The Seventy-Eighth and Seventy-Ninth Commencement exercises of Friends Theological College—Kaimosi, celebrating the graduations of the 2020 and 2021 classes, took place in a combined in-person ceremony on Friday, 29 October 2021. Commencement ceremonies and graduation celebratory activities are a culmination of all the hard work, personal sacrifice, and determination manifested by FTC’s students and faculty. But with the Covid-19 pandemic putting every academic institution in limbo, difficult decisions were made in an effort to keep our communities safe. In 2020, FTC, like many other schools, was faced with the decision to cancel or postpone their in-person commencement ceremony due to the worldwide pandemic, leading the celebration to be re-scheduled for later dates in 2021.
Read MoreAlthough Shawn and Katrina McConaughey will not leave their positions as Programme Officers in Friends United Meeting’s Africa Ministries Office until March 2022, work is already beginning in the AMO transition plan. As outlined in an E-news story on October 6, the interim plan to cover some of the McConaugheys’ responsibilities after their departure is to distribute them among the AMO staff and to bring on Friends Church Peace Team Coordinator Getry Agizah in a new role as Programme Manager, in which she will coordinate the activities of the Friends Church Peace Teams and Girl Child Education Programme, while also working with the Global Ministries department and the AMO to oversee FUM’s relationships with Samburu Friends Mission and Turkana Friends Mission, including serving on both boards.
Read MoreIn East Africa, the three large Quaker “umbrella” organizations—Friends Church Kenya,, Friends World Committee for Consultation (Africa Section), and Friends United Meeting—came together at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic to make a united response. They served together to alleviate suffering, and along the way discovered the enormous spiritual blessings of unity. Richard Sitati, FUM's Vice Presiding Clerk, reflects on the experience.
Read MoreTurkana Friends Mission, which was founded fifty years ago this year, continues to plant new churches. There are now thirty churches within Turkana, five of which have grown up in the past three years. Many of these Meetings arise from new or existing relationships—through family members and friends, or through an introduction to Friends by way of Friends' schools, health care, water ministry, or relief work.
Read MoreThroughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.