disdain
A friend from the States recently wrote: Will you look at us with disdain when you return?
No!
I love this thought from the Shaliah tradition (Jewish faith): “The one who sends is the same as the one who is sent.”
So, you and I, we’re the same. You’ve been here with me this entire time.
hellos
Another friend wrote in response to my complaints about saying good-bye: Yes, you have many good-byes there, but many hellos here.
Looking forward to the many hellos…
June 18, 2007
jarring moments
I was sitting in the Java House, this very western café in downtown Nairobi where Americans, Europeans and wealthy Kenyans drink the brewed coffee (as opposed to the instant Nescaf that the majority poor drink, if they drink coffee at all); so I’m siting there with Mary who runs a school in one of the slums (Mathare). We’re discussing doing the Children in Crisis training for her teachers and social workers. I was enjoying my coffee, the atmosphere. It was a moment of semi-normalcy in my estimation – a flash back to the life-i-used-to-live before following my sometimes radical and extreme Lord. So there I was – good coffee, good planning – and out onto the street walks a stark-raving, head-to-toe naked woman. Walking the crowded downtown streets with a vacant look on her face, the Nairobi business class stopping to stare.
It was a jarring moment. I remembered where I was.
Sometimes, I’d like to forget for longer than 10 minutes.
hard questions
God took me into the slums of Mathare again. I was there in 2005. I remember being touched by the people I met and the work that was being done there – micro enterprise (equipping the poor to start small businesses with small loans), education, counseling/social work, etc. I ran a condensed version of the Children in Crisis training with the Hope Centre leaders. I was so blessed by this group. Forty-five of them packed into one room, spending their entire Saturday learning about the cycle of violence, a child’s basic needs, and how to plan effective intervention.
How do you help a child recover from a trauma such as victimization, loss, family problems, or natural disasters?
These teachers, social workers, and volunteers serve the urban poor – their student population includes orphans and abandoned children, street children, Somali refugees, victims of domestic violence, children of drunkards and drug-users. You name the social problem, they’ve got it.
At the end of one of the sessions on the stages of grief, teacher Raphael raised his hand and asked the hardest, heart-breaking, reality-check question:
How do you help a child process and deal with the trauma when it’s not in the past – it’s ongoing?
I stood there, in the reality of their situation, like a deer in headlights. Humbled. Saddened. No pat answer. Nothing easy-breezy brilliant to say because the reality is – their trauma is ongoing.
I looked at Raphael and said, Gosh – I don’t know. Does anyone have thoughts on that question? Blank stares. I went on to answer another question that I could answer and prayed to God for wisdom. Then came back to Raphael with this – We may not be able to change their home-lives (their shack-lives), but we can provide a place of refuge and respite away from home. When they are with us, they can know that they are safe, that no one will hurt them. When they are with us, they can know that they are loved.
But it’s not enough. As I think about that answer, I am frustrated by its limitations. God is a God of justice. Yes, He sees the reality of these children’s situations and I am convinced that He is grieved by it and wants more to be done.
The questions are –
What?
and How?
and Who?
“He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy;
He will crush the oppressor.
He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon,
through all generations.”
Psalm 72:4-5
slum water tea
Slum water tea. That’s what they offered me to drink during the training in Mathare slums. No other option. You just have to boil the slum water and hope that it’s killed the unmentionables in the water…
Slum water tea is disgusting.
And after ingesting it, you begin wondering – What’s happening in my body? All that water slumming around in my intestines? But you can’t dwell on it.
And drinking that tea in the middle of discussing psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs – things a child needs in order to develop (or self-actualize) into the person who God created them to be. The foundation of a child’s needs? Physiological needs such as food, medical care, access to clean water… These things are necessary for simple survival. And all of these beautiful children – thousands upon thousands – in these slum communities are denied these basic necessities, these basic rights – by the people in power.
But – I wonder – Are the people with true power those in government or those in the Body?
trauma
It’s so ironic that I go into these places and teach about trauma’s impact on children and I leave such places feeling traumatized myself. I go home and cry. Or watch a movie I’ve seen a thousand times so that I don’t have to think about it.
I’ll never accept it! God’s people, God’s children living in deplorable, sub-human conditions.
We must do something! We must take care of “the least of these” (the children, the vulnerable, the marginalized) in the name of Jesus. We’re no longer ignorant of these things – and we’re His Body – His broken heart and strong hands, His voice in the world.
“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless,
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.”
Psalm 82:3
I was sitting in the Java House, this very western café in downtown Nairobi where Americans, Europeans and wealthy Kenyans drink the brewed coffee (as opposed to the instant Nescaf that the majority poor drink, if they drink coffee at all); so I’m siting there with Mary who runs a school in one of the slums (Mathare). We’re discussing doing the Children in Crisis training for her teachers and social workers. I was enjoying my coffee, the atmosphere. It was a moment of semi-normalcy in my estimation – a flash back to the life-i-used-to-live before following my sometimes radical and extreme Lord. So there I was – good coffee, good planning – and out onto the street walks a stark-raving, head-to-toe naked woman. Walking the crowded downtown streets with a vacant look on her face, the Nairobi business class stopping to stare.
It was a jarring moment. I remembered where I was.
Sometimes, I’d like to forget for longer than 10 minutes.
hard questions
God took me into the slums of Mathare again. I was there in 2005. I remember being touched by the people I met and the work that was being done there – micro enterprise (equipping the poor to start small businesses with small loans), education, counseling/social work, etc. I ran a condensed version of the Children in Crisis training with the Hope Centre leaders. I was so blessed by this group. Forty-five of them packed into one room, spending their entire Saturday learning about the cycle of violence, a child’s basic needs, and how to plan effective intervention.
How do you help a child recover from a trauma such as victimization, loss, family problems, or natural disasters?
These teachers, social workers, and volunteers serve the urban poor – their student population includes orphans and abandoned children, street children, Somali refugees, victims of domestic violence, children of drunkards and drug-users. You name the social problem, they’ve got it.
At the end of one of the sessions on the stages of grief, teacher Raphael raised his hand and asked the hardest, heart-breaking, reality-check question:
How do you help a child process and deal with the trauma when it’s not in the past – it’s ongoing?
I stood there, in the reality of their situation, like a deer in headlights. Humbled. Saddened. No pat answer. Nothing easy-breezy brilliant to say because the reality is – their trauma is ongoing.
I looked at Raphael and said, Gosh – I don’t know. Does anyone have thoughts on that question? Blank stares. I went on to answer another question that I could answer and prayed to God for wisdom. Then came back to Raphael with this – We may not be able to change their home-lives (their shack-lives), but we can provide a place of refuge and respite away from home. When they are with us, they can know that they are safe, that no one will hurt them. When they are with us, they can know that they are loved.
But it’s not enough. As I think about that answer, I am frustrated by its limitations. God is a God of justice. Yes, He sees the reality of these children’s situations and I am convinced that He is grieved by it and wants more to be done.
The questions are –
What?
and How?
and Who?
“He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy;
He will crush the oppressor.
