Exploring the Wisdom of Africa
MCC Occasional Paper, No. 26
April 1999
Raymond Downing, Hadley H. Jenner, Annetta Miller, Harold F. Miller, and Sultan H. Somjee, MCC East Africa
About the Contributors
Raymond Downing is a medical doctor, currently working at the Friends (Quaker) Lugulu Hospital near Webuye, Kenya, sponsored by the Friends United Mission. Earlier he served as a doctor with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in eastern Sudan among Ethiopian refugees. He also worked for relatively shorter periods of time at the Shirati [Mennonite] Hospital in northwest Tanzania and the Kijabe [Africa Inland Church] Hospital near Limuru, Kenya.
Hadley H. Jenner is currently a Program Associate in the Institute for Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S.A. From 1989 to 1996 he served as co-representative for an MCC program focussed on pastoralism in Kenya. He participated in the life of a Maasai community, became aquainted with other pastoralist communities and took an active role in the formation of the Kenya Pastoralist Forum, Kenya’s first natinal organization concerned with the welfare of pastoralists. Earlier he worked as an environmental planner.
Annetta Miller is a music lecturer seconded by MCC to Daystar University. Earlier she taught music for nearly two decades at Kenyatta University. Both universities are located near Nairobi, Kenya. She received her graduate music training in Hungary, featuring Kodaly music pedagogy. Currently she serves as co-representative for the MCC South Sudan program. She was born in Tanzania of missionary parents and has lived in Africa most of her life.
Harold F. Miller is currently serving as co-representative for the MCC South Sudan program as well as the regional MCC representative for Eastern Africa. In March 1999, he completed a ten-year secondment from MCC to the All Africa Conference of Churches in Nairobi, Kenya, as an assistant to the International Affairs Desk. Earlier, on secondment from Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions, he undertook assignments with church-related institutions in Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan.
Sultan H. Somjee is a Kenyan employed as the principal research scientist in the Division of Ethnography in the National Museums of Kenya. Earlier he was lecturer at the University of Nairobi for 20 years. During the past five years he has collaborated with Mennonite Central Committee’s Kenya program on initiatives related to the stimulation, collection and exhibition of Kenya’s cultural and material heritage.
