The Moderator, Dr Sam Mawhinney, sends his third postcard from Kenya, where he and his wife Karen are on a 15-day overseas visit. They leave for home on Friday evening.

This is now my third visit to Kenya and I have seen that the majority of Kenyans continue to face huge challenges.

The country is a wonderful place, beautiful mountains, vast plains, coastline and lakes, wildlife, rich earth and variety of foods, not least the rich diversity of 47 tribes and cultures that make it such an amazing country.

Its people are smart, good linguists, have a ‘can do attitude’, and make the place work. There are a vast array of churches and they are God fearing.

However, it seems to me that though life is busier, modern, and connected, the struggles with government, culture, corruption, lack of opportunity, and the depressive hopelessness of the selfishness of the human heart, have hindered Kenya’s flourishing.

It would be easy to lose heart, but I want to offer a starting place that I have been thinking increasingly about recently, and that is the biblical idea of lament, offered with the confidence that God sees, hears and can do something about the many difficult realities of life.

Lament is a passionate expression to God of grief and sorrow at the reality of our circumstances and our hearts. Within scripture there are psalms of lament, a book called ‘Lamentations’, and the tragic story of a man called Job, who suffered terribly and wrestled with God in prayer.

So, what is our confidence as we lament life’s difficulties? First of all, there is the character of God. God is love, good, strong and sovereign, perfectly revealed in Jesus. Secondly there is the gospel. The true story of resurrection from death, of life everlasting, and the personal presence of God. Then there is the leadership of Jesus. Many of our difficulties arise from a lack of good leadership, from government to families.

We experience in Jesus good leadership, a leader who listens, is wise, truthful, hates violence and injustice, and leads in a self-sacrificial way. In picture form, He is the Good Shepherd. And finally, there is the community of the Church. It was John Stott who called his exposition on the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Gods New Society’. The goal of the gospel is community, men and women, boys and girls, from every nation united under His leadership, a very safe place where all are loved and served.

Life is difficult for the vast majority of Kenyans, and yet their confidence - and ours - must be in God alone. Let me encourage us to lament all we see that is not good and in line with God’s will and do so with confidence. David Powlison said of lament, “talk out everything that matters, with the one, whose opinion most matters, the only one who can do something about it.”

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Dr Mawhinney is minister of Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church in Dublin and was selected as moderator-designate in February 2023 and officially elected and installed as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland at the General Assembly on 21 June.

You can read about Dr Mawhinney's overseas visit to Kenya here. Read his first postcard from Kenya here and his second postcard here.

Photos: (1) Challenges of a different kind - the 14 hour drive from Nairobi to Tuum (2) The Moderator brings greetings from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland to the Presbyterian Church of East Africa's congregation in Tuum, Samburu county, in the north of the country.

You can also follow his travels on X, formerly Twitter, at @pcimoderator.