An unlikely friendship

Early in 2005, Genesis Njeru was serving in a local church in Kibera – teaching a tailoring class and assisting short-term mission teams with such things as English-Swahili translation and navigating around Kibera. Along with three other young men – Wyclif, John, and Zach (together, the "Pastor's Army" – Genesis devoted his time to ministering to the women, children, and elderly of Kibera.

Rafiki yangu

In February 2005, Greg Lanier (editor of Slum) joined a team from South Carolina on a medical and evangelism mission trip to Kibera, whereby the team spent the week working with Genesis' church in running a health clinic, allowing the pastor and his team to minister to the community in a tangible way. Since he was untrained in medicine, Greg staffed the makeshift pharmacy, which afforded him the opportunity not only to meet most everyone who came to the clinic (there were hundreds, ultimately), but also get to know Genesis, who was his primary translator.

Greg and Genesis quickly became rafikis (friends) during the short week. At the same time, Greg, though he knew little about Kibera prior to arriving, was deeply impacted by the far-too-brief experience there. How could one not be?

Correspondence

Since that trip, Greg and Genesis have maintained regular communication through email, and their friendship has grown. They shared much of their lives through writing: Genesis' work in his church, struggles due to famine in the land, his girlfriend-then-fiance-now-wife Faith, his soccer team, the political chaos of early 2008; Greg's life in the States, his own fiance and marriage to Kate, jobs, and so forth. Joyfully, Genesis & Faith and Greg & Kate found out at nearly the same time that they were pregnant.

In July 2009, after many conversations about life in Kibera, they developed the idea to write a book that presents the stories of the people who live there.