Justice walks humbly along the paths of Ugunja. From 4am until 10pm, 7 days a week, justice is working hard to change minds, to engage both the marginalized and the powerful, and to provide services and information that will help to pull an entire community, an entire district, out of extreme poverty. Justice uses tools of diplomatic negotiations, risk-taking, love, compassion and above all, justice uses the tool of faith. In Ugunja, we found Justice to be embodied in the person of Pius Aggrey Omondi – director of the Ugunja Community Resource Centre.

Aggrey is a high-school drop-out, has struggled with alcoholism, was in a marriage to a woman he did not love, and is permanently disabled since childhood from tetanus that has caused a progressively debilitating limp and lock-jaw. At first glance Aggrey is a man who wouldn’t have once inspired much confidence in his capacity to do justice.

Aggrey was not born into a position or family of privilege; nor was he trained and schooled in ways of philosophical and theological idealism as a young adult. He didn’t even finish high school! He was born in the small, some might say "simple", village of Ugunja, somewhere in the backwaters of East Africa. Over time, he has gained his insight into the world - his insight of what was right and what was wrong, and his commitment to action - through open and compassionate observation of people, events and circumstances. And when he went to work, with a commitment to social change, he wasn’t backed by corporate philanthropy, or a giant NGO, or a large government body – in fact he still isn’t – but he quietly and determinedly goes about his business of working to make things better in his community, in his country, and in his world with whatever resources he has at his disposal, day after day, with no acclaim.

Diana Butler Bass talks about justice as a spiritual journey, something that comes about when the inner spirit is changed – is affected.

Aggrey’s inner spirit was affected by a missionary he met while working for the Methodist church in North Eastern Kenya. At the time it was just a job for him, but he was impressed by the missionary’s faith, compassion and inner strength. That meeting – that friendship - changed him forever, and committed him to a life of walking and talking justice. He embodies for us justice as a spiritual struggle, justice as a spiritual journey.

Having left Ugunja as a young man, Aggrey returned in the early 1980’s and founded the first Methodist church in the community. This was amid huge challenges from people in the community who were not keen on the introduction of a new denomination. As word of the new faith spread, and the congregation grew, a church was soon built. Then immediately it was burnt down. But Aggrey hung on. Soon he had ten more churches springing up around the district, with people drawn to his ministry, and drawn to the way he led his life and dedicated his life to others.

By 1988 Aggrey was fully immersed in problem-solving the struggles in his community. With a small grant from the Methodist Relief and Development Fund in the UK, facilitated by the Methodist Church of Kenya, Aggrey was able to facilitate improved dairy development among 13 initial farmers in the community, none of them members of his church. Soon the meetings swelled in numbers. The biggest need to satisfy was the need for information. With donations from the Methodist Church of Kenya, a small and humble library was started in the vestry of the church. There, in a small corner of a poor rural church, separated by a homemade partition, a resource centre for library materials and meetings was created.

During the monthly networking meetings with the farmers, it became apparent that other needs were not being met including health provision, crop husbandry, and education, among others. Outgrowing the church space, Aggrey facilitated the rental of a small space in the town to house what was originally called Ugunja Library Services. Expanding naturally into many social services it became known as the Ugunja Community Resource Centre, officially registering for non-governmental organizational status in 2004. From this humble yet auspicious beginning, grew a resource centre providing services to all members of the community for its many diverse and desperate needs.

We were witness to many, many examples of injustice during our time in Kenya. Injustice in the death of a young woman who died giving birth to twins while the vehicle that was trying to get her to the hospital got stuck in the mud. The injustice of a generation of old grandmothers forced to care for young children. The injustice of children forfeiting their childhood having to care for their younger siblings. The injustice of a young man lying dying on the road after being struck by a vehicle with crowds of onlookers watching him die but no one able to assist him. The Injustice of class and colour getting timely medical care while others lie waiting. The injustice of a young woman lying dying of AIDS on the floor in her hut with a small child at her side because she can’t access the drugs she so desperately needs. The injustice of an old woman dying all alone, with no family left to care for her. The Injustice that health and educational services are available only to those who pay. The Injustice of mob violence. The Injustice that we are born into a life of privilege and they are not. And today, the Injustice that people have to die for free and fair democratic elections.

Our biggest struggle in Kenya was not how to get water without a tap, take a shower, live without flushing toilets or electricity, or how to eat with our hands. Our biggest struggle was figuring out what benefit our presence there had for anyone. We were a burden, to say the least, two extra hungry mouths to feed, awkward and clumsy, fumbling along day to day, trying to figure things out, not understanding cultural differences and feeling, well, somewhat useless.

But we believe the importance of our presence there lies in our witnessing of both acts of injustice and justice, and the stories which we can bring back to our own communities here in Canada.

For many, justice is charity and charity is social service, providing direct services like food, clothing, and shelter in response to a person’s immediate needs. And we’re generally pretty good at that; from food banks, to clothing drives, shelters, and Christmas handouts, the list goes on. But is this work heeding the call to do justice? The call to engage in a spiritual journey, to engage in a spiritual struggle?

