Three year old Amariah on the grave of her great-grandfather
in his ancestral village of Otonglo.
 

A little over 4 weeks ago we received the tragic news that my husband’s father had been violently murdered in the Kenyan slum where my husband was born and raised.  It was such a devastating blow and while we were still dealing with our own shock and sadness, we had to take on the difficult responsibility of handling all the cultural details and financial burdens surrounding death in Kenya.

My husband is the first born and only son of his father and so the whole family is looking to him, even though his father was estranged from him and from the entire family as a whole.  As long as I live in Africa, there will be some cultural things that I’ll just never ever understand.  Things that will break my heart, and sometimes, even make me righteously indignant.

As much as there are many beautiful and wonderful things about many parts of Kenyan culture, some cultural practices do nothing but put the people in bondage.  I think it’s probably true of every culture, that there are just some things that we do, think, and believe that are of no benefit to us and that only rob us from the freedom Christ paid everything for us to have.  It must grieve Him deeply to see us choosing to live in captivity.

In Kenya, when someone dies, their body is transported back to the village of their ancestors –to their tribal land.  If they didn’t have a house on that land, one is built for their body to spend the night in before they are buried.  The whole village comes for a weeklong feast and sometimes even new outdoor toilets are dug to serve all the visitors.  There are many other cultural requirements surrounding death here, most of which are based out of fear, especially of the wrath of the deceased if they are not treated “properly” after their death and the many many days leading up to their burial.

You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with birth and why I am writing about it in a midwifery newsletter.  I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole big process and all that Kenyans put into caring for an honoring a person who has died.  It’s caused me to wonder at how interesting it is that people, who couldn’t have cared less about Martin’s father or how he was living when he was alive, are now insisting that we build a house for his empty body.  And I wonder how different life in general in Kenya would be if people here would care about and honor the living half as much as they do the dead.

How amazing and beautiful and God-honoring would it be if when a baby was born we built them a house?!  What if instead of waiting for someone to die to throw a big feast, we did it when they were born, or better yet, gave all the money that was raised by the community for such festivities to the parents to set them up to feed their family for months and months?!  What if we put more care and concern into the living conditions of someone who is actually alive than someone who is no longer present in their body or anywhere on this earth?

This is yet another reason why God-centered midwifery is so crucial and desperately needed in this country.  My prayer is that by God’s grace we will start to value life when, and in ways that it truly matters – to the life we are impacting, and most importantly to God.  I will certainly spend all that I have left of my life on this earth to reach that end.

Martin, Amariah, Jannekah and Ezriel Guya