Walking the Lord’s Prayer in a Samburu village, Kenya

How does it feel to inhabit a different culture and pray a familiar prayer - a reflection by Dickyboyd

Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. 
When Moses was commissioned by God in the Sinai wilderness he approached a burning bush and heard God say “Come no closer!  Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground”.  I emerge from the Landrover and the semi-arid scrubland crackles in the heat.  I am in a land of milk and wild honey, witnessing nomadic pastoralists shepherding their animals.  God was inviting me to explore a sacred place.

I had read that the Samburu believe in one Supreme Being they call Nkai who in the proverb “kealakwa Nkai etaana” is ‘distant and yet again close by’.  Before sunrise an elder wakes and gives thanks to Nkai, for the peace through the night of his people and livestock.  He prays for peace during the day. Omnipotent and omniscient, hallowed is the name of Nkai.  We call God “Our Father” not in a gender specific way but to describe our relationship with God as one might approach a loving parent.  Where is my heavenly Father guiding me to and what will I learn?

Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
Justice and peace, a reality manifested in Jesus’ own presence and ministry, mark God’s kingdom.  But how is it to be administered?  For the Samburu a social structure exists based on gender and the roles different groups play in the daily management of community affairs and the stage each has reached in their lives.  It is a puritanical, patriarchal society.  The elders are held in highest esteem, then the ilmurran or warriors, then the women and children.  Women build houses, clean the compounds and utensils, fetch water, cook, and bear and raise children.  Children are a community treasure owned by no one person. 

The elders dispense justice with a wisdom constituted millennia ago, and administer God’s kingdom in this place.  They warn children against disobedience, laziness, dishonesty and disrespect.  The warriors are circumcised herdsmen.  They spend much of their time adorning their bodies with beads, plaiting their hair and dyeing it with red ochre. When not defending their village from unfriendly neighbouring tribes and dangerous animals or themselves engaged in terrifying raids, they take care of their livestock.  They describe these exploits in dance and song.  I struggle to hold their highly structured society in constructive tension with my western liberal values of equality.  Yet it is the rigidity of their communal arrangements, and the fear of being excluded from it, that facilitates the administration of justice.  In our fissiparous post-modern society we shift, buffeted by contingency and uncertainty, between temporary tribes becoming increasingly polarised in our ethnicity.  Are we drifting to anarchy?  Your Kingdom come.

Give us today our daily bread. 
The followers of Jesus lived on the bare necessities of life, without affluence or luxuries.  We pray for the ‘bread’ that will provide us with all the physical and spiritual gifts that we need to exist and in the supermarket we reach down our bag of lettuce, rocket, baby leaf salad which has been grown, washed and processed in Kenya.  Earthwatch says that producing a small 50g salad bag uses almost 50 litres of water, in a country where it is at its most precious.  When we eat our Kenyan beans or out of season strawberries we a sucking Lake Naivasha dry.  In the north of Kenya, the intensifying droughts have caused deadly conflicts among herdsmen for the few water holes.  In Samburu, it’s the short rainy season so there will be water and pasture for the cattle and sheep.  Calves will be born and cows will give milk, the staple food.  The domed huts are made of mud, dung and tree branches.  No fine adornments.  No vase of roses. 

The vegetable and flower industry brings employment to some and great wealth to a few.  The Tyndale Centre recommends that new models of hydrological development are needed to plan sustainably for the future impact of land use and climate change:  and developing integrated of policies that address climate change in a holistic way will ensure the sustainability of investments and reduce the climate sensitivity of current and future development activities.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. 
The lithe villagers, adorned with multiple necklaces of cheap colourful beads scrutinize us.  We were conscious of our sunburned overweight bodies, festooned with hundreds of pounds worth of cameras and binoculars.  I think of the economic gulf that exists and silently solicit forgiveness for our greed and the wealth that divides communities and nations.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. 
Jesus warned us that life would not be easy.  The Samburu live a precarious existence, battling with a harsh environment.  We have everything on tap and we are on top.  Much of our suffering is of our own doing.  The popular idea that it is money, not God, that makes the world go round is derived from our faith in materialism which denies the existence of God or that moral values are grounded in God’s law.  Money has become the basic engine of human activity.  At the hastily convened village marketplace the women sit displaying their beadwork and woodwork.  I buy a necklace made from porcupine quills and a bony face that will outface the Evil One.

A timeless scene is changing.  We from distant continents, the lands of the settled, touch these pastoralists directly and indirectly.  Agencies are building schools, churches and clinics anchoring these nomads in settled villages.  What will happen to these people if climate change irreparably alters their way of life?  Will the Samburu leave Eden for Nairobi, the crime capital of Africa?  Later, from the light plane taking us back to Nairobi I look down god-like on the childish, daisy-shaped tracery of the impenetrable thicket of acacia thorns encircling the villagers and their livestock against neighbouring marauding tribesmen and wild animals.  I try to comfort myself with words of ecotourism and ethical travel but the experience of this visit to the Samburu will be a thorn in my flesh, however much I want only to recall the environmental beauty of Kenya.

Your comments.

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I try to comfort myself with words of ecotourism and ethical travel but the experience of this visit to the Samburu will be a thorn in my flesh, however much I want only to recall the environmental beauty of Kenya.

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I think of the economic gulf that exists and silently solicit forgiveness for our greed and the wealth that divides communities and nations.

God’s kingdom in this place.  They warn children against disobedience, laziness, dishonesty and disrespect I think of the economic gulf that exists and silently solicit forgiveness for our greed and the wealth that divides

it is interesting article.thank u for sharing your traveling experience.

it is a puritanical, patriarchal society.  The elders are held in highest esteem, then the ilmurran or warriors, then the women and children

Your blog is so informative ?keep up the good work!!!!

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil - I think this is the most important point of all to me personally…
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