Life inside the Fearless Summit in Nairobi – Kenya – Part 1

                                                          Life inside the Fearless Summit in Nairobi – Kenya – Part 1

On early Wednesday morning of 5th June 2019 last week, I boarded a Kenya airways flight to Nairobi, Kenya to attend the Fearless Summit (www.fearlesssummit.org) that was held at Mavuno Church, Hill City Campus, Arthi River, about 20kms outside of Nairobi City.
This was my second time to travel to Kenya by plane, the first time, it was in January 1998.

The summit attracts people from all walks of life to talk about life issues, especially issues that are generally hindering the growth of communities and the church in Africa with hopes that ordinary people like I, Edward, a villager from Buwenda, can be turned into a Fearless Influencer of Society. This year’s theme was about being ‘Brave’

Before departure, I had changed my money into Kenya shillings at a bank and also loaded some on my debit card.I also loaded enough airtime on my cell-phone numbers. Downloaded a worldwide map which can give you locations anywhere in the world without internet, and learnt some more of Swahili language to get me around incase need arose.

My journey started with an early morning drive to Entebbe international airport. As I was accessing the departure lounge, a lady who looked like a security operative looked at my passport and told me that since it’s an old type of passport it may not be accepted, I firmly told her in her face that it will; she quickly backed off and let me proceed.

The Kenyan airways aircraft we used seemed to be suffering from effects of old age and the in-flight staff seemed to have low morally for their work. This didn’t so much surprise me because I had heard of stories of how the Kenya Airways (KQ) company is financially struggling. So these guys who call themselves the Uganda airlines which I hear was recently launched should take note of these developments and also be prepared for stiff competition from well established airlines like KQ which has plied the Entebbe Nairobi route for many years. If they try other routes, say Addis-Ababa, they should also be prepared for stiff competition from Airline giants like Ethiopian airlines. It will be good if someone can train all workers of Uganda airlines in Customer care, and encourage them to put the learnt skills in customer care in practice.

Anyways after one hour and a few minutes, we landed at Jomo Kenyatta International airport, cleared immigration. As I was exiting the airport a lady approached me for taxi/cab (special hire)services, I asked her how much it will cost to take me to Mavuno church at Arthi River, she said KES- 3000(UGS.1110,000/=), I quickly declined it and told her that if she does not bring it down to less that KES-1000(UGS. 37,000/=), I will call a Uber, sensing that she may lose business,she quickly brought down the prices.

As the cab driver was driving me from the Airport to the Summit venue, I saw that soil is not as red as that of Uganda.
Kenya has about 40% of arable (farmable)land while Uganda has about 60% and it seems ours is far much fertile than that of Kenya. There are unverified rumors that Land in Mafubira sub-county in Jinja district may be the most fertile soil in the whole world. I have no evidence of this, but this is what some people say.
Kenya’s GDP (all its total wealth) is about USD.75 billion while Uganda’s is USD 27billion. So we are far much behind Kenya in terms of economy size but if majority of Ugandans got inspired and decided to engage in commercial agriculture and agro processing,it would give us a big push.

I reached at the Fearless Summit on the first day at around 11:00PM, the weather was chilly, the first session was still taking place. Lots of people in attendance. This space attracts a lot of professionals and young cooperates from the church and the market place.

Later in the day I connected with my host, a Kenyan born Uganda who was very generous and let me stay in his house for the duration of the conference. Our Leadership Institute had paired us with Fearless Institute leaders in Nairobi for accommodation. He drove me to a home with other Kenyan Fearless Institute hosts and Ugandan guests who were extremely nice to me. This was the first time in my life to meet Kenyans who were more hospitable than Ugandans. I had always thought (may be falsely) that via friendliness/politeness towards strangers, Ugandans beat Kenyans. But these Kenyan ladies proved me wrong.

The Fearless Summit is a leadership ministry of the Mavuno church under the leadership of pastor Muriithi Wanjau with branches spread in many countries around the world. He, just like Pastor Mosze is a man with so much influence but lives a life of simplicity and humility. In his book, the 5 levels of Leadership, Dr. John Maxwell talks about the lowest level being the positional level. Sadly many of us African leaders fall under that level. All we do is crave for titles, positions, etc. Yet true leadership according to Maxwell is not about positions but influence.
I pray and hope that many of us can go past level one of leadership. I tend to be turned off by Ugandan Pastors and other leaders who want to surround themselves with airs of importance.

On the first day, one of the speakers talked about the need for Africa to start finding solutions to its problems and thereafter start blessing other nations. I liked hearing this so much, why? Because I meet so many Ugandans who think that solutions to our problems don’t lie with us Africans but with people from far away countries, especially Bazungus. What a Joke!!

Accepting individual responsibility for our lives, our habits, our behaviors, our decisions, our thinking and the people we surround you with, gives us a ladder to help us climb out of our current circumstances.
Blaming others for our life circumstances does us absolutely no good; when we accept individual responsibility, we become growth oriented. We continuously seek to improve ourselves.

When we assign blame, we become victims. We develop a Victim Mindset. As a result, we are unable to grow and improve.
Taking individual responsibility for our life circumstances, forces us to change. That change makes us better than we were the day before.

Other speakers emphasized that Christians need to live beyond the four Church walls. “We need to be transformed beyond our selfish ambitions, our limitations, our horizons and start living for the transformation of our societies as we expand the Kingdom of God,”

Speakers included Worship Harvest lead Pastor, Moses Mukisa; Pastor Muriithi Wanjau lead pastor of Mavuno churches and Bishop Masika among others.

Pastor Moses challenged us to move past a Powerless Christianity to Changing our world; he actually got people on stage to demonstrate how commotion at the gates doesn’t do us any good.

David Kuria a communication strategist talked about how the church is facing a perception crisis. In Uganda,some people,especially the religious ones, generally like to capitalize on the weird behaviors of a few pastors to define all of us-what i call blanket judgement. I remember one time some years ago going on a street to get a loan, the moment I told the lady that am a pastor, she first hesitated to give me the money, on inquiring why, she told me that people who call themselves pastors have been her most stubborn clients.

David also talked about how the LGTB community is investing heavily in the mass media to change perceptions and thereby gain acceptance and recognition. He also cited examples of how a western security outfit invested heavily in the mass media to clean its tinted image.

All Kenya’s leading churches social media accounts when combined are not even a match to the social accounts of Kenyan celebrities. The case is not any different in Uganda.

So the church still has a lot of work to do to increase our visibly in the mass media, to share our transformation stories.

In tomorrow’s story, i will write about Bishop Masika who left the comforts of Nairobi city to move to his rural area of Yatta where he started several poverty alleviation initiatives that are reportedly blessing the lives of so many people.

Blessings- Edward