Having had the privilege of being able to participate in this summer’s inaugural Amahoro Institutes in Uganda and Burundi,  I am so thankful to report that a new generation of African leaders are on the ever-closer horizon.
I had the good fortune to make friends with Emmanuel Oliam in Uganda, who told me over hot mashed matoke that “As sons of Africa, we must learn from the mistakes of the older generation of leaders.  We must make a better way.  Our future lies in our ability to rise up as the fresh generation, striving to live out God’s true calling for Africa”.  Emmanuel has every intention of being one of those leaders, as he wraps up his university studies next year and looks toward pursuing a career in political leadership.

I met a friend Micheline Barandereka, who is struggling through what it means to be a female pastor in the male-dominated culture of Burundi.  I spoke with new friend Jean Pierre Niyonzima, who narrowly escaped death in the Burundian genocide in 1994, and now travels around spreading the message of reconciliation and active peacemaking.  Their stories challenge my understandings of faith and inspire me to new levels of courageous living.

What came alive at these gatherings was the sense of local community.  Within their context, within each set of friends, those in Bujumbura and those in Kampala, common threads were discovered of struggle, hardship and joy.  The recognition of a brotherhood and sisterhood of local leaders was a joy to behold.  In this lies the true beauty of the Amahoro Institutes: they provide a liminal public square to discover what it means to be a follower of Jesus as a Ugandan, a Burundian, or a South African.

One of the friends I met, Hannah Nayoge, is a beautiful young woman who is working on a public health degree in Kampala.  After a long few days of deconstructing old theologies, Hannah and I had a conversation in which she told me she was tired.  Tired of it all. Tired of a world hurting and a church content to turn its back and make lofty pronunciations on the eternal fate of outsiders.  Tired of performing the mental gymnastics of truly wrestling with what it means to follow Jesus.  “But”, she said, smiling hopefully at me, “something new is coming.  I feel it”.

As I’ve reflected on that moonlit conversation, and of our laughter as we slapped mosquitoes away in the velvety African night, I’m left with a profound feeling of thankfulness for how inspired and encouraged I’ve been by Hannah’s simple words.  In a world that is longing for the true healing from our brokenness, Hannah and our other African friends are right.
Something new is coming.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 8th, 2008 at 4:52 am and is filed under Amahoro Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.