Lawrence Darmani, MAI Africa Regional Trainer

The church in Africa has exploded in the last century, increasing the need for literature that can help it address critical issues: discipling believers, battling AIDS, overcoming poverty and stabilizing democracy. Church leaders also need written materials to help bring reconciliation and hope to those suffering from the scars of tribal enmity and other divisions.

Africa is the world's youngest region–children under 15 make up 43% of its people. Publishing leaders are recognizing the need to encourage the next generation to read, and to provide Christian teaching through quality literature.

Since our founding, MAI has provided training and encouragement for Christian publishers in Africa. MAI has provided training in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Here's how we've helped...

• Encouraged the development of writers and editors for Sierra Leone's only locally created Christian magazine, Catalyst.
• Helped foster the creation of Africa Christian Writers Association in Kenya.
• Networked publishing leaders from throughout Africa to discern needs and cooperate on joint projects.
• Trained budding writers in Kenya, Ghana and former Zaire (the Democratic Republic of Congo).
• Provided strategic management consulting to publishers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Benin, Burkina Faso and Tanzania.
• Helped develop children's writers in Nigeria.
• Led editorial and marketing training to publishing staff from seven francophone countries in West Africa.
• Introduced Hutu and Tutsi university students to Christian publishing in Burundi.
• Coordinated the publication of Journeys into Creativity, a book in which African authors describe their writing journeys.
• Provided training for staff at the first bookstore for Africa Christian Press in Ghana.
• Coordinated publishing internships for literature workers from Sierra Leone and Côte d'Ivoire.

Kenya: A Nation in Search of Peace

As Kenya reeled from post-election violence in early 2008, one Christian writer put his pen to work for peace. Samuel Kahura Chege lost his own father in past tribal killings and hopes to help fellow Kenyans reconcile and find lasting peace. The following is an excerpt from his soon-to-be-published book, Let’s Save Our Nation. 

I learned of my father’s cruel death through the media. Five people from my village near Burnt Forest, in Eldoret had been killed on that fateful night in 1993. The scene was horrible. Dad was butchered like a sheep in what was believed to be an ethnic cleansing…

Three months after dad’s burial, the situation had calmed down. I went to the area to see whether there was anything to salvage. Our houses had been razed completely, our livestock stolen, and our crops harvested from our farm!…

As I investigated for three days, I realized those who had stolen our household goods and burned our houses were people known to us...People I had lived with, gone to school with, and worshiped with in the same church for years...

This troubled me for months. Should I avenge? Should I ever have anything to do with people from the tribe that killed my father? This and many other disturbing questions haunted me.

Finally, I learned through the church about the true meaning of sincere forgiveness and reconciliation...Deep from my heart I forgave those who looted our properties, burned down our houses, stole our livestock, as well as those who killed my dad—I didn’t know who specifically...

The next time I visited my rural home in Burnt Forest, I visited some of my neighbours from the community that had killed my father. I started to show them love...Today, we are great friends...The love I developed helped us to reconcile, although it took some time.

To be able to start living in peace as one nation after the recent post-election violence...we must be ready to forgive and pursue reconciliation. This is very hard, "But with God all things are possible."

“Behind every effective author and every good book is a good editor,” says award-winning author Lawrence Darmani of Step Publishers. He welcomed 46 men and women to MAI's editorial workshop in Accra, Ghana, in August. Participants included freelance editors, university professors, editors for the national Ministry of Education and more.

When Lawrence described the role of nurturing mentors and editors in his writing career, Professor Lucy Ry-Kottoh (left photo) took note. “I resolved to continue to pursue my relationship with young, inexperienced authors, with the conviction that encouragement and guidance yields amazing results.” She teaches publishing courses to graduate and undergraduate students.  

Other workshop topics covered copy editing, ethics in the editorial process, buying and selling rights, copyright issues and more. Workshop leaders included British editor Martin Manser (photo above) and Ghanaian publishing professionals Agatha Akonor-Mills, Woeli Dekutsey and Elliot Agyare.

Manser (photo right), serving as an MAI trainer for the first time, called the experience “probably one of the best things I have done in my professional life.”

More good books will soon nourish readers in Ghana and beyond.

New Books, New Life

As we leave the workshop in South Sudan, we are glad because the words of Isaiah 43:10 sum up our experience. ’See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’

South Sudan has been a desert for book publishing.  But we leave, knowing that a flood of books for the people of South Sudan, written by the Sudanese themselves, is on the way.

