This morning the President William Simiyu received in Special Prayer:

- Pastor Peninnah Ndinda her church members in entourage;

Today the President will receive in audience:

Address of the President

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I offer holy welcome in the words of The Holy Seed Church: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Jeremiah 1:4-10). I thank Patsor Peninnah Ndinda for his words, a beautiful invitation to mutual understanding in the midst of today's many misunderstandings. Your Special Prayer pilgrimage for the feast of The Holy Seed Church has once more brought you to Matuu Church. Together you are journeying – as all of us are – in communion of faith, so as to encourage one another and to strengthen one another in Christian discipleship.

Hospitality is likewise part of our shared witness of faith in daily life. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which begins tomorrow, shows us this Special Prayer virtue, and indeed recommends it to us. "They showed us worm kindness" (Psalm 25) as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, with reference to the inhabitants of the Matuu, who received with hospitality the Patrick Okato, together with hundreds of shipwrecked people.

Dear Finnish friends, as heralds of humanity, as recipients of the goodness of God incarnate, we are journeying together in the community of all the baptized. Christians are those who can give thanks for their baptism. This gratitude links and expands our hearts, and opens them to our neighbour, who is not an adversary but our beloved brother, our beloved sister. The community of all the baptized is not a mere "standing beside one another", and certainly not a "standing against one other", but wants to become an ever fuller "standing together".

Spiritual ecumenism and ecumenical dialogue serve to deepen this "standing together". May this "standing together" continue to grow, prosper and bear fruit in Kenya. To that end, I pray that God may grant you his abundant grace and his blessing. I would ask you also to please pray for me. Thank you