He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon,
through all generations.”
Psalm 72:4-5
slum water tea
Slum water tea. That’s what they offered me to drink during the training in Mathare slums. No other option. You just have to boil the slum water and hope that it’s killed the unmentionables in the water…
Slum water tea is disgusting.
And after ingesting it, you begin wondering – What’s happening in my body? All that water slumming around in my intestines? But you can’t dwell on it.
And drinking that tea in the middle of discussing psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs – things a child needs in order to develop (or self-actualize) into the person who God created them to be. The foundation of a child’s needs? Physiological needs such as food, medical care, access to clean water… These things are necessary for simple survival. And all of these beautiful children – thousands upon thousands – in these slum communities are denied these basic necessities, these basic rights – by the people in power.
But – I wonder – Are the people with true power those in government or those in the Body?
trauma
It’s so ironic that I go into these places and teach about trauma’s impact on children and I leave such places feeling traumatized myself. I go home and cry. Or watch a movie I’ve seen a thousand times so that I don’t have to think about it.
I’ll never accept it! God’s people, God’s children living in deplorable, sub-human conditions.
We must do something! We must take care of “the least of these” (the children, the vulnerable, the marginalized) in the name of Jesus. We’re no longer ignorant of these things – and we’re His Body – His broken heart and strong hands, His voice in the world.
“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless,
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.”
Psalm 82:3
June 5, 2007
funny phrases
“You look like a statue.”
“You look like a doll.”
“Your feet are so clean.”
All funny phrases that’ve been said to me. These Kikuyu women crowed around a friend and I at a roadside fruit market outside of the city. They were inspecting me intently. What did they see? “Her feet are so clean,” they tell my friend. “Leave her here with us.” “No, I’m not leaving her here,” my friend tells them! What do I make of such a strange interaction?
Sometimes I don’t know where I am. Nothing makes sense. I have no frame of reference for understanding. Everything needs translation – even English!
ghetto heaven
Sometimes I’m just hanging on by my fingertips to the ledge of Africa, trying to survive this place. This is Africa, I tell myself. What do you expect? Forget what you’ve left behind…the riches of an American heaven…
Driving back to Nairobi by bus from Mombasa this weekend, we passed a highway town with this sign:
Ghetto Heaven Bar
Cracked me up. Ghetto heaven. What a ghetto heaven Africa is indeed. A paradise lost. You can see what it used to be, what its Maker intended it to be, but what it’s become? Ghetto heaven. Spoiled rivers by plastic bags and pollution. Landscapes littered with leggy giraffes, shanty towns, and the endless poor. The endless poor – sitting, standing, staring, wandering about the ghetto heaven streets all day long. Do they work? Are there jobs? Is there purpose in their lives?
“What are the most pressing national challenges (Kenya) faces? We have today 10 million Kenyans between the ages of 10 and 18. It means that between now and the 2012 elections, we need to have created eight million jobs. We are looking at the prospect of unemployment rising from two million to five million by 2012.”
Imagine that stat coming into reality here!
“The consequences of five million unemployed energetic and disillusioned young people is crime, rural destitution, urban squalor and the potential of political strife too dire to contemplate. Youth unemployment is the greatest threat to political stability.” (Uhuru Kenyatta in the Daily Nation, March 16, 07)
Diani Beach
Went to Diani Beach, South Coast Mombasa this weekend with some girlfriends from the office for a wedding and also to see our New Life Home – Mombasa. What an adventure.
I am so happy to be back in Nairobi if you can believe that. The trip was exhausting. Both ways – coming and going – we traveled in the pouring rain over pot-holed roads. We left by night bus from Nairobi on Thursday and traveled all moonlit night for 9 hours to Mombasa. I slept most of the way, so the trip there was fast. The moon lit the landscape beautifully.
Coming home to Nairobi was not so easy. We left Diani Beach as it had just started to rain. Ended up with the craziest of crazy matatu (public minivan) drivers, passing other drivers on the highway at high speeds in the torrential rain. The town bridge was “down” due to the rain, so our driver pulled off the main highway and onto this side road. The side road was completely flooded – a river. There’s another matatu 50 yards into this river road, stalled out. People are outside, waist deep in water, pushing it. As they are pushing the car, they wave to our crazy driver to come. Come?! I think, Are you nuts? I’m quickly thinking that our driver has proven himself to have limited cause-and-effect thinking and the friend next to me leans over and says, “You can start praying.” I said, “Don’t let him go that way. You need a boat to pass there.” So everyone at this point starts talking in Kiswahili and I’m left out of the loop. After a few minutes debate and internal praying, we back out. Thank God.
My friends later teased me that it would’ve been OK to go that way. Said we would’ve just sat in the car and let them push. They laughed at me for saying something. Cultural clash. We ended up finding an alternative, non-flooded route and making it to our bus barely on time, but it’s a hard call – trying to figure out what things to let go and what things to speak up on. Things are so different here.
spoiled?
The road trip was like this during the day – baobab tree, shrub, shrub, baobab, shrub, baobab, shrub, shrub…
I’ll take flying any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Call me spoiled – my Kenyan friends do – “Guy, Janay, you’re spoiled girl.” Yup.
beach boys
One thing we don’t have much of in the States are annoying beach boys. They come up to “befriend” you in order to offer you something for sale, or a marriage proposal, or some other come on. Madame hello. Hello … pretty lady – hello --?
I finally told one – “Look, I want to be alone, OK?”
“Yes, but we’re never alone,” he says referencing the sky with his arms. “There’s God and the angels.”
“Yes, and I just want to be with them now, OK?” I say.
OK. Sawa. He leaves.
You feel mean, but it has to be done! It’s tiring to always be on your guard. There’s little rest even in restful places here.
witches
Saturday night a group of us sat at the beach’s edge under the full moon and a witch came out. No joke. A witch.
It was a single woman. She picked up a large bunch of shrubs or flowers and began waving them over the water’s edge in this rhythmic way. At times she would run, arms held out in front of her, as if her wrists were bound by ropes and something was pulling her forward. She stomped, talked, moved in strangely patterned and chaotic ways. It was creepy to watch. Something spine-tingly and evil about it. My Kenyan friends seemed scared – “Don’t look. Oh, Lord – what’s this? Witchcraft,” they agreed. They’re familiar with it.
Greater is He who’s in you than he who’s in the world, we said in agreement.
The place we were staying at was a Christian retreat center called The Word of Life. The woman walked right through the property and stood on the beach cursing and calling on evil spirits with such boldness.
It’s timely that I saw this because the last pastor that I heard spoke briefly about witchcraft in Kenya – how strong it is as a religion and how many “high level officials” openly practice it.
I think we take it so lightly in the States – charmed, entertained and bewitched by it…
There’s spiritual power in witchcraft. That’s why they practice it here.
suitcases in the corner
It’s so symbolic that I’ve lived with suitcases in the corner of my living room all this time – always there – in the corner of my eye, in the back of my mind. I’m here. I’m not. I’m leaving. I’m staying. I’m gone. I’m present.
The suitcases in the corner are coming out again soon.
