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The Truth Is Not Negotiable

Kenyan Journalist Bedan Mbugua ('80) chose prison over compromising his conscience

“What happened to the sugar?” That was the question posed to 6-year-old Bedan Mbugua (’80) by his mother when she returned home and noticed the bowl was empty. Mbugua and his brothers said they didn’t know, but there was no hiding the evidence on their mouths: little white granules of sugar, a rare commodity in Kenya at the time. Mbugua’s mother was enraged.

“I can’t tolerate lies,” she said, punishing the boys accordingly.

Mbugua remembers this as the moment he became firmly committed to truth-telling.

“From that day on we knew truth wasn’t negotiable,” he said.

Mbugua’s quest for truth led him to become an influential journalist in Kenya, exposing scandals and government corruption throughout the 1980s and ’90s. It didn’t come without a price, however. Mbugua has been threatened, offered bribes, arrested and jailed for his refusal to tolerate lies.

Mbugua’s journalism career got started at Biola. As associate editor of The Chimes in the late ’70s, Mbugua wrote stories that made waves on campus, including a piece titled “God Visits Biola,” in which God toured campus and was dismayed to see a sign on a door that read “Office of Minority Students."

“The word minority,” said Mbugua, “pushed a group of students to an isolated psychological corner.”

The article led to a coffee appointment with Richard Chase, Biola’s president at the time, who congratulated Mbugua on a well-written piece and asked him what he would want the office to be renamed.

“Office of Intercultural Relations,” he replied.

Another article Mbugua wrote about food wastage at Biola and in America led students to cut their waste in the cafeteria and send money to famine-ravaged countries in Africa.

These Biola experiences taught Mbugua that the pen was powerful and, when used well, could cause a society to change or at least examine itself.

Following graduation Mbugua returned to Kenya, where he became editor and publisher of Step, a Youth for Christ publication for young people in Kenya and surrounding countries.

In the mid-’80s he helped start a Christian leadership magazine called Beyond, which became known as an important and courageous voice at a time when the press in Kenya was censored and the one-party government was dictatorial. During the pivotal 1988 elections, Mbugua published articles that exposed government corruption and election fraud.

“Our paper decided to report things as they were,” remembers Mbugua. “No other paper was willing to take such a risk. When Beyond hit streets people rushed for it in the thousands. The printing machines never stopped. … The government started to panic.”

This episode led to Mbugua’s first arrest and imprisonment (for nine months) by a court that took orders directly from the executive arm of the government.

The government’s attempt to silence Mbugua had the opposite effect. In 1993 he started a new weekly paper, People, which continued in the muckraking vein of Beyond. One story exposed the Central Bank of Kenya’s massive theft of public funds. Before it published, Mbugua was offered a bribe from the bank’s director to kill the story.

The man paid Mbugua a visit and carried a briefcase. He opened it to show 5 million Kenya shillings.

“For a moment I didn’t know what to do,” remembers Mbugua. “[His] boldness put me off balance for a few minutes. Finally I looked at him directly with some renewed courage. ‘Look here, first we shall not kill the story! And secondly, my conscience is not for sale!’”

Surprised by this response, the man closed his suitcase and left. The story ran the next day and launched a public outcry. The bank was forced to close.

The more Mbugua’s People exposed wrongdoing, the more the government was antagonized. After publishing an article in 1994 about a controversial Kenyan court ruling and suggesting direct interference from the Kenyan president, Mbugua was arrested for a second time, along with the article’s writer. He was given two options: sign a courtwritten apology that claimed the article was false, or face jail time.

Because the first option “aimed at destroying my credibility as an editor, I chose the second option,” said Mbugua.

Imprisoned for five months in Manyani prison — a former British colonial detention camp — Mbugua was forced to work in a quarry breaking up rocks every day except Sunday. He and fellow inmates were fed beans mixed with pieces of broken glass, which led them to go on a hunger strike.

Life after his harrowing experience in prison was challenging for Mbugua, who was left weak and lacking confidence as he sought to rebuild his life.

“Prison life had taken much from me,” said Mbugua, who was unemployed for a time and left to raise three children on his own.

Though it changed his life forever, Mbugua says his work with People was “the greatest fulfillment of my career.”

Mbugua ended his journalistic career working for Kenya’s largest media house, Royal Media, from which he retired in 2013. Today he’s involved in several entrepreneurial ventures, including organic farming and a faith-based company, Herbal Garden, that manufactures Aloe vera health products. He also speaks regularly at international conferences. In the past two years has spoken in Geneva and India, and will this year speak in South Africa.