One evening around the supper table, under the ceiling of very bright moonlight, South Sudan Life Publishers was born and baptized!  By God’s grace, the new publishing initiative will hit the ground running. 

The 18 participants in the April 2013 writer workshop—the first in a 3-year training program—have already begun work on four collaborative books projects.  These include:

—“Prayers for South Sudan.” Participants are writing prayers for their nation. They believe this book will guide people to pray for their nation.

—“Letters to the Children of South Sudan.” Participants are writing letters as if to their own children—what they want the children to learn, to be, to understand, and to grow into. 

—“Folklore of Southern Sudan with biblical application.”  Folk tales are Africa’s celebrated mode of communicating truth, so the idea of writing these stories resonated well with the group, evidenced by their enthusiastic participation in the verbal story-telling session.

—“The South Sudan National Anthem.” Writers are composing chapters for a book that will highlight Christian themes in the nation’s new national anthem.

Writers will continue polishing their articles and chapters for the eventual publication of the four books by the newly formed South Sudan Life Publishers (SSLP).

--Trainer Barine Kirimi, after the first workshop in a three-year publisher/writer training program in South Sudan

>>Watch the video of Pastor Moses sharing his vision for raising up local writers in South Sudan.

Redeeming the Night: 
War-traumatized youth find healing at writing camp

So begins a short memoir penned by Simon Peter O. during a peace writing camp for war-traumatized youth in northern Uganda’s Gulu region. Simon and nine other youth wrote, drew and reflected on their war experiences in the September camp and one in 2009 led by the Ugandan Faith Writers Association’s (UFWA). The youth endured kidnapping and terrorizing at the hands of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Since the late 1980s, the LRA has abducted and forced thousands of children and adolescents into combat.

Though Nicolas O. hesitated to share his story of being captured by the rebels, he began to smile as he drew, sang, and played in outdoor games. For those reluctant to write, recreational activities can ease the healing process. “The children learn to relax and feel free with one another. In drawing, they enter into their inner selves and touch those hidden areas that contribute to the trauma,” Lillian says. “By the time they are going to write, the tensions and apprehensions are reduced, and they can think about these painful experiences.”

By Simon Odongokara 

The night the rebels came was dark, and the heavy rain made it difficult for us to run and hide in the bush as we normally did. They kicked and banged on the door, calling my mother’s name. Though they did not kill anyone, the rebels abducted me and took me with them.

As we moved in the dark night, the rebels killed an old man who grew tired and asked to rest. Watching this man die shocked me. I decided never to ask for mercy from these people and became determined to escape. However, my escape plans suffered a blow when three boys who attempted to run away were caught and killed. At this time, my worst fear was not meeting wild animals in the dark or even tiredness or hunger, but death at the hands of the rebel leaders.

The journey to the rebel camp was tough. The many challenges forced me to wonder if I would make it to wherever we were going. Sometimes government forces intercepted the rebels, forcing them to fight battles on the way.

Among the rebels who had abducted me was my uncle Akera. He had been taken at the time that the enemies killed my father and was now part of the rebel group against his will. When we recognized each other, I wanted to jump and run to him but knew that all would be lost if I did. Still, he took care of me carefully without revealing that we had a relationship. Whenever he got a chance he would whisper to me, “Do not fear. We shall soon get away from this field of cockroaches and go back to our home.” Oh, how I loved to hear those words. I started praying quietly that God would keep my uncle safe and provide a way for us to escape.

The rebel leader of the group that abducted us was surprisingly a tall good looking man with dreadlocks. He wore a UPDF (government army) uniform. I was shocked, when they gave me a machine gun and a UPDF uniform I was suddenly transformed into a soldier and they started calling me ‘captain!’…My uncle did not like this and he immediately started to concretize plans for our escape. For my part, prayer for our escape and our survival was my daily routine.

The next three weeks in the bush felt like three years of hard labor. We all lived in fear, including the rebel leaders.

Then one dark night, the commanders suddenly ordered everyone to start moving, and my uncle saw it was time for us to escape. We were near the Sudan border, almost a hundred miles away from home. After walking for days and sometimes going in circles, my uncle and I reached home.

We arrived as my mother was cooking the evening meal. It was the best scene of my whole life! I was alive, my mother was still alive, and my uncle had managed to bring both of us home. Though shaken, tired, hungry and injured, my heart filled with joy, and I thanked God, to whom I had prayed daily. He had brought me home safe!

This is an abbreviated version of the short memoir Simon penned during a peace writing camp for war-traumatized youth in northern Uganda’s Gulu region. Read more about this unique writer camp.