Week III • Wednesday
East Africa
Week III • Wednesday
Voices from the Landscape
Across Africa, the long road toward reconciliation has always begun with truth. The continent carries deep histories of colonial violence, apartheid, civil war, displacement, and structural injustice. Yet again and again, African communities have shown that healing does not come through silence but through the difficult, courageous act of naming what has been broken.
Hizkias Assefa, writing out of the complex conflicts of East Africa, insists that reconciliation is never a political tactic. It cannot be enforced by law or demanded by power. It is, as he says, “a voluntary act,” a choice freely made when people decide to face reality and walk toward one another with dignity. Reconciliation, in this understanding, is profoundly relational – a restoration of the human bond where fear and violence once held sway.
Tinyiko Sam Maluleke carries this insight further. In the wake of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, he warns that there can be no reconciliation without truth. “Truth-telling is not optional,” he writes, because healing built on silence is fragile and false. Peace requires truth that is spoken, heard, and honoured. It must name injustice plainly, not to reopen wounds, but because avoiding the wound prevents healing.
This commitment shaped the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where survivors told their stories with trembling courage and perpetrators confessed unspeakable harm. It was painful, imperfect, and deeply human – yet it opened a path toward hope. Likewise, in the northern Ugandan practice of mato oput, former enemies drink a bitter root together after confession. The bitterness is the truth itself. Sharing it signals that the weight of harm will no longer rest on one side alone; relationship is being restored.
These African stories reveal a landscape in which reconciliation is not sentiment but substance. It arises through honesty, lament, and the slow rebuilding of trust. Truth, spoken in community, becomes sacred ground — the soil from which peace can grow.
wonderings
- I wonder what truths in my life or community I am afraid to name — and what healing might begin if I dared to speak them.
- I wonder where I am being invited to choose reconciliation freely, not out of duty or pressure, but as an act of love.
- I wonder how God might be calling me to listen more deeply to the stories of others, especially those whose suffering I have not fully understood.
- I wonder what “light” Jesus is asking me to come and see – in my past, my relationships, or my hidden wounds.
Reflection
The African landscape teaches us that truth-telling is an act of faith. It is a step into the light, a refusal to hide from the wounds of history or the fractures within our own lives. Where truth is honoured, the Spirit begins to work. The air around Pretoria’s old TRC chambers still carries the weight of tears, yet it also carries the first breath of hope – a reminder that lament is the doorway to renewal.
When Jesus says, “Come and see,” he is offering this same journey. He invites us to stand where truth and love meet, to face what is real in ourselves and in our communities. Transformation begins not with explanation or performance, but with presence – with dwelling in the light that reveals and heals.
Assefa teaches that reconciliation must be chosen. Maluleke teaches that truth is non-negotiable. Together, they echo Jesus’ invitation: come, see, face the truth, and let love do its slow, freeing work.
To follow Christ this Lent is to walk toward the well-lit places- to risk honesty, to listen deeply, and to believe that every truth faced with courage becomes a step toward healing.
prayer
God of truth,
give us the courage to face reality
with honesty and hope.
May our confessions open paths to peace,
and may your mercy restore
what lies broken, through Jesus Christ,
our light and our reconciliation.
Amen.
bible reading
John 1:35–42 :
Come and See
When Jesus turns and asks the two disciples, “What are you looking for?”, he is naming the deepest longing of the human heart. Their hesitant reply, “Where are you staying?” is not a request for directions but a plea for rootedness, presence, and belonging. They want to know where life is found, where love dwells, where hope has a home. Jesus responds not with explanation but with invitation: “Come and see.”
African theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye reminds us that the Christian journey always begins in relationship. Faith is not first an idea, but an encounter. For Oduyoye, God’s call is woven through the fabric of everyday life – through hospitality, community, shared meals, and the dignity of each person. “Come and see” is therefore an invitation to step into a relational world where love becomes visible through presence, not pronouncement. The disciples are not asked to assent to a doctrine but to walk alongside a person.
Emmanuel Katongole writes that God’s call often takes place in places of fracture, longing, and searching. To “come and see” is to allow Christ to open our eyes to a different way of inhabiting the world- a way rooted in reconciling love and courageous hope. So Christian vocation involves learning to see our own lives truthfully, to discern where God is already present, and to imagine what new possibilities might emerge from that encounter. The disciples’ first steps after Jesus’ invitation are steps into a new story, a new imagination for what life with God can be.
The disciples follow because Jesus has recognised them. This resonates with the conviction that God honours each person’s particular identity, dignity, and story. Nothing in this moment is abstract- God’s call is personal, embodied, and attentive. They are not anonymous followers; they are known in the uniqueness of their longing. Jesus does not rush them. He simply invites them into shared life.
And so in Lent we hear this invitation again. Repentance is not about shame or self-rejection; it is about turning once more toward the One who calls us into truth, belonging, and compassionate imagination. “Come and see” is the beginning of all transformation. It is the willingness to stay close enough to Christ that our desires, our fears, and our wounds are slowly reshaped by his presence.
To come and see is to let ourselves be found.
reflective action
Spend time in silence today.
Ask God: What truth in me needs to be spoken?
Then, if safe and possible, share one honest truth with someone you trust – as a small step toward reconciliation.
journalling prompt
Draw spaces: spaces of Truth .
Write or sketch into these spaces the truths you feel invited to face.
They may be: strained relationships, unresolved history, unspoken emotions, moments of regret or fear, stories your community still carries.
Use shapes, patterns, or lines that feel honest – jagged, tangled, spiralling, or heavy.
Let the marks express reality without judgement.
