What do you have for your school/work Christmas dinner? Yesterday I went to the BRICC meeting room to share in the jollof rice prepared for the Christmas celebrations there. It might seem strange to have Christians and Muslims having a lunch for Christmas together but it's all part of building relationships. At the end of Ramadan in August there was a lunch for the Muslim festival and yesterday was the turn of the Christians. It's great to see respected members of both communities coming together to share food and accounts of how BRICC has helped them. Siddique the education co-ordinator told of how at the start the classes would be obviously split with Christians and Muslims extremely wary of each other. After a few weeks he saw a Christian boy and a Muslim boy leave together, walk along the street then shake hands before parting to go to their own areas. "That's what BRICC's all about," he said.
Joseph, another Nigerian in the management team, spoke of how he took a group into an area from which they thought they'd never return alive. These others had believed rumours of how members of their faith would be killed if they ventured in that particular region. They all came back safe and well and with a better understanding of the other community.
One man, principal of a local school, was there for the first time but he too got up to speak. At first he'd thought he was far too busy to get involved in anything else but people told him about the peace-promoting work of BRICC and now he's signed up to voluntarily teach one of the classes. His comments on Toby (American co-founder of BRICC), Ruth (Irish) and me were quite humbling. He pointed out how we'd all left our families and the wealth of our home countries to come to Jos to help heal a wound that we'd had nothing to do with. Toby is now the doctor; Ruth and I nurses!
It wasn't just the adult co-ordinators who were there, four boys from the football teams had been invited as a reward for their efforts on the pitch. They're the ones most affected by the violence and they are the ones who can spread the message of reconciliation and relationship among their peers.
It's a great privilege to be a part of BRICC and be welcomed into the lives of the people involved.