I wonder, Can people invest in such a person? How attached can you really get to a nomad unless you’re a nomad, too?
My friends here say – “This is your home. Next time you come, come to stay. Forever and ever. The states are your birth country. This is your marital country.” (They want me to marry a Kenyan – they have an agenda.)
“Somewhere in the world there is someone missing you. Your mom? Your family?” they ask.
“Yes,” I say. But I sure have grown to love Africa and my friends here and the babies. Heart stealers. This see you later will be hard.
The shared grief of the suitcases-in-the-corner life.
London
I have this crazy picture in my head of getting to the London airport – the first sign of civilized ground in 6 months – and kissing it. Isn’t that sick?
“You look like a statue.”
“You look like a doll.”
“Your feet are so clean.”
All funny phrases that’ve been said to me. These Kikuyu women crowed around a friend and I at a roadside fruit market outside of the city. They were inspecting me intently. What did they see? “Her feet are so clean,” they tell my friend. “Leave her here with us.” “No, I’m not leaving her here,” my friend tells them! What do I make of such a strange interaction?
Sometimes I don’t know where I am. Nothing makes sense. I have no frame of reference for understanding. Everything needs translation – even English!
ghetto heaven
Sometimes I’m just hanging on by my fingertips to the ledge of Africa, trying to survive this place. This is Africa, I tell myself. What do you expect? Forget what you’ve left behind…the riches of an American heaven…
Driving back to Nairobi by bus from Mombasa this weekend, we passed a highway town with this sign:
Ghetto Heaven Bar
Cracked me up. Ghetto heaven. What a ghetto heaven Africa is indeed. A paradise lost. You can see what it used to be, what its Maker intended it to be, but what it’s become? Ghetto heaven. Spoiled rivers by plastic bags and pollution. Landscapes littered with leggy giraffes, shanty towns, and the endless poor. The endless poor – sitting, standing, staring, wandering about the ghetto heaven streets all day long. Do they work? Are there jobs? Is there purpose in their lives?
“What are the most pressing national challenges (Kenya) faces? We have today 10 million Kenyans between the ages of 10 and 18. It means that between now and the 2012 elections, we need to have created eight million jobs. We are looking at the prospect of unemployment rising from two million to five million by 2012.”
Imagine that stat coming into reality here!
“The consequences of five million unemployed energetic and disillusioned young people is crime, rural destitution, urban squalor and the potential of political strife too dire to contemplate. Youth unemployment is the greatest threat to political stability.” (Uhuru Kenyatta in the Daily Nation, March 16, 07)
Diani Beach
Went to Diani Beach, South Coast Mombasa this weekend with some girlfriends from the office for a wedding and also to see our New Life Home – Mombasa. What an adventure.
I am so happy to be back in Nairobi if you can believe that. The trip was exhausting. Both ways – coming and going – we traveled in the pouring rain over pot-holed roads. We left by night bus from Nairobi on Thursday and traveled all moonlit night for 9 hours to Mombasa. I slept most of the way, so the trip there was fast. The moon lit the landscape beautifully.
Coming home to Nairobi was not so easy. We left Diani Beach as it had just started to rain. Ended up with the craziest of crazy matatu (public minivan) drivers, passing other drivers on the highway at high speeds in the torrential rain. The town bridge was “down” due to the rain, so our driver pulled off the main highway and onto this side road. The side road was completely flooded – a river. There’s another matatu 50 yards into this river road, stalled out. People are outside, waist deep in water, pushing it. As they are pushing the car, they wave to our crazy driver to come. Come?! I think, Are you nuts? I’m quickly thinking that our driver has proven himself to have limited cause-and-effect thinking and the friend next to me leans over and says, “You can start praying.” I said, “Don’t let him go that way. You need a boat to pass there.” So everyone at this point starts talking in Kiswahili and I’m left out of the loop. After a few minutes debate and internal praying, we back out. Thank God.
My friends later teased me that it would’ve been OK to go that way. Said we would’ve just sat in the car and let them push. They laughed at me for saying something. Cultural clash. We ended up finding an alternative, non-flooded route and making it to our bus barely on time, but it’s a hard call – trying to figure out what things to let go and what things to speak up on. Things are so different here.
spoiled?
The road trip was like this during the day – baobab tree, shrub, shrub, baobab, shrub, baobab, shrub, shrub…
I’ll take flying any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Call me spoiled – my Kenyan friends do – “Guy, Janay, you’re spoiled girl.” Yup.
beach boys
One thing we don’t have much of in the States are annoying beach boys. They come up to “befriend” you in order to offer you something for sale, or a marriage proposal, or some other come on. Madame hello. Hello … pretty lady – hello --?
I finally told one – “Look, I want to be alone, OK?”
“Yes, but we’re never alone,” he says referencing the sky with his arms. “There’s God and the angels.”
“Yes, and I just want to be with them now, OK?” I say.
OK. Sawa. He leaves.
You feel mean, but it has to be done! It’s tiring to always be on your guard. There’s little rest even in restful places here.
witches
Saturday night a group of us sat at the beach’s edge under the full moon and a witch came out. No joke. A witch.
It was a single woman. She picked up a large bunch of shrubs or flowers and began waving them over the water’s edge in this rhythmic way. At times she would run, arms held out in front of her, as if her wrists were bound by ropes and something was pulling her forward. She stomped, talked, moved in strangely patterned and chaotic ways. It was creepy to watch. Something spine-tingly and evil about it. My Kenyan friends seemed scared – “Don’t look. Oh, Lord – what’s this? Witchcraft,” they agreed. They’re familiar with it.
Greater is He who’s in you than he who’s in the world, we said in agreement.
The place we were staying at was a Christian retreat center called The Word of Life. The woman walked right through the property and stood on the beach cursing and calling on evil spirits with such boldness.
It’s timely that I saw this because the last pastor that I heard spoke briefly about witchcraft in Kenya – how strong it is as a religion and how many “high level officials” openly practice it.
I think we take it so lightly in the States – charmed, entertained and bewitched by it…
There’s spiritual power in witchcraft. That’s why they practice it here.
suitcases in the corner
It’s so symbolic that I’ve lived with suitcases in the corner of my living room all this time – always there – in the corner of my eye, in the back of my mind. I’m here. I’m not. I’m leaving. I’m staying. I’m gone. I’m present.
The suitcases in the corner are coming out again soon.
I wonder, Can people invest in such a person? How attached can you really get to a nomad unless you’re a nomad, too?
My friends here say – “This is your home. Next time you come, come to stay. Forever and ever. The states are your birth country. This is your marital country.” (They want me to marry a Kenyan – they have an agenda.)
“Somewhere in the world there is someone missing you. Your mom? Your family?” they ask.
“Yes,” I say. But I sure have grown to love Africa and my friends here and the babies. Heart stealers. This see you later will be hard.
The shared grief of the suitcases-in-the-corner life.
London
I have this crazy picture in my head of getting to the London airport – the first sign of civilized ground in 6 months – and kissing it. Isn’t that sick?
