THE MOMENT OF UNITY AT MACHAKOS PEOPLE'S PARK ON 23rd May 2015

Many people who have weaknesses and vulnerabilities are happy despite their challenges, apart from their visible weak points in life, they learn to live full lives and be happy. And at some point in life they are pulled down by the pressure of life, they they look whole yet they are broken, persons with disabilities are a tribe that comes out strong in the said group of people, we call ourselves the 43^rd tribe of Kenya. The persons living with disabilities at some point are seen to be the “forgotten tribe”. The different types of disabilities have rendered them voiceless and also speechless in some way. What we may not now is that in their silence they have a lot of lessons to teach the world. And when the society is quiet about the vulnerability of persons with disabilities, the disabled have woken up and taken upon themselves the role of empowering themselves and also sensitizing the society about the reality of disability.

This is the point of starting the journey to healing, a point where there is lack of proper coordination between the two parties-the strong and the weak. This is the point where the strong despise the weak and the weak hate the strong. The strong can offer to say words of counsel to the weak but giving counsel is very demanding and hard to be let out of the heart. We need to know that it does not stop at saying the cross but rather living the cross. And one thing that the society among whom the disabled live does not know is that by welcoming the weak, we also get a chance to learn that indeed we are weak and broken in some in our lives-by welcoming the broken we discover we are broken too.

The secret of living a happy life is simply by self-giving, in this we do not give from the plenty of what we own but we simply need to join or invite others and share our poverty with joy together with them. When the society choose to be silent on the real life experience of the disabled, the disabled themselves wake up and call upon fellow tribesmen and women to talk in their common language, Persons with disabilities look at both the verbal and also non verbal communications, they have all the qualities to be human, they are entiltled to human dignity as members of the society. We dont need to seat back, watch the world move, compare ourselves to others and regret about what we lack. We need to accept our history and also accept ourselves as we are.

What was shared and learnt during the trip to Machakos is that disability is a term that comes with diverse meanings, we have some types of disabilities that are as a result of negligence, others are as a result of accidents and others are genetically acquired and hence un-avoidable. The disabilities that come from “carelessness” from others and lack of good will may leave the individual with a lot of pain and lack of ability to forgive the person who may be the cause of the case. And we had a moment to learn that indeed we need to forgive without vengeance.

Forgiveness and transformation is a very long journey, and at times it needs company for one to be able to travel the journey, and this is where the trip came in handy.

The organizers of the event took upon themselves to make sure that we had parents of disabled children among us, women with disabilities, men with disabilities and also spouses of the disabled people among us. We had a great moment where we had the non disabled honouring the call to be among us as we shared the strong areas of our weak points and this came out clearly that in deed disability is not a prison where an individual feels bound to death, we have a life with disability, and what we echoed to the society is that disability is indeed a club where anyone can join without consent. And the biggest thing here is to look at life as a journey that can take a different turn any time, it needs that at time we sit down and take a moment to look at life from other people's point of view-the disabled in this case.

The reality of life in general is to know that how it hurts us when others misunderstand, mistreat or even mishandle us will in the same way hurt others when we do the same to them. The best way to know the degree of pain we cause to others is by imagining the pain we will feel if they did the same things to us. The best way to look at it is by simply knowing that we have human hearts that need to love and be loved. Once a wounded heart demands remedy, the best way to deal with it is to go back and do a soul search inside our wounded hearts, this will usher us in the process of liberation. Indeed this was one great aspect of the even in Machakos. We can achieve this easily if we dont hide behind the prejudices and stigma that the society has branded on us. And we had a chance to echo to the society of non disabled that indeed a true human heart is a heart that takes a chance to sacrifice for the good of the weak and the vulnerable.

Among us were the young children with disabilities whose mothers carried to come and have a moment with the elder brothers and sisters who have lived with disability for some years. Those children who have any disability carry the burden of their parents' feelings in their hearts-the pain of the mother and the anger of the father. Those loving mothers indeed expressed the truth that any time we take time from our time to spend some time to be kind to the weak and vulnerable we should also put in mind that it will indeed cost us a great deal. This is the moment when our patience faces trial. To take a meal with the disabled who are in need of care and support is not a picnic. It is hard to handle someone who in one way or the other finds it hard to handle him/herself.

It comes that moment in life when the greatest of the great questions clicks the mind of an individual for the persons living with disabilities. The moment when all we are revolves around the dire need, the great desire and the unquenchable thirst of wanting to know our identity, wanting to know what life is all about, what life is like to us and the exact image of God that we reflect. That is one area of life that comes in a multifaceted nature. This is the time when an individual can even end up feeling lonely in a crowd and that time when one feels like there is no time to put things right because one is already drowned in their own tears. The only one question that keeps lingering in the mind is “what is life all about?”.

