We reached church a little bit late and by late I mean, on time Kenyan style: where you reach there actually, literally on time! The church was full, as evidenced by the sight of those already standing in the door way. Automatically the people I was with and I decided that the wise thing to do would be to head down to the Sunday school hall and pick a bench which we would use! To our shock the Sunday school teacher did not like our idea so he forced us to take only one bench! We were grateful anyway, because at least we would have a sitting portion if not a space. Little did we know that there were those who would wait and pray for somebody to come with a bench! The result was that one guy who had volunteered to carry the bench did not get a place on that bench and another one was almost pushed off the bench! That is what led me to think of the IDPs problems!
I can only imagine what happens when one man buys land and then disappears for a few months only to come back and find that his land has not only been taken, but that the person who took it sold it to someone else, who in turn sold it to someone else, who in turn developed it and has no idea of the land’s history! Yes, it can get that bad, didn’t you hear of the business person (I will not say woman or man for fear of being victimized) who sold a Naivasha cemetery to people and even went as far as issuing title deeds to them. I can’t help wondering where the local authority was when all this was happening!
This is why we have IDPs, most of whom are innocent people who do not know the history of the land in question: they have title deeds that they legitimately paid for, but are unaware that they were initially acquired through unscrupulous means. They have perhaps lived on the land for three generations, and have come to think of that area as their ancestral land, where the graves of their grand fathers are, and cannot call anywhere else home. They learn to view their neighbor as the one to look up in times of need.
I turned back to our situation in church and asked myself many questions like, “If this is what is happening in church, how do we expect those out there to behave? Those that do not know God and yet are fighting? Those that do not know the true definition of a neighbor as taught by Jesus? Those that may not totally understand as they do not have the privilege that you and I have? If I can take my brother’s or sisters’ seat in church and feel nothing about that, maybe what I should ask myself is, do I really care about my brother or sister’s welfare? Do I?”
Maybe I will never have to grapple with that question, but for others it’s a serious matter: they say, “I live for today, so whatever you do to me today is what really counts.” Let’s show a little courtesy (which, to most of us, is equal to love). In the long run, I as a person will have not only reduced the number of internally displaced but also internally (mind, body and soul) depressed and stressed!
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