May 23, 2007
grab-iosity
Our social worker, Grace, came into our office the other day to use our paper cutter. We told her “That’ll be 5 shillings.” She says, “I see you suffer from the same syndrome everyone in this country suffers from – grab-iosity.”
I love that.
Grab-iosity.
The country does seriously suffer from it. It’s annoyingly so. You feel as if everyone is constantly after your money. Just because your skin is white, you’re rich. And comparatively speaking, it’s true; but it doesn’t make it any less annoying at times.
They’ll say things like – I’m raising funds for…. If I had a supporter I could… Janay, do you have? Janay, do you have? Janay… Sometimes I think if I hear that one more time I will scream!
But grabiosity is also cultural. It’s a communal society (as opposed to an individualistic one). Family is everything – one person is not separate from the others. So if a person makes good money in the family, they’re expected to share with the other family members. My friend said she couldn’t travel upcountry to visit her family until she could afford to bring a bag of rice or maize. You can’t come empty-handed.
Family is everything. You’re defined by your place in the family. They’ll tell you, I’m the firstborn… or I’m the fourth born… or This is Mama Joy. Mama Joy is the mother of Joy. She doesn’t have her own first name, but is defined by her role as Joy’s mother. Good luck finding out what Mama Joy’s first name is, sometimes it takes a while to piece it together.
You see so many poor, young, single women with babies wrapped snuggly on their backs. They’ve gone off and gotten pregnant, usually with some random man, just to get a baby. To be somebody’s mama.
happy story
Here’s a story you don’t hear too often. Last week, we admitted a new baby. The mother had signed the baby over at the hospital – didn’t want him. The next day, the mother came to our home and took her baby home with her.
harambee
Kenyans celebrate the concept of Harambee – the community coming together to put their money into a common pot for the common good – for something like a wedding or a funeral, or for building a home. Everyone in the extended family and friends throws what they can into the pot for Harambee. Harambee means togetherness, unity, sharing …
Even when we were mourning in our office over our friend’s brother’s death, one of our Kenyan friends came in and said, Ah, you’re mourning together. It’s as it should be.
Everything together. The good and the bad, shared.
Harambee.
I like this concept and think that the Kenyans are teaching me a lot about what it means to live in community with other people. It’s not always the easiest, but it’s a picture of the family of God. Unified. Loving. Sharing burdens and joys.
what’s a village?
When I wrote down my U.S. address for one of the rural teachers in Lamu, she asked, “You have villages, too?” Westlake Village!
What do you say? I paused and slowly said, Yes, we have villages, but they’re not exactly like your villages… I wondered if she pictured me in a hut like her? With goats, too? Too funny. I didn’t bother explaining. Some things inexplicable – how do you explain our “westlake village” concept of village to someone living in the bush, drinking goat’s milk and following herds of goats, camels, and cows across the desert?
kingdom of heaven
Some of you will be jealous that I got to hear famous writer and Pastor Brian McClaren speak. He came to Nairobi Chapel, spoke about the kingdom of heaven. Loved what he said – “Churches are not warehouses for the saved, but places of transformation by which we go out into the world and transform it – bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.” Yes!
My favorite kingdom of heaven parable that Jesus told:
“Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
Matthew 13:35
The kingdom of heaven - it’s worth everything we have and are …
Our social worker, Grace, came into our office the other day to use our paper cutter. We told her “That’ll be 5 shillings.” She says, “I see you suffer from the same syndrome everyone in this country suffers from – grab-iosity.”
I love that.
Grab-iosity.
The country does seriously suffer from it. It’s annoyingly so. You feel as if everyone is constantly after your money. Just because your skin is white, you’re rich. And comparatively speaking, it’s true; but it doesn’t make it any less annoying at times.
They’ll say things like – I’m raising funds for…. If I had a supporter I could… Janay, do you have? Janay, do you have? Janay… Sometimes I think if I hear that one more time I will scream!
But grabiosity is also cultural. It’s a communal society (as opposed to an individualistic one). Family is everything – one person is not separate from the others. So if a person makes good money in the family, they’re expected to share with the other family members. My friend said she couldn’t travel upcountry to visit her family until she could afford to bring a bag of rice or maize. You can’t come empty-handed.
Family is everything. You’re defined by your place in the family. They’ll tell you, I’m the firstborn… or I’m the fourth born… or This is Mama Joy. Mama Joy is the mother of Joy. She doesn’t have her own first name, but is defined by her role as Joy’s mother. Good luck finding out what Mama Joy’s first name is, sometimes it takes a while to piece it together.
You see so many poor, young, single women with babies wrapped snuggly on their backs. They’ve gone off and gotten pregnant, usually with some random man, just to get a baby. To be somebody’s mama.
happy story
Here’s a story you don’t hear too often. Last week, we admitted a new baby. The mother had signed the baby over at the hospital – didn’t want him. The next day, the mother came to our home and took her baby home with her.
harambee
Kenyans celebrate the concept of Harambee – the community coming together to put their money into a common pot for the common good – for something like a wedding or a funeral, or for building a home. Everyone in the extended family and friends throws what they can into the pot for Harambee. Harambee means togetherness, unity, sharing …
Even when we were mourning in our office over our friend’s brother’s death, one of our Kenyan friends came in and said, Ah, you’re mourning together. It’s as it should be.
Everything together. The good and the bad, shared.
Harambee.
I like this concept and think that the Kenyans are teaching me a lot about what it means to live in community with other people. It’s not always the easiest, but it’s a picture of the family of God. Unified. Loving. Sharing burdens and joys.
what’s a village?
When I wrote down my U.S. address for one of the rural teachers in Lamu, she asked, “You have villages, too?” Westlake Village!
What do you say? I paused and slowly said, Yes, we have villages, but they’re not exactly like your villages… I wondered if she pictured me in a hut like her? With goats, too? Too funny. I didn’t bother explaining. Some things inexplicable – how do you explain our “westlake village” concept of village to someone living in the bush, drinking goat’s milk and following herds of goats, camels, and cows across the desert?
kingdom of heaven
Some of you will be jealous that I got to hear famous writer and Pastor Brian McClaren speak. He came to Nairobi Chapel, spoke about the kingdom of heaven. Loved what he said – “Churches are not warehouses for the saved, but places of transformation by which we go out into the world and transform it – bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.” Yes!
My favorite kingdom of heaven parable that Jesus told:
“Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”
Matthew 13:35
The kingdom of heaven - it’s worth everything we have and are …
May 7, 2007
the graves are not yet full
“There’s a joke among expatriates in Sudan that once you have drunk from the White Nile, you’re infected for life. In spite of myself, I had to agree. There was something about Africa that got into my blood and stayed there.”
- Bill Berkeley in The Graves are not yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa
I met a missionary named Joy who was staying with her family in Nairobi, attempting to “take a break” from their work. It struck me as ironic that they would vacation in the heart of Nairobi – which is the center of stress and chaos for me. Everyone’s center of stress – different. Their center of stress is in Southern Sudan. She showed me on the map – placed her finger on a tiny bend on the White Nile river and said – We live about an hour and a half from there. No roads, no infrastructure, no nothing out there except people. But there are groups – NGOs (non-governmental organizations), FBOs (faith-based organizations), churches – building a hospital out there in the middle of no-mans land. While Sudan is still at war after so many years, still at war.