There comes a moment in life when an already wounded heart feels the wound growing more deep and painful. There is a point of vulnerability in a phase of life of every human being, but there are those people who have had to learn to live with vulnerability for as long as they knew life. This happens to both the people who are either born with or acquired disability at some age in life, it may vary in different ways to individuals. There is a strong desire in the hearts of persons with disabilities, the desire of feeling like those around them-the ones whom the society perceives as “perfect”. The moment we shared when we had some members talk about the societal assumptions about their disabilities and the reality of their disabilities was an eye opener that indeed we need to fix time to be with them in order to learn where their journey is heading and what it is like to travel the journey.

Disability of any kind poses some challenge in life, though people with disabilities have developed ways of surviving. It is not an easy experience though. Disability hinders one from living what is seen or rather said to be the exact human life, persons with disabilities may be living with some form of stigma that is rooted deep inside their hearts, and this is the time when persons with disabilities, when faced with any challenge in life, turn to God not for help and not for inner strength but only with one question that may be translated as blaming God and asking “why me?”. This is the experience that leaves one to be vulnerable to any negative feeling or happenings in life or around them that accompanies weakness of any form. The vulnerability may be in form of rejection, negligence, assault of any kind, abandonment, ignorance, suicide and many more.

These are some of the things that may lead to the feeling of worthlessness, valuelessness, and uselessness in the being of persons with disabilities who live with many cries in their lives. The disabled are out crying many different types of cries, one most important is the cry for love, the question they ask in their hearts is “Do you see me as important?” “Do you love me?” These are some of the questions they may not ask loudly but when you meet them and when you are in real touch with them then you will be able to read from their faces.

It is not an easy task to love a person living with a disability, this is the love that one gives until he/she feels that that indeed something has been deducted from their lives and this thing has added the value of life to them-the love that you give until you feel the missing part of you. Indeed, it is very painful love, it is love that comes with a great sacrifice-the love that reduces the giver and increases the recipient. This is because the society has labeled the disabled with tags that leave them to been as loveless, but this has been conquered by those with a heart that looks at the human person in the disabled persons and hence failed to see the weakness they bear, on 23^rd May at the People's park came out clearly when we had a number of our fellow tribesmen welcoming us to their coming weddings' celebrations. And we had a number of our tribesmen and women giving us their experiences in parenting-what a joy to have our own children look unto us for parental love, care and also providence. Then indeed disability is not with us, disability is with the society that sees us as different from what they think is “normal”.

What we came to learn is that indeed there is a time that comes and we get love from those who see beyond the disabilities. This is the time of life when one gets an opportunity to learn and know that to love someone is to reveal to them that they are precious. This is the moment when the giver of the love has to accept that to love someone is to listen to them, to give them your time out of total patience. This grows to a point where one discovers that to love someone is to reveal to them their value, not telling the person what you think they can be but rather to ask the person “What do you want to be?”.

At such point of life, many people who thought that they can listen to persons with disabilities reach and give up for lack of enough patience to accept the weakness that comes with disability. This is a clear indication that one is not able to listen with wisdom and to love with tenderness. If at any point of life someone happens to love a person living with a disability and gives up along the way, the disabled person feels rejected, despised and valueless. The one strong question that the disabled person goes back to as is “Will it be always like this?”. “One group despising the other?”. This leads to vulnerability of an already vulnerable heart of the disabled person. The explanation to this can be said to be the aspect of human beings being good at hiding behind superiority by feeling ashamed and embarrassed to be said as part of life of the disabled persons. Any type of weakness and vulnerability leaves the individual with some feelings of pain, regret and so many other feelings of deprived goodness but on the contrary, it makes one to be sensitive to hurt and possible pains that may come, this maybe seen as a way of reducing instances of mishaps that the disabled person may be exposed to along the long journey of life.

In the society around us, we may commonly see that many people who don't have disabilities may tend to despise the disabled people, few may look at them as equal humans and very few will be part of their lives but very many among the very few will give up along the way. The strong message that we need to pass to such people is that “until we have accepted and recognized what is broken in us then we will always despise others”. This can be achieved only when an individual asks and answers oneself “Is it true that those I reject can heal me when I accept them?” Is it true that the problem is not them but me and my negative attitude against them?”. By achieving just a single step of accepting those that we consider to be weak and suffering, we cannot claim to be healed but rather on the way to healing, we cannot claim to be transformed but on the way of transforming. We should not wait happening in others, we don't have to wait and learn it from others. “it has to begin with me!” “I have to change!”.

Being human is not simply having the qualities and characteristics of human beings, being real human is simply stopping or ceasing to exist and start being. We have to help people around us to speak, help people to have desires and help people to make choices. To say “I need you” is the heart of the community that lives around persons who are marginalized in one way or the other-the disabled in this case. We don't need to be more wealthy or comfortable in order for us to be more human, we simply need to be more human for us to be more happy. This will be well achieved if we look at life from he point of view of others around us and not merely being present in their lives, we don't love by giving people what they need, we love with affection of breaking the barriers of rejection.