{"id":328314,"date":"2016-06-02T02:00:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/kenya-ecumenism-and-reconciliation\/"},"modified":"2024-05-16T15:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T13:04:16","slug":"kenya-ecumenism-and-reconciliation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/kenya-ecumenism-and-reconciliation\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya: Ecumenism and Reconciliation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EcumenicalMeeting_Kenya\"<\/a>Dialogue between members of two ethnic groups in permanent conflict<\/strong> is what Johnson Duba, a young man from Marsabit, in northern Kenya, works hard for. He often succeeded in persuading the village elders to come together in a spirit of dialogue in order to restore peace in the community. When it came to young people, however, his attempts to unite them came about through sport. He initiated a football tournament, where nobody actually wins, in order to strengthen peaceful cohabitation. It is one of the fruits of reconciliation brought about by living the charism of unity which Johnson has always tried to live in his village. His was one of the experiences presented on May 27th<\/sup> to the delegates of various Churches from Eastern Africa and from Europe gathered for the International Ecumenical Movement Kenyan Chapter (IEM-K). <\/strong> A<\/strong>mong the guest-speakers were Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia<\/strong>, former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches<\/a>, and former president of IEM-K, as well as Maria Voce<\/a>, President of Focolare Movement <\/strong>who was visiting Kenya from 14 May to 1 June. <\/strong> \"EcumenicalMeeting_Kenya_01\"<\/strong>\u201cThe Focolare Movement<\/a> is ecumenical by nature,\u201d <\/strong>stated Rev. Dr Kobia, emphasizing his good relationship with Chiara Lubich<\/a>, whom he met in person, and with the Focolare community. In his talk he stressed the importance of forgiveness saying, \u201cWe do not want to be imprisoned by the past <\/em>because you can easily remain a captive of history (\u2026) but we should deal with the past in a way that we will not pass bitterness and anger to the next generation.\u201d<\/em> He urged the Ecumenical Movement to support projects of peace, dialogue and reconciliation promoted by their governments. \u00a0<\/strong>Moreover, in the heart of Chiara Lubich<\/strong> was a burning desire \u201cto respond to the most urgent and dramatic needs of humanity, the need for peace,\u201d recalled Maria Voce in the preliminary part of her speech. \u201cAnd so,\u201d she continued, \u201cwe started setting up places and looking for opportunities to meet within our Churches, so that there could be more and more \u2018communion\u2019. We had the experience of being a united people made up of Christians of different denominations through the sharing of the specific gifts of each Church, in the hope, one day, of also reaching doctrinal unity.\u201d \"EcumenicalMeeting_Kenya_12\"<\/a><\/strong>Dialogue, therefore, is the privileged pathway to be undertaken<\/strong>. This has been the experience and reflection of the Focolare Movement which has matured over these 73 years: \u201c\u2026 a dialogue of life, which does not create opposition among people, but rather brings people of different traditions or faiths together, enabling them to open up to each other, to find points in common and to live them together.\u201d Recalling that unity (Jesus\u2019 prayer \u201cThat all may be one\u2019) is the specific aim of the Focolare Movement, Maria Voce confirmed that dialogue is a way of life<\/strong>, a new culture, which the Movement can and would like to offer to men and women of today. She concluded by saying, \u201cThe Holy Spirit, the bond of love, will help Christians understand that they are living a precious and important time: a passing <\/strong><\/em>from darkness into the light of the resurrection<\/em><\/strong>, towards a greater fullness, in which diversity means enrichment and the opportunity to create communion: where the wounds of one will be the wounds of the others; where all together, with humility and detachment, we will try to find the essence and the origins of the one faith in Jesus, by listening to His Word\u201d. <\/em>\u00a0<\/em> <\/p>\n

Willy Niyonsaba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnson\u2019s challenge to restore peace in his village in Marsabit was one of the experiences presented at the International Ecumenical Movement Kenyan Chapter on 27 May 2016. The address given by Maria Voce, President of the Focolare Movement focussed on the theme \u201cEcumenism, Healing and Reconciliation\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-focolare-worldwide-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}