Interview Feature: Blessed are the Peacebuilders
Biola graduate Mark Struck wasn’t prepared for the surprise that awaited him when he arrived in Kenya last December for a meeting of Christian leaders seeking national peace.
During the conference, one of the nation’s newest political leaders - Fred Outa, a member of parliament - got up to present his hope for building reconciliation among Kenya’s many tribal groups in the wake of recent national turmoil. But it was his background that most caught Struck’s attention: Outa had not long ago graduated from Biola’s Cook School of Intercultural Studies.
Afterward, the men connected and marveled at their unlikely Biola bond.
Outa (M.A. ’02), a Kenyan native, initially intended to use his education in the United States for missionary work, church ministry and agricultural service back in Africa, but eventually decided to run for elected office at the urging of his community. As a member of parliament (MP) since January 2008, he has sought to be a voice for community development and reconciliation.
Struck (’78, M.A. ’85), meanwhile, was serving as regional director of the nonprofit group ALARM, and has been engaged in pastoral and global ministries for the past 30 years, providing service and humanitarian aid in nearly 40 countries around the world.
Two months after their initial encounter, the men sat down in Nairobi to discuss Outa’s journey from poverty to the Kenyan parliament and Biola’s contributions along the way. Here is a partial transcript of their discussion.
Mark Struck: Hon. Fred Outa, you have shared with me that Biola University has played an enormous role in your life, in your vision for Africa, and now as a minister of parliament here in Kenya. What led you to Biola?
Fred Outa: I went to City University in New York, and then I attended the International School of Theology. It was at this point I was looking for something more than just theology. I wanted to be trained as a seminarian, and after looking at different seminaries, a friend told me there was a school in California that would be a really good fit for my vision and hopes for Africa. I originally planned to come back and be a missionary to Kenya, but I really had a heart for the entire continent of Africa, so I was open to serving anywhere. I’d seen that it takes a missionary from the U.S. more time to settle and learn the culture, before reaching out and evangelizing a community. I was interested in seeing the most people reached in the shortest amount of time - using my cultural context without compromising the ministry. [As an African] I wouldn’t have culture shock; I would be relating to them in our own context, yet not compromising. So that led me to Biola’s School of Intercultural Studies. I knew this was the place God wanted me to be.
MS: What was it that confirmed in your heart that Biola was the right place for you?
FO: It was the professors at Biola: Dr. Judith Lingenfelter and others. I knew immediately that Biola was ”home” for me when I met them. They gave me very basic principles of learning the Word of God to equip me to go out and be a missionary. They also put forth very intense intellectual challenges without causing me to lose faith. But, even more, it’s a family. Biola is a family and I never felt like I was alone. I found it to be my family and my encouragement, from both sides - students and teachers. For a young man from east Africa, family was very important to me. Biola is more than a school; it is family.
MS: You’ve said that, in many ways, the examples of your mother and father are what led you to school, to care about people, to understand poverty and the need for Christ, and have given you the values that you lead your nation today. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing.
FO: My faith has been influenced by my parents. My parents were Christians. They were from what we call the Church Missionary Society that was founded by missionaries in Kenya and then the Anglican Church was born out of it. They broke away from the Anglican Church and formed what we call a more traditional African church. My mother was one of the founders of our church. I did not live to see my mom or enjoy my childhood like other kids because by the time I realized I am a boy and I am human being she was dead. ... When I was 3 years old, my mom passed away, so I never really enjoyed being with her. But I remember her and people tell me stories of her. So I was left with my dad at that time. For him, the only real passion was for God. For him, God was above culture. If he was like any African man, he would have married as many wives as he could - because back then that was way it was - but he decided to follow Christ with all his ability. He decided to stay single until he went to his grave without getting a second wife, or remarrying. The lesson I carry today, the lesson that Biola reinforced, the lesson that leads me as an MP of Kenya is that Christ is above culture. Christ is my passion. That leads my work, my ministry, my love for the people of my district and my own family.
MS: You lost your father in the eighth grade. How did that change your life?
FO: When my father died, I was out on the street just like the “street kids.” Life was hard. Food was scarce. I learned the hardship of poverty, the need for education and the struggle to keep warm and to eat. I made it a vow to rise above this and one day come back and serve these kids. That hope led me to the U.S., with the loving help of an American couple, to Biola, and now back here in Kenya serving with my own foundation (www.fredoutafoundation.org), serving the people of my nation, and serving the Lord. My memory of my father reminds me everyday to help the poor, to open the doors of my home - which my wife and I have done for many orphaned children - and to keep Christ above culture.
