Colleagues,

Something short and to the point for the first day of The Year of our Lord 2009, the Day of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.

It's the Maasai Creed, a creed composed in 1960 by the Maasai people--an indigenous African tribe of semi-nomads located primarily in Kenya and northern Tanzania of East Africa -- in collaboration with Roman Catholic missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The creed seeks to confess the promise at the core of the Christian faith within the daily life of Maasai culture.

Peace and Joy!
Ed Schroeder

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We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe.

AMEN