I sat with a “Lost Boy” at dinner, too. Sudan’s lost boys made famous by war. Surreal.
Sudan is Kenya’s neighbor to the north. They say that a country is only as stable as its neighboring countries.
I’m reading The Graves are not Yet Full, trying to get a better understanding of the macro-level forces at work to create the chaos known as Africa. (If you’re into political history, I’d recommend it.) And I agree with Berkley’s comment: There’s something about Africa that gets into your blood and stays there (despite its obvious problems).
nose picking
Funny cultural thing – the Kenyans pick their noses like no others – better than five-year olds digging for gold.
So, we taught the Children in Crisis curriculum with a second group of teachers this week at our New Life School in Ruiru. I’m standing at the chalkboard discussing the most somber and serious of topics – formulating intervention strategies for children in crisis – and this teacher-trainee has his index finger so far up his nostril that his nose is sliding sideways and up and down his face. A grown man! I just kept rambling on.
God is so good, though. He helps me to hardly notice these things. I stay on track and only remember and laugh to myself five hours later.
New Life has a school that educates 100 children (3 - 9 years old) just forty-five minutes outside of Nairobi.
school of teachers (SOT)
The teacher training went really well. It’s easier to teach a curriculum the second time around. This is an area of ministry to be expanded and developed. Potentially, a pair or team of teachers coming in every quarter to teach new concepts, methods, etc.
names
The teachers at Ruiru gave me a Kikuyu (kee-koo-you) name. Each tribe has settled in certain areas of Kenya (there are approximately 39 different tribes in this country). And the Kikuyu are the majority tribal/people group in the town of Ruiru.
So I am Wamboui (wom-boy-ee).
This naming ceremony took all of two seconds, as they only have 10 possible names to choose from. Apparently, Kikuyu women can only be named one of ten names because there were 10 original, tribal daughters.
Imagine in the States – Jennifer, Amanda, Sarah…. Jennifer, Amanda, Sarah…
Oh, wait, we sort of have the same issue, don’t we?
bird watching
The Kenyan birds are amazing! People come to visit Kenya just to bird watch, or so I’ve been told. (I can’t imagine ignoring the elephants and lions, but hey, whatever floats your boat.) Kenya has one of the most diverse bird populations in the world.
After teacher training ended in Ruiru, I went back to the place where I was staying. I sat out on the edge of the field, quiet and still. All these different birds started swooping in, feeding, chatting, taking baths on the red dirt basketball court – some dirt bathers skidding in like crazy-haired maniacs. I’m sure some of you could bust out your bird books and tell me the names of these marvelous creations, but I can’t tell you much more than that. I was smiling inside, unwinding, after teaching about recovery, restoration, rehabilitation, the cycle of violence, attachment disorders, art therapy… blah, blah, blah – heavy things. And I remembered a bit of advice from this Self-Care in Mission class that I took at Fuller Seminary: “Bird watching is therapeutic” or something to that effect. I thought at the time – What an old geezer thing to do! And then, there I was, in Africa, doing just that.
thoughts on machetes
As I’m sitting out on the edge of this property in Ruiru, not another soul in sight – just the birds – along comes an African man carrying a machete in one hand. I think – OK, he’s a weed-wacker. And I noted that he was wearing some kind of uniform. But then he turned and started walking straight toward me. For a split second, I wondered, you know? When he saw me, he dropped his machete in the dirt, then he picked it up and walked past me and grinned a friendly “I’m-not-a-killer” grin, said something, and kept walking.
I find my judgment being constantly challenged, examined, and turned over here. My assumptions often proven false. My trust in God stretched.
Only in Africa do you wonder or have opportunity to wonder what that man approaching you might do with that machete he’s holding. A machete! It just appears so primitive, so violent. A weapon with a long, sordid past on this continent.
Kenyans use machetes to cut hedges, weeds, and tall brush.
But my western mind thinks of the genocide in Rwanda – (Hotel Rwanda) – in which the Hutus hacked the Tutsis to death with machetes. Or I think of Sierra Leone, where the Revolutionary United Front amputated people’s limbs in their diamond mine conflicts.
I am grateful when my assumptions and stereotypes – when the fears that keep me boxed into a small life of small-mindedness – are challenged.
third world rage
Ever seen the movie The Constant Gardener? Most of it was filmed in Kenya, including in Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa. I recently watched it for the second time here and watched the “special features”. They spoke with the director who is a Brazilian (City of God) director. His socially conscious films are often infused with a passion people described as “third world rage.”
third world rage –
I think it’s an inevitable sentiment that you pick up after having lived in or experienced the developing nations of the world. If you allow yourself to look around, if you allow yourself to listen, if you allow yourself to look under rocks and open dark closets – third world rage ignites. It boils over at times and, for me, can turn into depression. Or it just sits there, beneath the surface, constantly pushing me to press on in the fight against the injustice and despair that I am sensing around me. I mean, you have to do something with this rage that you feel or else it will consume you like a fire. The world is unjust – the eyes of my eyes are open – the ears of my ears are awake!
So I write to you about it. Hoping you will come to Kenya and that this third world rage will awaken in you a desire to rage against the unjust too…
“There’s a joke among expatriates in Sudan that once you have drunk from the White Nile, you’re infected for life. In spite of myself, I had to agree. There was something about Africa that got into my blood and stayed there.”
- Bill Berkeley in The Graves are not yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa
I met a missionary named Joy who was staying with her family in Nairobi, attempting to “take a break” from their work. It struck me as ironic that they would vacation in the heart of Nairobi – which is the center of stress and chaos for me. Everyone’s center of stress – different. Their center of stress is in Southern Sudan. She showed me on the map – placed her finger on a tiny bend on the White Nile river and said – We live about an hour and a half from there. No roads, no infrastructure, no nothing out there except people. But there are groups – NGOs (non-governmental organizations), FBOs (faith-based organizations), churches – building a hospital out there in the middle of no-mans land. While Sudan is still at war after so many years, still at war.
I sat with a “Lost Boy” at dinner, too. Sudan’s lost boys made famous by war. Surreal.
Sudan is Kenya’s neighbor to the north. They say that a country is only as stable as its neighboring countries.
I’m reading The Graves are not Yet Full, trying to get a better understanding of the macro-level forces at work to create the chaos known as Africa. (If you’re into political history, I’d recommend it.) And I agree with Berkley’s comment: There’s something about Africa that gets into your blood and stays there (despite its obvious problems).
nose picking
Funny cultural thing – the Kenyans pick their noses like no others – better than five-year olds digging for gold.
So, we taught the Children in Crisis curriculum with a second group of teachers this week at our New Life School in Ruiru. I’m standing at the chalkboard discussing the most somber and serious of topics – formulating intervention strategies for children in crisis – and this teacher-trainee has his index finger so far up his nostril that his nose is sliding sideways and up and down his face. A grown man! I just kept rambling on.
