PLA to make PLS proud

The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing some community building sessions up at the farm using the ‘participatory learning approach’. This is a fancy dev term you can only use when you have a degree but it basically means having discussions to learn from each other rather than a teacher telling you all the answers. The mamas still struggle a lot at the farm, mostly because they don’t get on very well, they are unable to deal with issues that come up amongst themselves and always bring loads of complaints to Pastor or to Jon when they visit. So we are hoping that if they can figure out a way to work together maybe their problems won’t be so many and they might start enjoying themselves a bit more.

We started by talking about our basic needs, what do we need to have a good life that we enjoy, not just food, water, shelter and fuel but also friendships, knowledge, rest, play etc etc. From there the mamas decided that yes life might be a bit better if they built a community than if they just stay separate and conflicting. So last week we looked a bit more at community, what things build community and what things hurt community or friendships and they agreed to try and stop doing the bad things and start doing the good things more. It’s all pretty simple stuff but I think the mums need a chance to think about it, talk together about it and choose together to live out these things.

This week I hope we will talk a bit about decision making and how they can deal with situations that come up amongst themselves in a fair way that they have all agreed on, they might make up some rules for the community or something, I don’t know yet. It’s quite cool that it all comes from them, I don’t teach them anything, I just ask questions and present back to them what they have said and try to lead them towards their own answers and solutions. It’s been so fun so far, the mums have really enjoyed it and have been working together and listening to each other and playing together so I hope they are taking some of these things on. Wahu was hilarious the first week, she was feeding back what her group said about the need to play and celebrate and she was getting super animated about how she really wanted to play football! Kicking the air and shouting!

I would really appreciate your prayer for the mums in general and for these sessions as I don’t actually have a clue what I’m doing! It’s a bit hard to know what things will work and be understood and what things are a bit too off the wall to translate in Swahili, and it takes a lot of quick thinking to respond to what the mums are saying and keep the discussions going the right way when it takes me a while to understand what they are saying.

Prayer walks
Have started doing prayer walks around the farm every time we go up to visit and also around Kibera, walking from one project to the other and praying along the way. I’m so glad God has provided someone to come prayer walking with me in Kibera in the form of Mr Bruce Fraser, other TP staff are all busy during the day but I feel much safer standing around praying with another person than on my own, in fact a few people in Kibera think that Bruce is actually stone cold Steve Austen so that helps! Also a few other people from my church home group want to come along with us or are praying for us at their office desks while we walk! As Shoshu says ‘Mungu tu’ (just God) as in only God will sort it out. Only God can transform Kibera. Matthew 11:12. word.