Kutana Kenya '22

KUTANA KENYA ‘22

Kutana Kenya is an experience like no other.  Gathering around how environment, development and mission intersect in the context of several communities and ecosystems in Kenya offers a most unique two week + exposure to places and people, issues and relationships.  Kutana means “to meet”, recognizing that meeting is never a one-way street.  The priority of mutuality that undergirds all of the work of Africa Exchange is foundational to Kutana Kenya.

This year’s group of 9 participants ranged from a divinity student, a New York City landscaper, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship staff, a Kenyan university graduate, a theology professor to a newly graduated engineer.  The group coalesced around our common goal: taking in each day as it presented itself through the lens of “What do I see?  Who is here? What does the earth seem to be saying?  How Is this community thriving?  Or not thriving?”  And perhaps most challenging of all, “What does this mean for me living in the world?”

We saw natural beauty in the forests of the highlands of Limuru, family warmth and ingenuity in rural homestays at Kipkaren River, community engagement and care for the youngest among them in Wamaganga, and community progress and tenacity in the hotter climate of Sist, Pokot.  We spent 3 days embedded in Kakamega, damp air on our cheeks and spongy paths underfoot as we made our way through the rain forest, learning about birds, butterflies, trees and monkeys and witnessing interactions with the communities living close at hand.  We looked out over Lake Baringo in its vastness, the wind whipping up in the evenings and becoming still in the mornings, discussing the idea of Gratitude from Wangari Mathai’s book “Replenishing the Earth”.  We spent out last Sunday worshiping In Nairobi at a thriving urban Baptist church, mingling with members and leaders and sipping tea with other visitors after the service was done.  And we bumped across the Masai Mara in a tour van, the pop top allowing for standing room and visibility, revealing the interconnectedness of the grassland that sustains incredible diversity of life. 

Our hope is that those who experience Kutana Kenya come away with a new understanding of how deeply we are connected to all living things.  And that they find ways where they are to nurture those connections going forward.