The Orma Community Uncovered…

Four missioners traded into the unknown lands of the Orma Community from July 11^th to 15^th, where they spent five days away from civilization, as they know it. They had to turn off their phones, because there was no mobile phone network coverage reaching the area they were heading to. The car they were in was not following a well-worn path, but instead, had to chart one of their own!

Despite the stories they had heard of the area supposedly hosting various militant groups, and the threat of robbery and even death; they left their destiny to the Lord God, for whom they had been sent to the Orma people.

 

The school:

There are six staff members in the local primary school, who include four teachers, a headmaster and a senior teacher.

There is great need in the school, with the situation revealing children without resources such as desks, and chairs; which makes the children look for substitutes such as balancing a cardboard, or a piece of wood on two stones to create seating space. The children are also developing illegible handwritings because they have to write on their laps, as opposed to the luxury of having a table or desk to support their books.

The ratio of school-going girls to boys among the Orma has diminished over the years, and according to the locals, there is only one girl, since 1960, who has completed her studies to the level of Form 4; and she was sponsored by the AIC Church.

 

AIC Mission Center

The AIC Mission center is a plot of land that has a borehole, the missionary’s house, a garage, and the AIC clinic. The borehole has been drilled in such a way that there is a building of two floors resting above it. The building is made up of two rooms, one on each floor.

 

 

The room on ground floor was converted to the nursery class, while the room above it was made the guest room. The nursery class is void of furniture, except for the teacher’s seat; and the 26 students who attend the nursery class sit on the floor during the lessons. Most of the children moved from the public school to the missionary school because of the gifts such as provision of a meal that they get at the Mission Centre.

The Missionaries hope to reach the community through the children. They are trying to educate this young ones in order to have them effectively reach out to their community. There are two teachers: one of whom is the pastor’s Wife. The age group of the nursery-attending students is not restrictive; and there are even children who are approaching ten years old, who are part of the nursery class. The Pastor’s children are the only two older students who have independent studies, and are currently in class 3 and 5.

The children, for a pass time, would play on a swing mounted on one of the trees, climb the lower-laying trees, play with the goats in the mission ground, and even clean their teeth with pieces of branches.

There are a few converts who meet under a tree in the Mission Centre for their time of fellowship. However, with the building having been constructed, the children use the ground floor room as a class for five days a week, and the missioners use it as a class during the weekend.

 

Water Shortage:

Water is quite a scarce commodity to find among the Orma people. The Pastor gets water from the seasonal Ngalole river, which drains its water to River Tana. When the river has dried out, the Pastor is able to benefit from the borehole that is in the Mission Centre.

Not so for the locals, who have to rely on digging wells into the sand to try and get enough water to push them and their livestock through another day. The locals have to dig ten to twenty feet down before they strike water. They also lack urban facilities such as levers and pulley systems to aid them in fetching the water from the wells, so they have to devise ways to get the water to ground level.

The task of watering cows is a two man job, whereby one has to get down into the man-made well, and find footing to pass the water to the second one, who then pours the water into the watering trough.

One of the missioners, Brian, aided the locals in digging a second well, in order to increase the availability of water; and ease the tensions that the scarcity of water would bring among the locals. They had to dig deep into the sand, which in itself was not safe because of the risk of being buried in the sand. A number of locals have died in the past because of the sand collapsing on them, since the sand they were digging out was loose, and was not being supported by anything. Unfortunately, the locals have not had other available choices; since they have no boreholes, and no river to fetch from, and in essence, no water, which is the essence of life!

 

Mission Ground Experience:

The team of four was allowed to visit the manyattas on condition that they were only to pray for the sick, but not to preach to the locals. Another shock for the missioners was that there were no latrines! People use the bushes to relieve themselves.

 

The Local Pastor/Missionary

The Pastor and his wife are from Samburu, and have learnt the Borana language over the past 13 years. They have two children, and have adopted a third. The locals have embraced him and his family, mainly because of what they have.

The Pastor is on call round the clock, and he is quite resourceful to the community, but they do not accept the Gospel he brings. They hold on to him because he is the only government they know; he provides for them ambulance services with his car, calls to Kenya, and education-courtesy of the nursery school set up at the missionary base.

 

The Jesus Film:

The four missioners were partnering with the Pastor who was based at the AIC Mission Centre there. Their main agenda was to show them films on HIV/AIDS in the Orma language, upon the request of the local councilor. The team, together with the Pastor, prayed and planned to show the films in the evenings, at a central venue.

