As Americans in Kenya last summer there was one question people kept asking us over and over again: "Do you know Barak Obama?" Those were the words they used, but the pride in their eyes expressed a more intimate question. Something more like this: "Do you know my brother, my son, my neighbor, my countryman, the one who just might be President of the United States one day? His father is Kenyan. You know that, right?"Possibility is electric. It raises hope and in-turn hope has this way of pushing the possible a little closer to the probable. Who doesn't want to be at the center of hope and possibility? I know African refugees who have been pushing hard to get their US citizenship process done in time to vote for Barak Obama. In many ways he is the symbol of all that they dream for their children. Can the black son of an African really become the leader of the most powerful nation in the world? Is it possible?
Last night Obama made history by winning the Democratic Caucus in Iowa. While he was winning, the slums of Nairobi were on fire with the rage of an unfair election process in Kenya. Over three hundred have been killed. Food is scarce. Violence reigns. There has been no opportunity for the people who asked us that question to rejoice over their son. Possibility is forgotten now.
When we were in Kenya last summer we saw a troop of former street boys perform. They sang a song that has been ringing in my head today. The chorus says, "I have a dream to become the next President." I can still see their faces. The smiles. The great hope. I almost believed that one of them would be President of Kenya one day. Was I naive to think it possible? The illusion of a stable Kenya is crumbling. You cannot keep poverty and oppression quiet forever. It has a way of rising.
I pray that possibility and hope will come flooding back to those Kenyan boys soon, the way it has recently poured down on over their brother, Barak. I pray for peace in Kenya. And real possibility in our own election process.
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