God is so good, though. He helps me to hardly notice these things. I stay on track and only remember and laugh to myself five hours later.
New Life has a school that educates 100 children (3 - 9 years old) just forty-five minutes outside of Nairobi.
school of teachers (SOT)
The teacher training went really well. It’s easier to teach a curriculum the second time around. This is an area of ministry to be expanded and developed. Potentially, a pair or team of teachers coming in every quarter to teach new concepts, methods, etc.
names
The teachers at Ruiru gave me a Kikuyu (kee-koo-you) name. Each tribe has settled in certain areas of Kenya (there are approximately 39 different tribes in this country). And the Kikuyu are the majority tribal/people group in the town of Ruiru.
So I am Wamboui (wom-boy-ee).
This naming ceremony took all of two seconds, as they only have 10 possible names to choose from. Apparently, Kikuyu women can only be named one of ten names because there were 10 original, tribal daughters.
Imagine in the States – Jennifer, Amanda, Sarah…. Jennifer, Amanda, Sarah…
Oh, wait, we sort of have the same issue, don’t we?
bird watching
The Kenyan birds are amazing! People come to visit Kenya just to bird watch, or so I’ve been told. (I can’t imagine ignoring the elephants and lions, but hey, whatever floats your boat.) Kenya has one of the most diverse bird populations in the world.
After teacher training ended in Ruiru, I went back to the place where I was staying. I sat out on the edge of the field, quiet and still. All these different birds started swooping in, feeding, chatting, taking baths on the red dirt basketball court – some dirt bathers skidding in like crazy-haired maniacs. I’m sure some of you could bust out your bird books and tell me the names of these marvelous creations, but I can’t tell you much more than that. I was smiling inside, unwinding, after teaching about recovery, restoration, rehabilitation, the cycle of violence, attachment disorders, art therapy… blah, blah, blah – heavy things. And I remembered a bit of advice from this Self-Care in Mission class that I took at Fuller Seminary: “Bird watching is therapeutic” or something to that effect. I thought at the time – What an old geezer thing to do! And then, there I was, in Africa, doing just that.
thoughts on machetes
As I’m sitting out on the edge of this property in Ruiru, not another soul in sight – just the birds – along comes an African man carrying a machete in one hand. I think – OK, he’s a weed-wacker. And I noted that he was wearing some kind of uniform. But then he turned and started walking straight toward me. For a split second, I wondered, you know? When he saw me, he dropped his machete in the dirt, then he picked it up and walked past me and grinned a friendly “I’m-not-a-killer” grin, said something, and kept walking.
I find my judgment being constantly challenged, examined, and turned over here. My assumptions often proven false. My trust in God stretched.
Only in Africa do you wonder or have opportunity to wonder what that man approaching you might do with that machete he’s holding. A machete! It just appears so primitive, so violent. A weapon with a long, sordid past on this continent.
Kenyans use machetes to cut hedges, weeds, and tall brush.
But my western mind thinks of the genocide in Rwanda – (Hotel Rwanda) – in which the Hutus hacked the Tutsis to death with machetes. Or I think of Sierra Leone, where the Revolutionary United Front amputated people’s limbs in their diamond mine conflicts.
I am grateful when my assumptions and stereotypes – when the fears that keep me boxed into a small life of small-mindedness – are challenged.
third world rage
Ever seen the movie The Constant Gardener? Most of it was filmed in Kenya, including in Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa. I recently watched it for the second time here and watched the “special features”. They spoke with the director who is a Brazilian (City of God) director. His socially conscious films are often infused with a passion people described as “third world rage.”
third world rage –
I think it’s an inevitable sentiment that you pick up after having lived in or experienced the developing nations of the world. If you allow yourself to look around, if you allow yourself to listen, if you allow yourself to look under rocks and open dark closets – third world rage ignites. It boils over at times and, for me, can turn into depression. Or it just sits there, beneath the surface, constantly pushing me to press on in the fight against the injustice and despair that I am sensing around me. I mean, you have to do something with this rage that you feel or else it will consume you like a fire. The world is unjust – the eyes of my eyes are open – the ears of my ears are awake!
So I write to you about it. Hoping you will come to Kenya and that this third world rage will awaken in you a desire to rage against the unjust too…
April 30, 2007
Lamu teacher training
The teacher training on Lamu Island went really well. The Dalano family who work for New Life Homes there, took me in, accepted me as kin. I stayed in their 17th century, five-story home. You should see the way the homes are built on this island – they’re Arabic and British combos. You hang your laundry, talk, and dance on the rooftops here. It’s the best place to catch the ocean breeze.
The other teacher, Anne Chege, and I slept on the fourth floor overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was pretty amazing. The entire week was great. We laughed, we ate and ate and ate (Take more Janay, the journey is long…), we drank hot, hot chai on 100 degree, eighty percent humidity days. We poured sweat together. I think I’ve never experienced heat like this anywhere in the world.
We presented our teaching materials on children in crisis to a hungry crowd of Kenyan teachers who work in the arid and semi-arid region of Tana River District. Many of them have “schools under trees,” their only teaching materials being a small chalkboard propped against a tree. Imagine that! New Life Homes operates 20 schools in this region, but this is an area that we would like to develop. Many of our teachers are untrained and unpaid. We also have 6 feeding programs within this region as it is severely affected by drought patterns.
island teams
I would love to see small, culturally sensitive, specialized teams of teachers come out to this region for training on a regular basis. They want and need people to pour their knowledge and skills into them. You should’ve seen the copious notes they took, the amazing dramas they produced. The best students! There’s also a place for specialized teams for soccer (football), sports camps, vacation bible schools, etcetera.
island interruptions
Frequently during the middle of teaching, the donkeys would start braying, snorting and carrying on. Their sound I can only compare to sea lions barking in San Francisco bay – deep, throaty, obnoxious. I would just want to bust up laughing, but all of the students continued to look at me seriously, intent upon the subject that I was teaching. I’m thinking – Don’t they think this is funny? Listen to that! They didn’t. If I’d made eye contact with just one foreigner, like myself, I would’ve surely lost it. So I realize that it’s a blessing sometimes that I don’t have anyone from “home” traveling with me.
island traffic
Lamu was beautiful. The stars and moon seen like never before as the electricity all over the island was out for 3 nights straight. (No electricity also means limited to no water as the electricity pumps the water from the wells to the holding tanks to the homes.)
Anyway, we’d go for strolls in the dark of the evening with our flashlights, navigating through the narrow alleys two by two. One night, I wasn’t paying attention to oncoming “traffic” (remember there is only one car on the island) and all of a sudden my African friend cries out Eh! and pushes me to the side.
I was almost run over by a boy and his very large cow! We all started laughing. Lamu traffic.