He lives in Nairobi with his wife and is involved in a church, Nairobi Chapel, where his son has been worship director. Mbugua frequently speaks to churches on topics ranging from corruption to environmentally sustainable development.

Mbugua has seen a lot of change in Kenya; he’s been a catalyst for some of it. Today, the Kenyan press is free and a new constitution ensures multiple centers of power with many checks and balances. The economy has been growing and education and infrastructure have improved.

Through all he’s experienced as part of Kenya’s history, Mbugua says his faith has carried him. He’s grateful to his mother for instilling Christian faith in him from a young age — she read him Bible stories every night — and he’s also grateful for his time at Biola.

“Biola prepared me very well,” said Mbugua, who likened Biola’s biblically centered education to a yardstick by which to judge the world’s values. Without the strengthening and nourishing of his soul that he received at Biola, Mbugua says “I would have been broken down long ago.”

- Brett McCracken

 

Writing On The Wall

Josephine (Dayco, '03) Lock shines a light with her art, writing — even graffiti

Josephine (Dayco, ’03) Lock stared at her computer screen, perplexed. She had just emailed her boss at an Australia-based engineering firm to ask about the time of an upcoming meeting, and the answer that came back made no sense: “Tomorrow arvo. Ta.”

Was this a typo? Some kind of strange abbreviation? After trying in vain to figure it out, she wrote back for clarification — and picked up her first of many pieces of Australian slang.

“It’s like learning another language,” Lock said. “‘Arvo’ is ‘afternoon,’ and ‘ta’ is short for ‘thanks.’ As if ‘thanks’ isn’t short enough.”

Today, four years after a career opportunity put her on a one-way flight to Australia, Lock has now become fully immersed in her new culture — a process that she has documented on her blog, (where, incidentally, she also maintains a slang dictionary). During that time, she has also become an author, a wife, a (legal) graffiti artist and a soon-to-be documentary filmmaker, all while trying to serve as a light for Christ in a largely nonreligious setting.

Her international journey is one that’s seen the clear guiding of God, she said.

After graduating from Biola with an English degree, the California native had explored several opportunities to live abroad — including a creative writing
graduate program in Scotland and a teaching position in China — but the timing or finances never panned out. Then, while working in marketing for the Southern California offices of GHD, a temporary position opened at the engineering firm’s head corporate offices in Australia. Lock sensed God leading her to apply, even though she felt a bit out of her depths and wasn’t sure about moving to a place where she didn’t know anyone.

“From that point on, I had such peace about it,” she said. “I ended up getting an interview, they called me back, and I got the job.”

Over the next year, Lock worked to help refresh the firm’s international brand and implement new writing and visual style guides — a massive project, she said. Within the year, she also met and married her husband, Matt, who happened to be her boss’ stepson. That, of course, gave her a reason to stay in Australia even after her temporary position came to an end in 2011.

Since then, she’s worked in a variety of projects and freelance writing and editing positions. In 2012, she fulfilled a longtime dream by publishing , a book of original poems and drawings that explore the deaths of biblical characters such as King Eglon and Lot’s wife. And through her husband, a successful motion graphics animator, she’s also begun to hone her skills with a spray can, as together they create graffiti art throughout Sydney.

“People might think, ‘How are you a Christian and doing graffiti?’ But they actually have legal walls,” she said. “There are designated walls for graffiti where anyone can paint. … You have one day, and the next day it could get painted over. So you’re basically there to take a picture, and then it’s done. You make all of that effort, and then it’s gone.”

Within the graffiti community in Sydney, the Locks have built a close friendship with Matthew “Mistery” Peet, an influential graffiti writer and hip hop artist who also serves as a pastor and youth worker. The couple is currently producing a documentary feature film about the artist, whom they’ve been filming for the past couple of years. Lock said she hopes the project will expose more people to his work and to his faith — particularly in a culture where most people don’t seem to see a need for Jesus and are instead fixated on “living the dream.”

“Everything is ‘It’s all good, mate,’” she said of the typical Australian mentality. “It’s all about mate-ship, which is really interesting, because I feel like if they understood that that’s what your relationship with Jesus is like, they’d go for it. They’d be the most hardcore Christians. But they don’t feel like they need it.”

As she continues her process of “becoming Aussie,” Lock said she aims to live out her faith and serve as a light wherever God leads next.