MS: After you graduated from Biola, I know that one of your professors made an extra special effort to make sure you established roots here in Africa as a missionary. Tell me about that.
FO: A big model for ministry for me is Dr. Judith Lingenfelter. After I graduated, she came with me from the U.S. to stay in Nairobi. She participated in my school - I have a school in Kiberia [the largest slum in all of Africa] — and she used to come and to do mission with me. One of my missions is for the poor and vulnerable, to reach out to them. Dr. Lingenfelter came and was here for over two weeks just to encourage, and motivate, and to pray for me. After graduation, she was even among the people who supported me financially as I got started in ministry as a missionary.
MS: Was that kind of support something that surprised you?
FO: That was one way that you know that your school believes in you! Many schools just say we are going to get your tuition money and not really care about you and what you do later. The School of Intercultural Studies was a school that, after equipping me, sent me off and helped establish me in the ministry. The staff at Biola also helped me connect to and network with a number of people who helped support me because I came here as a missionary. I was not on a salary, but was raising my own support to be able to get our monthly income, and the school prepared me for that and the students from my Biola classes, well, one thing that will remain in my life forever is the support they sent, the love they have given - some even coming here to Kenya to see me - and encouraging letters I still get from some of them. Yes, yes, Biola is family.
MS: So, now we advance seven years. You are no longer a full-time missionary, but an honored minister of Kenya’s parliament. Many people respect you and see you as a true man of God, a kind leader and a caring servant. Why the switch from missionary to parliament? What did God do that brought you here to this parliament building?
FO: Mark, it’s people, it’s people, it’s people and it’s people. I had no clue at all that I would be in politics. I never thought about it; all my life I had prepared to be a missionary, just a simple missionary - a servant who was reaching out to a community. And yet one thing I learned at Biola was entrepreneurship: how important micro-finance is to every community, to reach out to a community to empower them to eradicate poverty so they will have the opportunity to hear the gospel. Those components of training were very real and people were in need. They needed to be given the opportunity to do something to improve their lives. So when I came here, my people approached me, my community in Kisumu. And they said, “Hey, since now you are coming from the U.S., why don’t you help us with rice production, which is being mismanaged by the government?”
I had no clue how to help, except for the micro-financing Biola taught me. We started a rice project on a very small scale. After one year, I had seen God’s hand on the little money we had earned, and things began to multiply - from 100 acres to 500 acres and the next year from 500 to 2,000 acres of production. As the rice production expanded in the area, it was touching individual lives by putting food on the table for families, and also bringing money to families to send their kids to school. That is where God helped me see the connection between leadership and politics, because the community had experienced bad leadership. They wanted someone to lead them that they could trust, and by living and serving among the people, they came to me. Not just a few, but the whole community came to me and shouted, “Send him to parliament!”
MS: So, God was using the voice of your very own people to call you toward politics and the leadership of a nation?
FO: Yes, God was calling me and still I was very hesitant because that was really not my passion. I said, “No, let’s just do what we are doing here. Let’s just do rice production. We have a church here. I want to do a school here: a preschool whereby all the kids who were left orphaned could get an education and be fed. Let’s just do what we have been doing.” I wanted to create the kind of a home for those kids to come into that I remembered from my own family. The lonely, the abandoned and the poor - these were all welcome in the homes of Kisumu. Yet, the community was coming to me every day saying, “You must run as our member of parliament,” and I was not listening to them. But as I examined my heart and the biblical bases, I began to follow the Word of God and respond to the cry of my people. And so I opened up my life for all to see just six months before the elections. Now that was a reality check! Trying to be an MP means you open up your life as a library, and propaganda against me began to flow. In the newspapers, they accused me of taking money from the farms and all this, just to discourage me, just to make sure I was hurt and would run away from running as a member of parliament. But then the people who asked me to run - the grassroots - were so focused that nothing, not any mention of propaganda, would keep them from their mission of taking me to parliament. In the eyes of my people, only the truth was known, and at the election, my district elected me [among the seven candidates], with over 50 percent of the vote. God is good.
MS: For many years, Kenya has been known as one of the most developed and modern nations in east Africa. Yet, in 2007-08, the post-election violence shocked the world. People could not imagine Kenyans killing fellow Kenyans. You entered parliament at a very tumultuous time with the post-election riots. Did you have questions at that point? Why me? Why now, God?
