I wasn’t mad — really I wasn’t — but I was surprised. A notice in a newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya, announced that I would be delivering a major address at a local university the next day on the highfalutin subject of globalization and the American media. This was news to me. True, I planned to drop by Daystar University for a relaxed chat about journalism with a handful of students and professors. That, I figured, would be fun, a pleasant interlude during my vacation in Africa. A speech was work.
I had no one to blame but my host, Sam Owen. Sam is a Christian missionary with a remarkable ministry to political, civic, and business leaders in Kenya and nearby countries. We became friends two decades ago at a Virginia church my wife had picked out. I was a new believer and Sam was the first person I met. When he and his wife Lynn and their three kids left for Kenya in the late 1980s, we kept in contact. Since then, they’ve invited my family to visit every year. We’d taken a raincheck until this August.
The thing you have to know about Sam is that he’s extremely resourceful. He has to be. His ministry is unusual. He doesn’t preach on streetcorners, though he’d be good at it. He brings leaders together for discussions of faith, study of the Bible, fellowship, and prayer. The idea is to help them apply Christian principles to their daily lives and work.
The Kenyan government doesn’t quite understand what Sam’s up to. From time to time, attendees at his weekly breakfasts are interrogated by investigators suspicious that something subversive is afoot. Of course, it is, but only in the sense of a spiritual awakening, not a coup.
For Sam, our visit to Kenya was not only a chance for our families to get together (we spent lots of time at wildlife preserves). It was an opportunity. Our second night in Nairobi, he and Lynn had a dinner in our honor, and I made a few informal remarks about the U.S. presidential race and my Christian faith. A discussion among the 50 or so guests followed.
My remarks didn’t matter much. They were merely the pretext for bringing together people who seldom meet socially. There were members of parliament from the governing party, KANU, of President Daniel arap Moi. And there were opposition leaders. Now, this wasn’t the same as Democrats and Republicans socializing in the United States. Kenya is not a full-grown democracy. Moi agreed only under duress a few years ago to allow opposition parties at all, and he still occasionally throws dissident members of parliament in jail for years at a time.
One ex-prisoner at Sam’s dinner asked me how America maintains a two-party democracy. In Kenya, the opposition is hopelessly fragmented. My answer must not have been helpful because he asked the same question again. Anyway, opposition and government pols mingled, chatted, joked, and also agreed I had missed the point about what Kenya needs from America.
This was significant. An opposition member, Beth Mugo, said I kept referring to foreign “aid” when that’s not what Kenya wants. Moi’s ex-finance minister, Simeon Nyachae, elaborated on Kenya’s need for private investment and expertise. It was a bipartisan moment in a normally hostile environment — at my expense. But that’s what I was there for in Sam’s scheme.
I don’t mean to sound critical. If I could assist Sam’s ministry, I was more than willing. Still, the publicly announced lecture at Daystar would take work. I’m sure there are journalists who can spontaneously hold forth on globalization, but I’m not one of them. Besides, it turned out a panel would critique my remarks.
In the end, I got off easy. The audience of maybe 150 filled a classroom, and as best I could tell it was politically — and religiously — diverse — just what Sam had hoped for. Daystar is a Christian school, and the session began and ended with a prayer. So I also talked about my experience as a Christian. There’s one especially nice thing about speaking at a Christian gathering: You don’t get hammered by questioners as you might, say, at an American university.
After the speech, a fellow approached me and said he’d heard that a newspaper in Uganda had reported I’d be speaking there in a couple days. I turned to ask Sam about this. “Am I supposed to give a speech there too?” I asked. “Not this trip,” he said.
FRED BARNES
