Partnering to Transform the Slums of Nairobi
(continued)

The problem in Kibera, as in other Nairobi slums, isn't that there's a shortage of churches - in fact there are hundreds of slum churches in Nairobi. The challenge, Makuku fears, is that the vast majority of slum church planters are untrained and incapable of effective ministry. "We will partner with Servant Partners to work on rectifying that," he says. Makuku is also forming Daybreak Word & Deed Ministries. Daybreak's aims include training and providing resources for pastors in leadership development, advocacy, church planting, and social justice issues. All of this, he says, "means being on top of things in Nairobi."

Fortunately, Makuku is on top of things. For ten years Makuku pastored a church in Mukuru Kayaba, an industrial region in the south of Nairobi. Then, after some initial training of other pastors, he felt he needed to return personally to a church planting situation, as well as do even more training of other leaders. Thus he planted Kibera Reformed Presbyterian Church and founded Daybreak Word & Deed Ministries.

For Servant Partners, working with Pastor Makuku and Daybreak Word & Deed Ministries is a blessing and opportunity. Tom Pratt, the Chairman of the Senior Leadership Team of Servant Partners, believes the budding relationship with Daybreak to be strategic. When I asked him about Servant Partners' presence in Nairobi, he shared the following with me: "I have become convinced that Africa is becoming the center of the worldwide church. It is also a continent where a large number of cities are undergoing some of the most rapid urbanization in the world. So I believe that Servant Partners must partner with the church in Africa and we must be where the greatest surge of urbanization in the world is going to be happening in the coming few decades." Servant Partners is helping to provide training events where people with international experience gather with Nairobi pastors to help them, as Makuku puts it, "to be fed and taught and encouraged." In addition to training opportunities, Servant Partners is helping Daybreak by fundraising to support new church plants in Kenya, as well as by recruiting and training support personnel.

Founded just over one hundred years ago with the sole purpose of accommodating British colonizers as they built railways through Kenya, Nairobi has a legacy of struggle that continues today. Only about a quarter of the people have wage jobs, while most people eke out a living by informally peddling goods. The average yearly income is $340 US while 54% of Kenyans make only $1 US a day. Well over half of all of those living in Nairobi live in informal settlements. Most of these slums have no proper sewage system, electricity, clean water or garbage retrieval system.

In the Kibera slum people live quite densely. One conservative estimate sets the count at 230,000 people per square kilometer, with a total of 700,000 living in the slum. The population density exacerbates the already poor health conditions and disease is rampant. Common diseases include TB, malaria, hepatitis, STDs, and various respiratory diseases. One of every three adults has AIDS.

Yet people continue to flock to Kibera, causing a growth rate of about 12% each year. While the living conditions are deplorable, the slum provides the only affordable housing alternative for people fleeing to Nairobi from the countryside in search of jobs, education and opportunity.

Poverty and the ever increasing demand for housing and land cause tensions among those living in Kibera. In November of 2001, rioters ripped through the narrow paths of Kibera looting and destroying homes. According to one account, "Fifteen people died, hundreds were injured, and many women were raped during the week-long riot. Rioters burned and chopped apart homes." *

The cause of heightening tensions, Makuku tells me, is twofold: tribal disputes and rent hikes. Regarding rent, tenants used to pay an average of about 300 Kenyan Shillings per month ($4 US) for a ten-foot by ten-foot space, but this figure has quickly risen to 750 Kenyan Shillings ($10 US). Tenants simply couldn't handle the rise in costs and felt they had no other recourse but violence.

For this and many other reasons Daybreak is seeking to encourage pastors and others to get involved in "secular" activities so as to personally transform their communities. While one may walk around Nairobi and find myriad signs of Christian influence - churches, Christian newspapers, posters by the dozens touting prayer rallies - most Kenyan Christians are leery about getting involved in politics or social issues. "For us to be salt and light in Kibera," Makuku shares, "we will need to overcome that sort of fear and come to a better understanding that life for the Christian is not dualistic, but an integrated matter." Makuku has begun leading others in writing letters to public officials and in finding other ways to influence their communities for good. "We're enabling the Kenyan church to have an impact on urban society."

As Makuku and I wind down our visit, he speaks with affection about the people he serves. "Once you get beyond the dirt and squalor and filth of the slum culture, you see the dignity of people. . . Once the people know you do not look down on them and you're not patronizing them, they will accept you . . . once they know you're with them when they're hurting."

We leave Kibera by way of a different path, for my sake, Makuku claims. While crossing a much more precarious sewage ravine, I slip and immerse my right foot, over my ankle, in sewage water. For a moment I want to cry out and complain. But I don't. I quickly realize that I need to retain that present feeling of disgust, to retain it as a memory when I pray for Makuku and the people of Kibera. True to his word, Makuku had in fact chosen our alternative path for my sake.

Makuku encounters the same handshakes and personal greetings as we exit Kibera. I'll later recall these moments as Tom describes his understanding of the ways Pastor Makuku is touching lives in Nairobi: "I believe he's a person who God is raising up to be an 'apostolic' presence among the church in Nairobi. He will encourage and catalyze many people into church planting and good works among the poorest of the poor, and already he has the respect of a wide variety of slum pastors from many groups and backgrounds."

Clearly I could add that he also has the respect of the people whom he serves in Kibera. As we leave the slum and as I depart from Makuku, I again find myself glad to know that Servant Partners and Imbumi Makuku have crossed paths.

- Mark Kramer
(October 2002)

* "Christians Flee Rioting," by Sue Sprenkle, Christianity Today, February 4, 2002.