The Promised land
Prof. JH Kimura, PhD.
An Address during the Annual Prize Giving Day for African Christian Churches & Schools at Thika.
Introduction
The Moderator, Rev. Dr. Julius Karanja, members of the Church hierarchy, parents, teachers and students: Let me start by thanking the Moderator most sincerely for having invited me to be the guest speaker during this year’s prize-giving day when you recognise those among your schools who have ex- celled in both the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and the form four (KCSE) examinations.
It is a special honour for me because, like many of you here today, I started my educational journey in an ACC&S school, that is Ndakaini Primary in 1951. Later, I went to the then fa- mous Gituru Secondary School where I did my KAPE a few years before independence. I can say with a certain amount of authority that it is the foundation that I got from those two schools that has taken me as far as I have gone in education and in life.
A Little Background
Before I go far let me, for the record, restate to the listeners about the genesis of the ACC&S movement. The church was born out of frustration from the then African Inland Mission which did not allow pupils to proceed farther than standard 3 in education in the belief that the education imparted at that level was all that an African pupil needed to get on with life.
Any further education was a waste of resources and time since the highest job a native child could aspire to was as a primary school teacher or an employee in a menial clerical job in commerce or government. Many people in the area dis- agreed with this as they could see for themselves what was happening in other churches principally the Church Mission of Scotland (CMS) - present day PCEA - and in the Anglican Church.
It is out of the unwillingness of AIM to reform that the more militant ones decided, in 1948, to break away from that church and set up their own independent church. It is instruc- tive to note that this was the only church that incorporated in its name the school component. Thus, right from the very be- ginning, the mandate was dual: to evangelise and to educate- without one, the other was incomplete. The new church start- ed with vigour and right away founded 11 primary schools in the immediate vicinity and Gituru Secondary School (a sort of high school) where those who passed the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) in standard four could proceed. Gituru was a brutally competitive school where only the best and brightest could hope to get into.
The rest, as the saying goes, is history. To date the church and the school have expanded to many other places in the country.
ACC&S was the vision of a group of some valiant men (and a few women) who dared oppose the Mzungu and set out to create an institution that responded to their needs and created the kind of space which they wanted for their children and grandchildren. It is a dream that has survived for nearly 60 years because it was founded on correct principles; it is dream that those who are here today can only raise to a new level.
How can it be done?
A Familiar Story Retold
In the book of Genesis, we are told the story of the children of Israel and how they ended in Egypt under the cruel hand of the Pharaoh. We are told of how, after many years of suffer- ing, God chose Moses, a child of Jews who had been brought up by one of Pharaoh’s daughters as one of her own to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. The story of Moses and his escape to the land of the Midianites after he killed an Egyptian is well known to all of you as is his call by God to go and rescue the Israelites and take them back to the promised land. In the story we are told of the troubles he got into before he finally led them to the shores of River Jordan, a journey that took 40 years to cover a distance of about 400 kilometres!
It is the familiar story of Moses from which I wish to draw lessons for my talk to you today in the hope that I can convince you that, if correctly read and interpreted , the Bible has all the answers we need for our life here on earth.
Lesson No. 1 – Leadership
Moses was a leader and that is why he was chosen by God to undertake an impossible mission. Yes, he had the natural abil- ities from his parentage but, much more importantly, he was brought up in the house of Pharaoh where he got all the edu- cation and training which was to serve him well later. With- out that kind of training he received in his youth, he might never have been able to take up the demanding task.
Thus, whereas natural leadership is a gift from God, it will succeed better if it is supported by suitable education and training.
Lesson No.2 – Vision
The challenge that God gave Moses was simple: Get the peo- ple to the Promised Land. It did not matter how long it took or the difficulties they endured along the way but they must ulti- mately reach that land! God did not give Moses a road map or many resources with which to accomplish the mission - that was his problem.
The only physical resource he got was a staff which could turn into a snake or produce water out of a rock (to demonstrate God’s awesome power). Therefore, a vision that is clear and unequivocal is a necessary condition for those who are chosen to lead.
Lesson No. 3 - The Promise
In His wisdom, God had promised Abraham a land filled with milk and honey when he asked his father Terah to leave the comfort of Ur of the Chaldeans (modern day Iraq) and head west. The land promised was precisely defined: West of the Jordan, South of Lebanon, North of the Gaza and East of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean). It is the ONLY country whose boundaries are biblically defined. Getting there, unfortunate- ly, was the easy part as generations of Jews have found to this day.
