Solomon on Leadership
AFRICA
The Classic Africa, seen through the eyes of early Traders and Explorers during the Age of Exploration.
Herodotus, a Greek historian was the first to write about Africa in 500 BC. He believed that beyond the Sahara there were human beings. Like his predecessor, Ptolemy a Greek astronomer, attempted to unfold the mysteries of Africa by printed representation drawings of the geography of North Africa in the second century. Ptolemy school of thought on Africa dominated Europeans scholars and aristocracy about the unsolved mysteries of Africa beyond the Sahara. Nine centuries later, the 11th century Ibn Battuta an Arab historian writing for Arab Sultans travelled the interior of West Africa. Unable to unlock
the mysteries of the Sahara, Battuta retraced his journey through North Africa to the shores of the city states of Dar E Salaam and Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, East Africa.
It was not until 15th century Portuguese seamen discovered the tip of Southern Africa by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope headed northeastwards; they docked on the island of Mombasa in 1498. However, the Chinese and the Phoenicians traders had been on the Indian Ocean much earlier, limited to the East African Coast.
A reference is given to China military Leader, Cheng Ho, whose death in 1430s marked the end of China’s mapping, maritime, and the trading post on the Coast of the Indian Ocean. Therefore, the long voyage by the Portuguese seamen had finally ended some of the century old mysteries of Africa. The seamen had connected the dots and penned ink to paper; for the first time there was a complete outlined map of Africa. Nevertheless, there was the ultimate, unanswered mystery question dating back
to the Egyptian dynasties, the search of the origin and the source of the Nile River.
PAGE: LOCAL NEWS
Pipestone native reaches out to Kenya
By Kyle Kuphal (September 16, 2009)
Lila Farmer was born to William and Lois Farmer and raised in Pipestone County in the 1950s and 60s before leaving to attend Mankato State University (MSU) when she was 17. While there she had an epiphany that changed her life and eventually led her all the way to Africa.
What began in the 1970s as missionary work led, more than 30 years later, to an effort to bring education, health care, stability and leadership to Kenya.
She grew up attending the Presbyterian Church in Pipestone, but while attending MSU, she became drawn to a life of ministry. That desire to spread the word of God led her to join the Campus Crusade for Christ International in 1969.
“I was so grateful that people helped me grow in my faith that I was willing to do anything and go anywhere,” she said during a recent visit to Pipestone. “Immediately after graduating I went to Africa.”
Her African experience began in Swaziland, a landlocked country in southeast Africa, where she taught English for three years beginning in March 1974. Then in December 1976, she left Swaziland and went to Kenya where she worked as a graphic artist for Campus Crusade for Christ until 1983.
It was there that she met Solomon Kimuyu. At that time Kimuyu and his wife Protasia
did translating work for Campus Crusade for Christ. More than 25 years later, this
past January, Farmer and Kimuyu joined forces once again, when she became Coordinator
of International Ministries for his non-
Through his organizations Kimuyu has already opened his first Solomon Home For Children in Texas and seeks to build a university, a water tower, a clinic to help people with HIV and a place to provide help for orphaned children on land owned by his mother near Nairobi, Kenya.
After a 16-
“That’s why I’m excited to be working with Dr. Kimuyu,” she said.
Kimuyu, it seems, has been busy since they last worked together in 1983. In the intervening years he moved to Texas with his wife Protasia; earned masters degrees in theology, business, sociology and higher education administration; wrote a book called “Solomon on Leadership;” started SHCI and SCL; and ran for a seat in the Kenyan Parliament in 2007.
“He will run again in 2012,” Farmer said.
Kimuyu seeks election, Farmer said, to teach Kenyans about positive leadership and to help bring stability and safety to his home country.
“There’s no ego trip,” she said. “He wants to minister to those in Parliament.”
By writing his book “Solomon on Leadership,” which explains Kimuyu’s plan for better leadership and also exposes examples of corruption in Kenya’s current government, Farmer said Kimuyu might have signed his own death warrant.
“We’re trusting that God will protect him,” she said.
She’s also trusting that God will help she and Kimuyu achieve what they are trying to do through SCL. Their goal, she said, is to provide a safe haven for neglected and abused children and women in third world societies, to train leaders in Biblical teachings and the Word of God, and to prepare them for leadership in church and society. Through the university, Kimuyu hopes to provide education in health care, the environment, the war on drugs and how to use the parliamentary system to enhance honesty in government.
It’s an effort that Farmer said she is happy to be a part of.
“I’ve always had the heart of a missionary,” she said. “I love helping people and it’s so rewarding because I know I’m making a difference in somebody’s life.”
To learn more about SCL, to purchase Kimuyu’s book or to find out how to help with
their efforts visit www.muumandu.com, email Farmer at lilafarmer@yahoo.com or call
her at (214) 507-
Farmer will also be speaking at the Women’s Presbytery in Brainerd on Oct. 7, in
Worthington on Oct. 8 and at the Presbyterian Church in Pipestone on Oct. 11. She
will be in the Pipestone area Oct. 6-
