The East Central Africa region has a country that really gives a strong emphasis on marathons.
You see the country of Kenya has produced many marathon winners.
What's their secret?
Why do they win so many medals?
What is the source of their victory?
You'll find out.
The Campus of the University of Eastern Africa Barraton in Kenya.
It is early morning.
Little by little some of the best athletes of the country start coming.
They warm up and start training.
They always train as a group.
They work and live as a family.
Finally it is time for the competition.
Why do they run?
How do they run?
How is this competition related with family, commitment and the mission of the Church?
Coaches, sponsors, track partners, Abel had them all but he had something more,
a Christian mother.
"I run because it is a gift from God because it is a talent, and a talent is a gift.
When I realized that I was capable and I have the potential to run,
then I chose it as the best career in my life." So, Abel started running when he was in
primary school.
So during the competition in the local school he came in second place.
>From then, he started competing with district champions.
And he came in third place.
It was there that I realized that my son would become a champion one day.
So I told him, "please, continue running, and one day, you'll be a champion".
She did a lot in my life when I was young.
And she used to tell me, "let us pray." She's a prayerful woman.
I remember what my mom said, "may you keep my children, so that they will choose for
themselves who they will serve in their lives." I know that the greatest dream in my life is
when I've trained and I've run and I've succeeded, I tell God "I have received the prize of
this world.
What about now, the eternal prize?" I used to ask my God, for sure,
I kept good money and I will be praised.
I have comfortable, I have good health but it can change.
Maybe tomorrow, you are not.
It's only the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ.
So my life has been going all very smooth but then I say the greatest thing in my life is to
receive everlasting life.
Now famous, the boy returns to his origins, as not to forget the most precious thing his
mother gave to him, faith!
As soon as you say, "my God, wherever you have displaced me in the presence of men I will
have to show him also in my crown one time." So I told my Lord,
"every time I should finish I should praise him.
I should say, "thank you God." And the world is watching.
That is what I'm happy about.
Because as soon as I finish I say thank you, I say my prayer, and I tell the world,
"it is solely the power of God that is giving me all this strength.
And the power of God led him to many desired positions in world MARATHON ranking.
He's a two-time champion of the World Marathon, and won silver at the London Olympics.
I was really happy when I heard about my son wining the gold medal.
But still, that was very hard for me to be away from my son.
Jesus for me means a lot.
I know it is foolishness for those who don't see the Cross.
But it is those who need life is something of great understanding.
I know, Jesus actually brings me, and he has brought me from very very far away,
when I was in a very humble family.
Of course we found ourselves only with a mom.
So life was a bit difficult.
Then I saw the hand of God.
My mom was a Christian actually, and took us to Seventh-day Adventist all the time.
And kept telling us, in a humble way.
Not pressing us, not choosing force for making us to go church.
She used to tell us kindly, "let us go to church." And to this today,
I still pray for him every single.
Not a day goes by that I don't pray for him.
However, the joy is of such great value only because he knows how painful the
preparation is.
It depends on the strength of your mind.
So pain is something that will not kill you as long as you are healthy inside your body.
So the pain is the pain that actually Jesus was carrying the Cross,
He was in very heavy pain.
He was like falling down, standing up, falling down.
And it was the pain, which was actually the pain in marathon is like that.
But we keep going because we know the prize.
If you see that you are number three, number four you are still in the back of many.
You need to go and finish.
And say, "ah, I finished." Growing up, we were very poor, very poor.
And now there's been a great change because of God.
I am thankful because first I came to this world and God has given me the power to achieve,
and I have been raised and brought up from the family where nobody recognize even in the
village.
And now today I am, the world is like, "hey." When I went to Nairobi one time,
and then somebody said, "This Abel Kirui.
The guy who was running." I never stopped praying, asking God to help my son become a
champion.
He'd always tell me, "I don't want you, my parents to be poor.
One day, I will make you proud.
I'll provide you with a house."
Actually, the feeling is that, in everything that we do in the
world, we know God is leading things
Championship's winner
Abel Kirui of Kenya is in the
field.
So me myself, I pray to God, when I'm running 42 kilometers it's not an easy task.
But there is no pain in 20 kilometers, no pain in 21 kilometers,
no pain in 25 kilometers.
But there is pain in 35 kilometers.
There is pain in 40 kilometers.
There is pain in the last one kilometer.
Absolutely incredible, poetry in motion.
So I used to ask God, "may you give me the power to come, and overcome and overcome.
And I see that I conquered, and say, "oh, praise Your Name." He's running his own race,
and he's running it quite magnificently and he is the marathon champion.