Whereas God promised them a country, he did not promise them an empty country. To keep it, they had to fight for it and to lose it over and over again since it was populated by mighty men. If they could beat the occupants, then they could get to the milk and honey. Again, unfortunately for them, even that was not easy.
To get milk you must get it out of the cow and to get the honey, you must get it from the bees! The lesson here is simple: Whereas God promises you all the wonderful things in this life, He does not give them to you like manna from heaven.
You must work hard for it and, if necessary, fight for it. Like the popular song says, “I never promised you a rose garden along with the sunshine; there has got to be a little rain sometimes”. And thorns, too, before you can pick the beautiful roses.
Lesson No. 4 – Perseverance
In getting to the promised there will be many trials and tribulations. Compared to the relative comforts of Egypt (even as slaves), the journey across the Sinai was a nightmare. They had to endure all these hardships because first, they had to be cleansed out of the "Egyptian-ness" in them (remember they had learnt all sorts of bad things in Egypt) and this could only be done through a long trek in the desert of Negev and Sinai. By the time they reached River Jordan the last time after 40 years, most of the old folks had died (this was necessary because they were the ones who were the hardest or even impossible to convert).
In the process, Moses had many personal trials: vicious disagreements with his brother Aaron and sister Miriam, fall- backs such as when the priests created their own god (the golden calf) when Moses had gone to get the Ten Commandments from God, personal vilification because he had married
Zipporah, a black woman (Cushitic)2 - who was the adopted daughter of Jethro, a non-Israelite – and she turned out to be his bedrock in times of trouble.
For the youth, the simple message is this: Whatever you do, do not expect that it is going to be easy. No matter how much intelligence God has packed into your head, you must sharpen it through sheer determination and perseverance. Like an old song from Moral Rearmament used to say:
2Numbers12:1. Cush was modern day Sudan.
“Freedom isn’t free; you got sacrifice, You got to pay the price for your liberty:”
For the leaders, whether in church or in the schools, the message is different.
You may have the vision and the conviction that what you are doing is right but watch out for the detractors – the Aarons and Miriams in your midst (and they may even be close to your family). Seek and listen to the counsel of the wise like Moses listened to Jethro (about delegation of au- thority) and give a suitable place to the one confidant who is unlikely to lead you astray (like Zipporah was to Moses)
Lesson No. 5 – Success is a Journey
While criss-crossing the wilderness of the Sinai, Moses near- ly gave up hope many times. Each time he did so, God re- minded him that he did not choose himself for the apparently impossible task; he was chosen by God and, like the Bible says, God’s ways are not our ways. To God, the task He gave to Moses was to deliver the people out of Egypt and to lead them to the Promised Land.
The Promised Land is a destination but you probably will never get there in your lifetime– remember even Moses saw it but never landed there! His role was to manage the process of transformation and preparation for the new life and not to score the winning goal.
I would, therefore, like to leave you with one final message: Success is a journey and not a destination. Every day, you are challenged to move one step ahead and to keep on moving ahead purposively towards your destination. By the time you reach wherever God has appointed that you reach, you will be surprised, when you look back, at how much you will have achieved along the way.
Epilogue
Even after getting to the promised land the Jews endured many hardships including the first fall of Jerusalem in 576 BC and being carried into exile in Babylonia (ironically, the starting point of Abraham) and the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD
It was during their time in Babylon that their travails are very aptly summarized in Psalms 137 where they were being taunted by their captors to sing them a song of Zion and they protested violently saying that they could not sing that kind of song while in captivity.
In verses 5-6 of that Psalm is the rallying call to the Jews to never ever forget their roots when the Psalmist wrote of Jerusalem:
“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand lose its cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy”
Even today, this should be a suitable rallying call for all mem- bers of the ACC&S fraternity and especially all those who have been educated in that school system over the last 60 years to our “Jerusalem”, so that we can honour those of our fathers who created the dream of freedom to educate, that we are enjoying today and to ask ourselves what else we can do to take their dream to a higher and more honourable height.
Once again, thank you for listening to me and congratulations to all the winners.
Thika,
9th June 2007.