Lamu is modernizing slowly by slowly, as they say. Along with the one car on the island, they now have a tuk-tuk, which is a mini three-wheel, tent-like vehicle that serves as an ambulance for the hospital. The slow island pace is so nice though.
island birthday
I was in Lamu for my birthday and didn't tell anyone. My birthday fell on the last day of teaching and one of our students presented us with gifts. Mine was wrapped in Happy Birthday paper and the gift was a hand-woven mat that said "God is Good". I just giggled. God knew. Sent me a gift.
Thanks to everyone who remembered my b-day and sent e-cards and gifts!
African burial
My officemate’s brother’s funeral was on April 13. Though I didn’t want to go, I went – to show my support for my friend. We went first to the morgue, located on a Kenyan University campus where students tend to the bodies. There were five different families, large groups of people waiting in stalls or corals as if waiting for a bus. But they were all waiting for the hearse to arrive with the body of their loved ones so that they could take them upcountry for burial. The sound of weeping, talking, waiting in the air.
My friend wore a scarf around her neck and used it to cover her face whenever grief overcame her.
We drove three hours northeast to a town called Machakos where my friend and her brother grew up. The entire church and community had assembled in the family’s front yard, singing and praying, awaiting his arrival since early morning. African funerals can go on for three days. They believe the funeral and burial to be an extremely important ritual to honor the dead.
They buried her brother on their shamba (land) next to where they grow vegetables. We all gathered around a five foot mound of red, red earth. This earth stains your shoes and feet, soaks into your skin almost like blood. When you wipe it off, it has discolored your skin, leaving an iodine-like stain.
It’s a strange thing, the earth here. It has its own stories to tell.
dark continent
Shoso (Grandma) Mary (my widow friend who cares for the orphans) calls Africa the dark continent and says that she felt like me (crying a lot) the first time she came to stay for an extended time.
My spirit has been deeply grieved here. I can’t pinpoint one reason really. I’m in this place of extremes – physically, spiritually, emotionally. My joy and sorrow deeper than I’ve ever experienced.
“See from His head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did ever such love and sorrow meet?”
the wonderful cross
puppies
“When I planned this, did I do it lightly?”
2 Corinthians 1:7
When I planned a move to Africa, did I do it lightly? Five years of prayer and thought went into this. So why is it so, so difficult at times?
I hear parentless babies saying hi outside my door. I have barf-y clothes wrapped in plastic beneath the futon on which I sit. Baby Jennifer’s head is too heavy for her neck, so her head flops forward. She’s not strong enough (yet) because of severe malnourishment.
A white family came for a visit today. I found myself trying to “sell” the babies, make them look cute and charming. Had to stop myself from saying – Here, take one home, as if they’re puppies. They’re not puppies. They’re God’s children. His little ones. His family.
Kisumu special-needs center
I also visited our New Life Home in Kisumu on Lake Victoria where we want to build a special-needs center for children with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Shosho (Grandma) Mary went with me. Kisumu is a quiet town, a smaller city than Nairobi with less pollution, less crime, less chaos. It’s really green and lush, quite tropical near the lake. When you leave by air, you fly over Lake Victoria, the largest freshwater lake in Africa. It’s amazing to see.
Kisumu town is filled with more bicycles than cars – more so than Santa Barbara or any beach town in California! It’s cool to see. These bicycles are called boda-bodas. They have cushions with tassles on the rear for carrying passengers. You can pay like 20 cents and they taxi you around town. But Shosho and I didn’t feel like being hit by a car just then, so we opted out.
Plans for the special-needs center are coming together. Apparently there’s a waiting list of 640 identified special needs children in Kisumu, needing a place to learn, grow, and be loved. We’re hoping to provide that place.
apple carts
Missionaries Barnabas and Paul were nomadic. Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Syria… their itinerary goes on and on.
I can relate.
Being nomadic for non-nomads by birth is not the easiest though.
I catch myself having internal tantrums. Tantrums over cold showers, non-flushing toilets, air pollution, no electricity. Would these people enter the 21st century please! my head screams. Every new place has new sounds and so your sleep is stolen from you until you manage to adjust or become so exhausted that you must sleep.
I’m listening to Derek Webb sing “I hate everything but You…” I could sing that to God right now.
The nomadic life is constant movement, upsetting the neatly arranged apple cart of a life I’ve set up, then carefully rearranging in another place. Living out of a suitcase.
Shosho Mary says that I/we must “lean into” the culture instead of resisting it. Yes. Lean into...
Apple carts are made for movement, that’s why they’re made with wheels.
many hardships
“We must go through many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God,” they (Paul & Barnabas) said.
Acts 14:22
The “many hardships” Paul and Barnabas talk about are different for everyone. Near death by rock throwers and constant death threats were on their lists.
My list so shallow in comparison.
God always gives perspective in His word. My hardships are by-proxy sufferings, entering into the suffering of others…
Thanks for entering in with me.
The teacher training on Lamu Island went really well. The Dalano family who work for New Life Homes there, took me in, accepted me as kin. I stayed in their 17th century, five-story home. You should see the way the homes are built on this island – they’re Arabic and British combos. You hang your laundry, talk, and dance on the rooftops here. It’s the best place to catch the ocean breeze.
The other teacher, Anne Chege, and I slept on the fourth floor overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was pretty amazing. The entire week was great. We laughed, we ate and ate and ate (Take more Janay, the journey is long…), we drank hot, hot chai on 100 degree, eighty percent humidity days. We poured sweat together. I think I’ve never experienced heat like this anywhere in the world.
We presented our teaching materials on children in crisis to a hungry crowd of Kenyan teachers who work in the arid and semi-arid region of Tana River District. Many of them have “schools under trees,” their only teaching materials being a small chalkboard propped against a tree. Imagine that! New Life Homes operates 20 schools in this region, but this is an area that we would like to develop. Many of our teachers are untrained and unpaid. We also have 6 feeding programs within this region as it is severely affected by drought patterns.
island teams
I would love to see small, culturally sensitive, specialized teams of teachers come out to this region for training on a regular basis. They want and need people to pour their knowledge and skills into them. You should’ve seen the copious notes they took, the amazing dramas they produced. The best students! There’s also a place for specialized teams for soccer (football), sports camps, vacation bible schools, etcetera.
island interruptions
Frequently during the middle of teaching, the donkeys would start braying, snorting and carrying on. Their sound I can only compare to sea lions barking in San Francisco bay – deep, throaty, obnoxious. I would just want to bust up laughing, but all of the students continued to look at me seriously, intent upon the subject that I was teaching. I’m thinking – Don’t they think this is funny? Listen to that! They didn’t. If I’d made eye contact with just one foreigner, like myself, I would’ve surely lost it. So I realize that it’s a blessing sometimes that I don’t have anyone from “home” traveling with me.
island traffic
Lamu was beautiful. The stars and moon seen like never before as the electricity all over the island was out for 3 nights straight. (No electricity also means limited to no water as the electricity pumps the water from the wells to the holding tanks to the homes.)
Anyway, we’d go for strolls in the dark of the evening with our flashlights, navigating through the narrow alleys two by two. One night, I wasn’t paying attention to oncoming “traffic” (remember there is only one car on the island) and all of a sudden my African friend cries out Eh! and pushes me to the side.