Abel Kirui, he takes Gold for Kenya.
Still in Kenya, we now go to this region of Kajiado, to find out a little more about the
Masai people.
There are about one million people who belong to this ancient tribe between Kenya and
Northern Tanzania.
The landscape is arid, without much greenery.
In the distance you can see one of many shepherds, leading his flock.
As Nomads, the Masai people follow the rain, the humidity because the demand for cattle in
this region is their greatest asset.
There are efforts by the government for them to stop roaming about and focus on
agricultural activities.
There are also efforts aimed at putting an end to a very common ritual,
performing clitoridectomies in girls as they enter puberty.
These girls grow up in a culture where it is not common for women to attend school,
to be independent and to decide for themselves.
It's in this arid culture that a Seventh Adventist school has been making a difference.
I came to work here because I love children.
And I have passion for girls.
I came to work there as a teacher and a pastor.
I grew up there and I had a passion to do girl's ministry.
We started as a rescue center.
Where we rescue young Masai girls who are married off at a tender age.
Because they are really oppressed by their culture.
We had, for many years, we had never sent a girl to secondary school.
For us, I think it's fun.
Because we are playing here with the girls, when we are coming in the night and we are joking with
them here.
These two young German girls left their country to serve as teachers at the school,
contributing to the education of these children.
Without offending them or trying to erase the local culture.
It's a sensitive and important task.
I'm teaching German and Life Skills.
I'm teaching German and Life Skills And we are spending time with the girls together.
We are here, we are the big sisters for them.
Encouraging them, and helping them to grow.
It's a shame to talk about it.
When you are rescuing the girls you might think that they are sold so expensive or maybe they
cost a lot.
But mostly it is around between 10,000 and 20,000 Shillings, and around 5 cows.
So, to me, the girls are so precious but it's like the parents take them to be so
cheap.
Because you can imagine a human being being sold for like 10,000 shillings and 5 cows.
That is too cheap.
Girls like Deborah can rewrite their own history.
With the death of her mother when she was just a child, life became difficult with her
father's five other wives.
She was given in marriage at age eight to a man who was 80 years old.
Here, she found shelter, food, she studied, and now is a teacher.
I'm feeling so good and I thank God and then those who supported me to get my education.
My prayer is that God will help me, in the future.
I n some years I'll come back and maybe also my sisters to get more education.
Okay there was one girl that came here.
Her name is Blessing.
I think she's only 7 years old.
And we rescued her from early marriage.
You are feeling like, well I am 20 so I could be married off now,
I don't know, four children.
So I was really touched.
She was so shy at the beginning.
I couldn't imagine how somebody could do something to a little girl like this.
But after a few weeks she was so changed.
You are seeing the change.
And she came to you hugging you.
She's smiling at you.
She's running from the nursery to me.
And saying, "I love you and I miss you." She just can say "miss." She means "I miss you"
but she can just say "miss." You know...
It was so nice to see how she changed from the beginning to now.
A school is also a change of life for these girls who would have never gotten an education.
Were it not for the local Seventh-day Advantist School which is a major challenge in
that region that was embraced by another runner, Sammy.
In my local church, am I going to put it to build a church.
It's just about one kilometre from here.
And then I have some churches around here.
When they are doing something, I contribute.
And I have, even in the school now, I have started a local school there.
And I have donated a plot of land for the church.
So we are now going to start to build.
You know I am a Christian.
And my parents were Christians.
So I am always, even something which I know I got from God, and not from somebody else.
Sammy has run 30 marathons, taking first place in 12 of them,
in various places around the world.
But it's here, next to his family, that he considers himself truly a winner.
The money earned through his victories, he uses here, in this school for over 250 students.
In this area we didn't have many schools.
People used to take their children to far away places, around 20 kilometers from here.
Because we are sitting, and I am telling them.
We share with them the Word of God, and they are really happy.
And they are saying, "why are you not even in Saturdays are you not going for practice?" And
when we are going for competition, I beat them.
And they say,"how are you not going to practice on Saturday and you beat us?" And I say it's
God.
God is providing everything.
In this school there is proper teaching.
That's why we think the children are performing better than in other schools.
And we have seen that from the numerous evaluation tests that have been doing together with
other schools.
And we also know that his one, during the last few years' national examination,
we have the first position in the division, and sixth in the whole district.
I am so happy because then I am running.
I run with a lot of people.
At first I finish, at first, at number two, or number three.
I am so happy because then I have made something.
