Ian's Blog

  During the weekend I saw an image that has refused to leave my mind. A group of about ten people were walking through floodwater that had risen to their necks in Nairobi, a sad sight indeed. They moved slowly, carefully, in formation, each person holding the hand of the next so that no one would fall or drift away. In that moment, survival depended on unity. No one was asking huyu ni tribe gani? No one cared whether the person beside them came from the mountain, the lake region, the coast, or the north. What mattered was simple and immediate: we get through this together, or we don’t get through it at all. It was a powerful reminder of something deeply true about Kenya. When crisis strikes when floods rise, when accidents happen, when tragedy hits a community, Kenyans instinctively come together. In those moments, we remember something fundamental: that we are human beings first. We help strangers push cars out of flooded roads. We contribute money for hospital bills through ha...

  There is a quiet danger in the Kenyan society that refuses to recognize patterns. Events come and go, scandals erupt and fade, promises are made and broken, yet the cycle continues almost unchanged. The faces in power may shift, the language of politics may evolve, but the outcomes remain eerily familiar. In Kenya, this inability to recognize patterns, question systems, and act on what may seal our fate for more decades to come. For decades, Kenyans have witnessed the same political script unfold with remarkable consistency. Elections arrive with grand promises of reform and transformation. Candidates present themselves as saviors ready to dismantle corruption, revive the economy, and uplift the ordinary citizen. Campaigns are filled with energy, slogans, and hopeful rhetoric. Yet once power is secured, the familiar patterns re-emerge: public funds disappear, accountability fades, and policies that should serve the public are quietly reshaped to benefit the political class. The t...

  Chinua Achebe said,  You’ll have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch, and let the eagle perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wings break.  In those simple lines lies a philosophy of justice and coexistence. Achebe reminds us that a healthy society is one where everyone has space to live, grow, and survive. The powerful do not monopolize opportunity, and the weak are not pushed out of the sky. But when greed takes over, this balance collapses. The eagle begins to believe the entire sky belongs to it. This imbalance is not abstract; it has real, devastating consequences. Across many nations, political leadership has drifted from stewardship to self-enrichment. Public office, once meant to serve citizens, has increasingly become a pathway to wealth accumulation. When politicians place personal gain above public welfare, the damage spreads across every aspect of society, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and even the...

  Dear Christians: If you can’t see the face of Jesus in the children of Iran, Palestine, and Sudan, then it’s time to ask who it is you’re really worshipping. That sentence is uncomfortable. It is supposed to be. Faith, especially the faith that claims allegiance to Jesus should not sit comfortably beside the suffering of children. It should disturb us. It should shake us awake. It should force us to confront the distance between what we say we believe and what we are willing to see. At the center of the Christian story is a child. Jesus did not arrive as a king riding a warhorse. He arrived as a baby born in a poor corner of an occupied land, under a violent empire that had no patience for fragile lives. According to the Gospel narrative, the first political act connected to his birth was a massacre: King Herod ordering the killing of innocent children out of fear for his power. In other words, the Christian story begins with the suffering of children caught in the machinery of p...

  Kenya has become extremely unkind to its children. Once seen as a society that nurtures and protects its young, we now live in a country where children are increasingly at risk, not only from accidents and disease but from violence, neglect, and systemic failure. Every day, stories emerge that shock the conscience: children dying in schools, being shot by police during demonstrations, sexually abused by relatives, or simply going missing. These are not isolated incidents, they are symptoms of a society that has consistently failed to prioritize its youngest citizens. Tragic accidents highlight this systemic neglect. The Endarasha secondary school fire is a stark reminder of how inadequate safety measures continue to endanger students. Poor infrastructure, lack of fire drills, and insufficient oversight transform schools supposed sanctuaries of learning into sites of preventable tragedy. Similarly, traffic accidents claim the lives of children with alarming frequency. Overcrowded ...

  “Are we following Jesus, or are we following church culture built by men? Is the modern church producing true disciples of Christ, or just loyal church members?” These questions are not easy to answer, yet they cut to the heart of what it means to live a life of faith in today’s world. For centuries, religion has created structures, rules, and systems meant to guide human behavior. These rules often serve a purpose: maintaining order, protecting tradition, or establishing moral boundaries. But in the process, the essence of Jesus’ message—radical love, compassion, and inclusion—can be lost. When we look at the life of Jesus, it becomes clear that following Him was never about rules. It was about people. Jesus consistently broke every expectation, norm, and religious restriction in order to prioritize mercy, justice, and connection. Take the leper, for example. According to the religious law of the time, touching a leper made a person ceremonially “unclean.” Yet Jesus did not hesi...

  I believe that there are realms of good and evil as is evidenced by the world we live in. When thinking about this realm, I'm left with more questions that answers.  Why are the big realms of good and evil slugging it out for the souls, the hearts and souls of mankind? Why are we the meat in that sandwich? Little old us. Flawed us. Imperfect us. Why is that about us? These questions strike at the very core of human existence and the mystery of our place in the cosmos. For centuries, myths, religions, and philosophies have depicted human life as the arena where forces beyond comprehension wage their eternal struggle. Yet, here we are fragile, inconsistent, imperfect and somehow, we are in the middle of it. The idea that the universe’s ultimate battle hinges on people like you and me is bewildering. At first glance, it seems absurd. Look around: we are weak, fallible, and often incapable of living up to our own ideals. Our world is riddled with conflict, injustice, greed, and ...