THE LEADERSHIP LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE CHILDREN OF AFRICA

I watched this video I think for the 2nd time and I saw more than I did the first time I watched it. The first person to post it saw happiness in the children and therefore put that caption, but I saw leadership. Leadership is not based on democracy as we have been made to believe because those in leadership are not necessarily popular. And those others who are not in leadership are not where they are because they are not popular. Popularity is not leadership.

The boy in this video demonstrates that leadership is a God given responsibility for all those who step out and respond to God's call. It also shows that :

1. Leaders do not front themselves to take advantage of opportunities that avail themselves. The boy could have just danced himself in front of the camera but instead he lets others take the opportunity to show what they have. Our political leaders in Kenya first acquire property for themselves and their children, take their children to exclusive schools,and when they are sick, they go to Nairobi hospital when you and I fill the hard benches of the public hospitals that have no medicine, no beds, no water, and after we get better, we go on to the streets of the major towns demonstrating and fighting each other.

2. Leadership means urging those who may be shy, timid or weak to step up and do their jig. Everyone of us has potential to be a leader, democracy cannot allow those of us who are financially weak or those who are not outgoing to take up leadership. I am not sure where this video was shot but I bet the children come from different ethnic communities and they all jump in the line to take a chance.

3. Leadership demands genuine "followership". In this, I mean followers who are genuinely in the mission and understand the vision. The other children follow the prompting of the leader and jump into the front to dance and each of them has a unique style.

4. Leadership requires building the interaction of elements that when combined produces a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements-synergy. The diverse family backgrounds of the children could be equated to the diverse cultures, beliefs,traditions, ethnic communities, status, race, and religions. We need each other to build a strong loving community not only abroad but also in Kenya.

CHRISTIANITY'S ANSWER TO THE LIFE'S GREATEST QUESTION

Christianity is the Faith with a spiritual axiom that provides a premise on which answers to the one of the greatest question are found: This Question made a young Prince Siddhartha Gautama to leave the comfort of a palace to seek answers Why do people live, suffer, get sick, grow old, get killed or just die? Is this what life is all about? Why was I born? These and many other questions prompted the Buddha to pursue a path that would lead him to finding satisfactory answers. In the course of his sojourn, he founded Buddhism.

Almost all the great religions of the world have and still are seeking answers to the greatest question above. People are still being born in trouble, get sick, grow old, get killed and die. The greatest mistake we make in seeking for solutions in our lives in this world is ‘missing the mark”. We seek answers to these perplexing questions in wrong places and from wrong people.

Wisdom calls that in order to find a lasting solution to a persistent malignant problem like that one posed by our question above; we need to find the root cause of the problem. Only the Christian Faith provides for this; that SIN is the cause of the problem highlighted in the great question and so long as the cancerous cells of sin still exist in human life , people will still die, grow old, get sick, fight each other, steal, enslave others, discriminate against others and the list goes on and on. 

The Bible in Romans 5: 12-13 points out that “therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned. 13For sin was in the world before the Law was given; So it does not matter how many parliaments will make laws, the great question cannot be answered outside the Bible, and in that case, outside Christianity.

The Spiritual axiom in Christianity that provides a valid premise is found in the words of 1 Peter 2:24  “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” Dead people don’t envy, dead people don’t fight for positions and kill because they are already dead.

Each nation under the sun thinks that peace comes from peace treaties, and political alliances, they are all wrong. Life comes from Death. This is a principle of life. Something must die for the other to live. Plants and other vegetation have to die for other organisms to live. Animals have to die for the meat eaters to live. Where there is no death, there is no life. It is only in Christianity that this principle is clearly laid out. Why do people live, suffer, get old, get sick, get killed and die? Answer: Because of the sin that man committed when he disobeyed God.

Question: So shall man continue to live like this forever? What is the solution to this life’s great question?

Answer: The solution to the world’s problems is the death of Jesus Christ who “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24. Here in is the answer.

Samuel, Geffrey(2010), The Origins of Yoga and Tantra. Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge University Press