FO: When the rioting started I was just crying. Some nights, people stayed with me and then literally would walk me home the next day. It was tough because there was this hope I had of bringing all this change, but when I came here to parliament all I got was spontaneous violence across my nation. Why would God allow me to come here and then destroy my vision in one day? At that moment no one thought that [Kenya] would ever be together again. We thought parliament would end.
MS: So, did you begin to doubt the calling of God? Were there questions in your mind?
FO: Yes, some questions. But I knew that God had spoken through my people. I thought, right now I am not being allowed to fulfill the wishes of my community, those who voted for me. I was even more concerned when the rioters killed one member of parliament, a man who was a close friend of mine. But God is a God of peace. So I did all I could to stop the violence in surrounding villages and towns. I rented buses and took police to protect whole villages. We worked hard to bring people back to peace and revive order. Once, I was a missionary; now I was once again building peace in my own nation.
MS: We know the numbers of injured, dead, burned homes and churches is staggering, but Kenya is once again at peace and moving forward. Have you thought about the lessons learned? Why did God allow you to be elected at this time? Why the post-election violence?
FO: Let me say that no death is ever wanted. I wished we had never had the riots, the burnings or the killings. But your question is wise, and God has given me wisdom about the events of the last 12 months. Let me share two of them: First, surrounding Kenya there is war in Sudan, people dying in Darfur, children kidnapped in Uganda; there was the genocide in Rwanda, and now peace in Burundi. Until this violence, Kenyans never could relate to sudden hatred, to killings, to murder. But today, when Kenya sits at the table of the African nations, we now know how people can turn to hatred, we know the pain of death and rioting, we know looting and killing - and we know the path to peace. I am not sure Kenya really had a voice that was heard by our neighbors before, but now that we have gone through the trials and the fire, we understand more. We hurt with those around us. Those fleeing violence from other nations now find Kenyans who understand refuge, pain, hurt and peace.
I am looking for the day when all of Kenya will be open to God’s voice. In Africa, our entire continent is suffering from the crises of ethnic wars, tribal wars and massive suffering. As a Christian leader, I want to see Africa at peace. This leads me to the second lesson. We cannot do this alone. In December, you and I and many others sat together at the “Hope for Kenya Forum” to talk about how parliament and many agencies, mostly Christians, can work together to bring reconciliation, peace, hope, justice and love to the nations of Africa. We have to work together - not just Kenyans - but the world community. I have learned that it is my job to bring two more MP’s on board for Hope for Kenya. And they will each bring two more, and so on. And then Kenya will be strong and we will be a light for the nations to our north, to our west and to the south.
MS: You see peace spreading, not only in Kenya, but also across the 1 billion people of Africa.
FO: Oh yes! Peace is spreading. If you go to the museum in Kigali [Rwanda] and look at the people who have passed on because of hate and ethnic war - it’s unbelievable. When you go there, you see in the museum all the skulls — it is all that remains now. The hatred is just a memory. It’s unbelievable, and yet they have internalized the pain and suffering and turned it for good. They have used it to bring peace and reconciliation and hope. You ask them if they are a Hutu or Tutsi, and they are hesitant. They now proudly just say, “I am a Rwandan.” I want that for all people of Africa.
MS: Fred, this has been a delight. As you know, 2009 is the 25th anniversary of Biola’s School of Intercultural Studies. If you could speak to the Biola community, what would be your message about Biola and the gift of the education that Biola provided you?
FO: Mark, there are too many to tell. To the alumni, I would say, please give and support the international student who has come to Biola for training. I arrived in America thinking I could get an education and I found out I could not afford it. My hopes were almost crushed, but people gave for me to get a solid Bible education that teaches me to lift Christ above culture here in Africa - to create jobs and new hope. If all alumni would understand that their gifts are changing the world, I think they would realize the joy it must be for God. To new students, I say, you cannot get a better, Spirit-filled, Bible-centered education than Biola. It sustains me everyday. To the dear faculty, please, keep loving each student, especially those of us who have come from afar. We miss our family here in Africa when we are at Biola, but you made Biola our new home. Biola will always be my “home” when I am away from my wife, Rosie, and my daughter. To all, Biola is God’s place of refreshment and family. I have never forgotten every single day at Biola. Finally, Biola, never lose what you have. Never bend to the wind, but be strong as the Bible school that you are. When many schools are becoming weak, please stay strong. The world needs you.
Special thanks to Mark Struck and D. Grace Stewart for conducting, transcribing and editing this interview. Stewart currently works with ALARM in Kenya.
© Biola University 2009