“God is so faithful,” she said. “He just makes opportunities and he opens doors. We just have to keep walking through them, trusting that he’s going to be there.”

- Jason Newell

 

Preaching and Permaculture

Laurence Martins ('04) shares Jesus and builds sustainable farm communities in the Amazon

Brazil is a country in transition. The fifth biggest nation on earth has seen an economic boom in recent decades, rising to become the world’s seventh largest economy. Brazil’s emergence on the global stage will be spotlighted over the next few years by its hosting of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, events that will showcase how far the largest country in South America has come.

But what about Brazil’s future? Is the country’s fast rise building towards a flashy global showcase, or a sustainable future for its 200 million citizens? That’s a question of concern for Laurence Martins (’04), a pastor from the Amazonas state in northern Brazil. He founded an NGO called Origem (origin) committed to socio-environmental transformation through education, community planning and something called permaculture — an approach to ecological design focused on sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled after natural ecosystems.

Based out of Manaus, the capital city of Amazonas, Martins — who serves as lead pastor of the First Foursquare Church of Manaus — founded Origem out of a belief that the Christian gospel “isn’t about saving us from the misery of this earth and taking us to a heaven disconnected from all of creation.”

Rather, he believes in “a gospel of transformation” that leads to a kingdom lifestyle here and now.

“We teach a kingdom that ‘comes’ and brings truth concerning a better way to use the land we are given, a healthier way to deal with the waste we produce and a better way to live in community so we can get ready now for the heaven and the earth we are inheriting,” he said.

Martins said this outlook is challenging in Brazil because it’s not a very future focused country.

“Instant gratification is part of being Brazilian, and in the north of Brazil it is about ‘What will we do to get through the day?’” he said. “People are not prone to planning or being disciplined in order to build a better lifestyle.”

Origem is experimenting with ways to combat this mentality. The young organization,
which has enlisted volunteer help from two local churches, has recently focused on jungle farmers who have opted to make easy money by cutting down trees for charcoal rather than cultivating crops (such as Yucca, Manioca, bananas and pineapples) for the long term. Martins hopes to educate these rural farming communities in a sustainable lifestyle and show them that there are better options for income than charcoal production.

Over the past two years Origem has worked with architects and urban planners to help develop one particular village of about 70 families to be economically stable and environmentally sustainable. One emphasis has been educating the farmers in organic agriculture, for which there is a young but growing market in the city. Origem also partnered with the government to bring electricity to the community, and plans this year to build a schoolhouse and health clinic.

In addition to his work with Origem, Martins is a busy husband, father of two and pastor. He’s done work with the Willow Creek Association in Brazil and since 2007 has been involved in Willow’s annual global leadership summit for pastors and Christian leaders in Manaus.

Martins said his experience at Biola has helped him greatly in ministry, enabling him to bring a broader view of the kingdom of God, and a greater appreciation for serious biblical thinking, to his congregation.

The evangelical movement in Brazil is at a record high, with nearly a quarter of the population declaring themselves evangelical Protestant. However, Martins wonders whether Brazil’s evangelical movement — much of it infused with prosperity theology and a “Santa Claus-like God” — could do more to confront issues facing everyday Brazilians, such as violence, corruption, social health and education.

Martins notes that many outsiders perceive evangelicals in Brazil as alienated and uninterested in becoming involved with social change.

But if there are many other evangelicals like Martins — working tirelessly to win souls but also transform communities for a sustainable future — that’s a perception that will likely change.

- Brett McCracken

 

Ready for Chapter Two

Wes Wasson ('89) reached the heights of Silicon Valley success — then left to help those in deepest poverty

Not long ago, Wes Wasson (’89) did something that would have been unthinkable to many people in his position.

At the height of a career in senior executive leadership at a multibillion-dollar technology
corporation, he decided to walk away and follow God into the unknown. The Lord was calling him, he believed, to redirect his time and talents to a new venture aimed at bringing people out of extreme poverty — even if he wasn’t exactly sure what that venture might be.

“Whatever I’ve been doing with my career has been building up to something,” Wasson remembers explaining to his CEO at Citrix, where he served as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. “There’s going to be a Chapter Two. I don’t know exactly how it’s going to come together, but Chapter Two is going to involve taking what I know — which is how to build and grow companies and technology — and applying it somehow to poverty alleviation.”

Since transitioning out of his role at Citrix in May 2013, Wasson has been working