming more empowered, more enlightened and it has never remained the same.

We have reached to the people called the Turuqaners in the north. We have reached to the people called the Samburu’s. We have reached to the people along the coastline who have not known Christ to open up churches into their communities…We have also enriched the church in Tanzania. Through my office, we have seen the church in Tanzania grow from seven churches to about 70 churches, as I’m speaking to you right now. In Zambia we have about four churches. We have about two churches, three churches in Malawi. We are extending to Mozambique.

Georgia

Dr. Muhanji and all those we spoke to for this episode are hopeful for what is to come next as the church expands. It won’t be without challenges, but they are confident that Quakers are answering the needs of their community. And I can assure you, the world is looking for Quakerism, for Quaker values.

Georgia

We are not done with Kenya yet. Please join us next week as Hannah takes us inside a Quaker meeting on Easter Sunday and we hear an energetic message from a Kenyan pastor. Here’s a clip.

Rev. Pamela Igesa

We live a life, an extraordinary life, because we have God in us with power and authority who changes what man cannot do. Can somebody say amen? Yes. This is Jesus that we preach

Georgia

Thank you for listening and thank you to all of our guests for being a part of this episode. Hannah and I learned so much and we really are so thankful for your virtual hospitality and your in-person hospitality. If you’d like to learn more about this episode, please head over to our website, QuakerPodcast.com. This episode was recorded by me, Georgia Sparling, and Hannah Mayer. I also produced this episode. And hannah and I conducted all the interviews.

Jon Watts composed the music.

Studio D mixed the episode.

Kelly Nyanchama was the voice actor, and your moment of Quaker Zen was read by Grace Gonglewski.

Thee Quaker Podcast is a part of Thee Quaker Project, a Quaker media organization whose focus is on lifting up voices of spiritual courage and giving Quakers a platform in 21st Century Media. If you want to partner with us, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Every contribution expands our capacity to tell Quaker stories in a fresh way, and it makes this project more sustainable. Visit QuakerPodcast.com for more information, and now for Your Moment of Quakers Zen.

And now for your moment of Quaker Zen.

Grace Gonglewski

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord God, whereby thou wilt receive his strength and power from whence life comes, to allay all tempests, against blusterings and storms. George Fox, 1658

Georgia 

Sign up for daily or weekly Quaker wisdom to accompany you on your spiritual path. Just go to DailyQuaker.com. That’s DailyQuaker.com. 

Recorded, written, and edited by Georgia Sparling. Cohosted by Hannah Mayer.

Original music and sound design by Jon Watts (Listen to more of Jon’s music here.)

Voice over by Kelly Nyanchama.

Mixed and mastered by Studio D.

Supported by listeners like you (thank you!!)

Referenced in this episode:

• Friends Theological College
• Friends United Meeting Africa Ministries Office