On the first evening, they showed their first film, which was well received by the locals. The second evening had them showing the second HIV/AIDS film, and the number of locals attending had significantly increased, indicating that the locals were accommodative to the message they had. At the end of the second evening, the team announced that they had brought a third film that they would show the following evening, and encouraged the locals to come.

True to their word, the locals came in their numbers, with quite a number of Sheiks, and various leaders of the community being spotted amongst the crowds. This time round, the team was deep in prayers, not visibly though, lest they aggravate the locals. When the time came for the team to show the film, they put on screen the Jesus film in Orma language.

The team was full of prayer, as they prayed for God to minister to the hearts of the locals who were listening, and also that there would be peace and receptivity during the film. The locals sat through the four reams of film as they watched the story of Jesus unfold before their eyes. They would laugh at some statements that they found hilarious, but they still kept their cool throughout the film, and did not stage any sort of protest.

Though the missioners could not call for an altar call after the film, God did come through for them. Their prayer became one of hope that the seed that had been planted in the lives of the locals through the Jesus Film would grow within them and draw them to the Lord.

Community Development Talks:

The team met with the Wazee wa Baraza (Elders) to hold talks with them on various issues in their community. The elders allowed them to pray during the meeting, even though that prayer was immediately followed by one of their own, an Islamic prayer.

They were able to discuss with them about how they could develop the Orma Community, as well as shading light on the importance of educating the girl child.

Girls, in the Orma Community, are given to marriage at an early age, usually after they have reached the age of experiencing menstrual periods. And once they have gotten married, they are sometimes beaten without cause and abused; they are voiceless and helpless.

The women in their community are looked at as slaves to the men. In the event that one’s husband is fed up with them, the man can divorce her and pick another wife. The womenfolk are used for hard chores, including fetching firewood and water from the risky wells.

“I have been to different parts of the world, seen different people, but this one captured my heart,” said Mrs. Ndumu, one of the missioners who went to the Orma people group.

 

The Need

Some of the main needs facing the Orma Community include:

• Availability of water: The community needs boreholes to be drilled in the region, to avoid the deaths that result from the temporary sand-dag wells that can easily collapse on the locals.

The locals can be taught irrigation, if they have water supplies (drilling boreholes) for them to cultivate the land.

• Availability of food: The Orma people are a pastoralist community, and since water is not as available, they are not able to cultivate their land. The community solely relies on relief food, and in the event that none comes, they are then vulnerable to death.
• Infrastructure: These include:

-A road network being set up. In rainy season, the trucks with relief food can’t access the area because of mud, and the locals have to resort to using donkeys, which take over a week to transport the food to where the community is.

-Telephone connection being installed in the area. The locals rely on the AIC radio calls, which is technology that was done away with in Kenya quite some years back. The AIC missionary makes three calls daily to the mission center inform the Africa Inland Mission center that the missionaries are well, the food has been supplied and there is no emergency.

-Building Nursery, Primary and Secondary schools in the area. The nearest secondary school in the area is approximately 200 kilometers from the Orma community.

-Electricity being availed in the area.

• Improved Security: the area has very low police presence, and no police post.
• Availing desks and chairs for the local children to sit on during their classes.
• Availability of teachers
• Availability of clothing for the locals

 

“The locals there feel like they are disconnected from the rest of the World,” said Mrs. Ndumu. “They need the Lord so desperately, and they don’t know,” she went on to explain. “Their needs are overwhelming; I don’t know how to start praying for them.”

According to Mrs. Ndumu, these are over 40’000 Kenyans with no communication and development. The Orma are a forsaken people, and yet they have a Member of Parliament who is supposed to fight for their cause. She further said that the Orma are not considered as part of Kenya, for they have no access to the basic human rights.

Mrs. Ndumu went on to express her sentiments saying, “Kenya in the 21^st Century, when people are talking about internet and mobile phones, they have to pay so dearly to get basic needs like salt and sugar. They are not in Kenya. They have no access to the basics like any other Kenyan.”

“We love them unconditionally even when they do not receive the Gospel,” expressed Mrs. Ndumu. “God created them in His image and likeness and they have a right to live and get the basics in this world.”

Praise Reports

Despite the state of hardships presented in the mission ground, the missioners were able to reach more than 300 people during the mission! This was only possible through God’s leading, for on their own, they would not have managed to reach such a number.

The other praise report was that there was no chaos during the mission! Previously other teams of missioners have been met with hostility, shoot-outs and stone throwing, because the locals had not accepted the message they had brought. Adding to that, the previous team of missioners, before the four, had been shot at; and one of the missioners had a bullet pass through their body, but thank God, the bullet did not hit any vital organs. The Lord has surely been their Hiding Place, and Safe Refuge!