I don’t believe that any of us want to live in a world where the provision of social services for basic needs is the status quo in every community – because at its heart, charity is directed at the effects of injustice, its symptoms. Charity is important but it doesn’t bring enduring peace to the world. We need to work towards a world where everyone can meet their basic needs of food, shelter, security, and where people have the ability and dignity to provide for themselves. This we know. In development circles, we call these the Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed upon goals and indicators for eliminating extreme poverty.

In contrast, justice is directed at the root causes of these social problems. Justice promotes social change in institutions, systems and political and economic structures, responding to both people’s immediate and long-term needs.

In Ugunja and the surrounding district we saw many examples of charity at work – mostly large NGO’s from around the world implementing different projects with varying degrees of success. Even Aggrey engages in much charity work – how can he not with long queues of people waiting patiently for him outside of the UCRC day in and day out, asking for help to feed their families or to pay for a burial of a loved one, or to gain access to medical attention or who knows what. But this is not the core of what Aggrey does – he understands and appreciates the symptoms of extreme poverty in his community but is also busy digging at the root causes of these social problems.

Recent events have brought international attention to the issue of injustice in Kenya. As hopes for a much-anticipated free and fair democratic election were dashed, people started to cry out at the injustice. These cries have come in many forms and have threatened the peace and security of many, in a country already struggling with pervasive systems of injustice. It has been clearly shown in recent weeks that political stalemate and obfuscation are as deadly as bullets and machetes.

And how is Aggrey responding to this need in his community? Aggrey is out there talking to the leaders of the youth gangs that have sprung up and plagued Ugunja in recent weeks with killings, beatings, looting, fires, violence, and road blocks.

We would like to quote a few recent communiqués from Aggrey regarding the current upheaval in Ugunja and Kenya.

"Our organization is not by mandate a relief organization. However, we cannot sit back and idly watch suffering and destruction destroy our country. We will try our best to provide essential commodities with support from friends and partners, but we must remember that the process of repentance, forgiveness, healing and reconciliation are just as important if life is to return to normalcy."

Testifying to what they are doing on the ground:

Sat Jan 5: UCRC has invited political, religious, business, civil society and other opinion leaders for a breakfast meeting on Monday to chart the way forward for reconstruction and healing.  Over one hundred are expected on that day, just a day before the national rally that has been called in Nairobi by the opposition leaders. 

And again an update on meeting with the reconstruction team:

The outcome of this is that vigilante groups of youth have been engaged.  The youth were met and they agreed to start alternative income-generating activities.  Straightaway all the ten groups were supported with the initial capital to start diversified businesses: charcoal, roasted groundnuts, green vegetables, maize, etc.  They were also given one sack of maize for feeding their families with a promise to add them more on Monday.  We targeted 14 gang leaders to start with as a thank you for keeping the peace for the last four days.  Some of them are keen to get technical skills for sustainable employment.

Keen to get technical skills for sustainable employment. Violence suppressed by an offer of financial help to get a small business off the ground. Think about that. Really that’s what the voices are crying out for – for free and fair access to education, to income-generating opportunities. Not for the death of a member of another tribe, not for continued corruption and violence, not even for the victory of one presidential candidate over the other. There is a cry for a just and peaceful existence that so far has been denied to the majority of Kenyans.

Throughout it all, Aggrey manages to maintain not only the strength, energy and diplomacy that are needed for him to go on wading through the murky waters of Kenyan government, corporate and economic institutions, and now post-election unrest and violence, but he also maintains a sense of humour and a disarming humanity that helps to bring your own struggles, challenges and questions into a new and revealing light.

If justice is a verb, as Diana Butler Bass suggests, then how do we go out and ‘do’ justice as Aggrey does? As Christians, we are called to do justice – to address worldly wrongs. Micah, 6:8 states: "what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" Do we have to start by aiming to address all the ills of the world at once? No, but we do have to start by taking a first step – a baby step will do – towards the transformation of the "inner spirit" of systems of injustice, violence and exclusion. Let us start out by imaging a world where justice flows. Let us commit to seeing, let us commit to hearing and let us commit to responding with compassion, knowing that we are doing the work of God. Let us begin on this spiritual journey together.

PASTORAL PRAYER

O God, in you we live and move and have our being. You have blessed us with the gift of life and a world to live in. Empower and strengthen the witness of your church throughout the world, that true to its calling it may embody your radical and boundless love. Grant that, nourished and sustained by Word and Sacrament, our service and witness in this and every land may be full of faith and love.

May those who govern the nations of the world use their authority with wisdom, kindness and peacefulness. We particularly pray for the political leaders of Kenya to bring an end to the unrest and violence that is currently plaguing the country. Awaken in them a thirst for justice that embodies your care for this earth and for the human community.

We pray for the willingness to walk with one another, for we know we will need to walk together if we are ever to make justice and peace real. There are no hands on earth but ours. And our hands seem so few and our abilities so small in the face of such great need for healing. So we pray for the strength to try. We know how real the brokenness of this world is, but we will not give brokenness the last word. We remember today the people of the Ugunja Community Resource Centre who are working hard to reduce and eliminate poverty, and all of its devastating effects, in their community

And we pray for ourselves. Help us to heed the call for real justice, for true justice which makes things right. Help us resist both fear and complacency. Awaken in us boundless compassion and stir in us the fire to respond as agents of loving kindness, when we hear peoples of the world crying out from the sufferings of poverty, injustice or oppression.

O God, help us to hear and respond to your call to do justice in this world.

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