The joy of sharing with others, for if he is happy, it seems that these children here are
even happier, here they have an education, food and the Christian perspective that
changed Sammy's life, and one day, will change their lives as well.
To struggle a lot, and do the practice, and they have to serve the Lord first.
I think he has done something good.
To the community and also to everybody.
Since this one is run on Christian Seventh-day Adventist philosophy,
it helps on spreading the Gospel.
And the gospel is spreading in this region of the world, a place with enormous challenges
and charming beauty, landscapes that absolutely amaze us, huge mountains,
such as Mount Kilimanjaro, which I happened to have climbed in the past which leads us to think
about the enduring values that are being destroyed every day, like its snow,
which at one point was referred to as "eternal", but in fact, there's only 15% of it left.
And nature teaches us, in many different ways, that it was created to stay,
just like eternal values, like the family.
Let's go together to a very natural retreat, where we see these values in a very striking
way.
Good, but now we have to wait just a little bit, while the flock vacates the road since
they arrived first.
A dense forest, vegetation that's been well preserved, its a haven for some 800 mountain
gorillas, in danger of extinction.
Some of them live right here in this park in Rwanda, and the rest of them are divided between
the countries of Congo and Uganda.
We're here in the Vulcan National Park of Rwanda up in the Mountains.
This is the natural setting of the mountain gorillas.
It's absolutely incredible to watch them in their natural setting.
It's phenomenal.
When they are trying to beat their chests, or breaking these bamboo trees,
that shows us even where they were yesterday, we try to trace the map,
so that when tomorrow we come, they were there, we know that we are going to pass another way so
that we can meet them.
We do have walkie talkies.
When we are down there, we are using walkie talkies, and we have the map of this forest in
our heads.
And when we find them at this place, we say we are at this place,
called like this, looking like this, we stretch the place.
We do not need to pass where the gorillas as passing because that can be a challenging walk.
We use a shortcut to go to the gorillas.
When I saw the gorillas for this first time, I felt intimidated.
They are huge creatures.
And they look a bit scary but of course, they are so friendly, and you just have to accept the
way they deal with us.
And before I left the place I was very comfortable with them.
Family is a key element in the lives of the gorillas, and they all obey the leadership of the
father, also called the Silver Back due to characteristic marks on his back.
It's absolutely amazing to see them as a family unit.
They're always together, they're united.
It's absolutely incredible.
And as a family, the protective instinct speaks louder.
And that's what happened when our crew came closer to them than they should have been.
Taking into account that the largest of these primates weighs up to 700 pounds,
and measures almost 7 feet high as an adult.
It was not comfortable waiting to see if he was really able to lift the two tons that
biologists say he can lift.
Normally it's not dangerous.
But if it's the first time to approach the gorillas, the silver back comes charging.
If he comes charging toward you, you have to tell him you are friend.
Especially when I had a newborn, I was very protective.
And I noticed that when we spent too much time close to the mother with the 8-month-old
baby, she was not real comfortable with that and did not stay still.
She moved on.
And I could understand that from a mother's perspective.
But the whole family seemed so gentle.
And that's what impressed me.
They're massive.
But they seemed so gentle.
And they didn't really seemed annoyed just, "well, we'll move on a little bit and give you
space." Well a lot of interesting things that one can learn about leadership watching
the mountain gorillas.
One aspect had to do of course with our guide, who was very careful in instructing us how to
proceed.
And if we followed his instructions things went very well.
In terms of the family of gorillas themselves, you could see that everything pretty much
revolved around the Silverback.
The "king" as they call him.
People took their cues from that.
But it wasn't like he was forcing people this way or that, but kind of a family atmosphere
that proceeded in a certain direction that was kind of a common understanding.
No matter what culture you live in, certain principles will always be recognised as
beneficial for a healthy development of relationships and accomplishments that could
change millions of lives whether it is educating children, spreading the Gospel or rescuing
innocence from hardship into a better life, the core values that work as pillars for a well
functioning society are always the same.
What can you do to improve the lives of those in need?
How can you apply your skills, talents and interests into actions that will give back to a
less fortunate community?
There's always something you can do.
There's always something you can teach and most importantly, there is always something you
can learn from these experiences as you strengthen those values.
Values, eternal values.
Values that God instituted to make us better.
To teach us to go forward, to make us faster and safer.
To protect us from extinction.
To revive us for the Mission.
And I think that's an important thing on leadership too.
We need to work together on a consensus basis but also realize that the Lord is our leader,
and we must take our cues directly from scripture and from Him.
But also to learn to work together through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I hope these values resonate with you and shape your understanding of who you are.
We'll meet again in the next program.
///
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