I was almost run over by a boy and his very large cow! We all started laughing. Lamu traffic.
Lamu is modernizing slowly by slowly, as they say. Along with the one car on the island, they now have a tuk-tuk, which is a mini three-wheel, tent-like vehicle that serves as an ambulance for the hospital. The slow island pace is so nice though.
island birthday
I was in Lamu for my birthday and didn't tell anyone. My birthday fell on the last day of teaching and one of our students presented us with gifts. Mine was wrapped in Happy Birthday paper and the gift was a hand-woven mat that said "God is Good". I just giggled. God knew. Sent me a gift.
Thanks to everyone who remembered my b-day and sent e-cards and gifts!
African burial
My officemate’s brother’s funeral was on April 13. Though I didn’t want to go, I went – to show my support for my friend. We went first to the morgue, located on a Kenyan University campus where students tend to the bodies. There were five different families, large groups of people waiting in stalls or corals as if waiting for a bus. But they were all waiting for the hearse to arrive with the body of their loved ones so that they could take them upcountry for burial. The sound of weeping, talking, waiting in the air.
My friend wore a scarf around her neck and used it to cover her face whenever grief overcame her.
We drove three hours northeast to a town called Machakos where my friend and her brother grew up. The entire church and community had assembled in the family’s front yard, singing and praying, awaiting his arrival since early morning. African funerals can go on for three days. They believe the funeral and burial to be an extremely important ritual to honor the dead.
They buried her brother on their shamba (land) next to where they grow vegetables. We all gathered around a five foot mound of red, red earth. This earth stains your shoes and feet, soaks into your skin almost like blood. When you wipe it off, it has discolored your skin, leaving an iodine-like stain.
It’s a strange thing, the earth here. It has its own stories to tell.
dark continent
Shoso (Grandma) Mary (my widow friend who cares for the orphans) calls Africa the dark continent and says that she felt like me (crying a lot) the first time she came to stay for an extended time.
My spirit has been deeply grieved here. I can’t pinpoint one reason really. I’m in this place of extremes – physically, spiritually, emotionally. My joy and sorrow deeper than I’ve ever experienced.
“See from His head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did ever such love and sorrow meet?”
the wonderful cross
puppies
“When I planned this, did I do it lightly?”
2 Corinthians 1:7
When I planned a move to Africa, did I do it lightly? Five years of prayer and thought went into this. So why is it so, so difficult at times?
I hear parentless babies saying hi outside my door. I have barf-y clothes wrapped in plastic beneath the futon on which I sit. Baby Jennifer’s head is too heavy for her neck, so her head flops forward. She’s not strong enough (yet) because of severe malnourishment.
A white family came for a visit today. I found myself trying to “sell” the babies, make them look cute and charming. Had to stop myself from saying – Here, take one home, as if they’re puppies. They’re not puppies. They’re God’s children. His little ones. His family.
Kisumu special-needs center
I also visited our New Life Home in Kisumu on Lake Victoria where we want to build a special-needs center for children with physical and cognitive disabilities.
Shosho (Grandma) Mary went with me. Kisumu is a quiet town, a smaller city than Nairobi with less pollution, less crime, less chaos. It’s really green and lush, quite tropical near the lake. When you leave by air, you fly over Lake Victoria, the largest freshwater lake in Africa. It’s amazing to see.
Kisumu town is filled with more bicycles than cars – more so than Santa Barbara or any beach town in California! It’s cool to see. These bicycles are called boda-bodas. They have cushions with tassles on the rear for carrying passengers. You can pay like 20 cents and they taxi you around town. But Shosho and I didn’t feel like being hit by a car just then, so we opted out.
Plans for the special-needs center are coming together. Apparently there’s a waiting list of 640 identified special needs children in Kisumu, needing a place to learn, grow, and be loved. We’re hoping to provide that place.
apple carts
Missionaries Barnabas and Paul were nomadic. Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Syria… their itinerary goes on and on.
I can relate.
Being nomadic for non-nomads by birth is not the easiest though.
I catch myself having internal tantrums. Tantrums over cold showers, non-flushing toilets, air pollution, no electricity. Would these people enter the 21st century please! my head screams. Every new place has new sounds and so your sleep is stolen from you until you manage to adjust or become so exhausted that you must sleep.
I’m listening to Derek Webb sing “I hate everything but You…” I could sing that to God right now.
The nomadic life is constant movement, upsetting the neatly arranged apple cart of a life I’ve set up, then carefully rearranging in another place. Living out of a suitcase.
Shosho Mary says that I/we must “lean into” the culture instead of resisting it. Yes. Lean into...
Apple carts are made for movement, that’s why they’re made with wheels.
many hardships
“We must go through many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God,” they (Paul & Barnabas) said.
Acts 14:22
The “many hardships” Paul and Barnabas talk about are different for everyone. Near death by rock throwers and constant death threats were on their lists.
My list so shallow in comparison.
God always gives perspective in His word. My hardships are by-proxy sufferings, entering into the suffering of others…
Thanks for entering in with me.
April 9, 2007
children’s villages
the tea plantation miracle
a happily ever-after tale
A local tea company with an international demand approached New Life Homes after scouring the country, searching for the glass slipper, the perfect fit – the right children’s home to propose to. We are, as it turns out, their Cinderella.
The tea company owners are a husband and wife team. The wife felt pressed to do something about the Kenyan orphans, so this is what they have proposed:
The donation of 4 acres of land (to start) on their tea, flower, and tree plantation to create children’s villages where our children who are not adopted can grow up in families of 8 to 10 children with house parents.
The plantation is a self-contained community in which 16,000 people live and work. There’s a hospital on the plantation where our children will receive free medical treatment. The New Life children who excel in school will have full rides to university. The other children will have the choice of trade colleges or working on the plantation. Every child will have a secure future. As the children become adults, we will build houses on the plantation for them! All of this is no cost to New Life. We are simply to oversee the running, operation, maintenance, etc. of this grand God plan!
In 2008, we will hopefully begin by building 4 houses for 10 children each. Then we will grow from there.
Isn't this great news? We're all really excited and in awe of this news. I feel as if I've witnessed a modern-day miracle.
All of the orphans within our care, will be taken care of.
God has their backs.
death notices
One of my friends came into our office last week, put her head down on her desk and sobbed. Her brother had been in Kenyatta Hospital for the last month struggling with various “undiagnosed” health problems, or so she told us. So we’d been praying for his recovery, not knowing that he was in the last stages of AIDS.
Even in the work that we do, she kept his HIV status hidden. There’s such a stigma and shame attached to this disease.
My friend at the embassy says there are “death notices” practically every week. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, passing away from AIDS. Every someone here knows someone who’s sick and dying. And now I do, too. Numbers have names. They’re my friends and I see their grief, and as best I can, share in it with them.
Our office has been in mourning.
Tomorrow, we’ll go to his funeral two hours upcountry.
language learning
Nduro.
Nyayo.
How would you say those words?
I try to pronounce these words. The office erupts in laughter. They want me to say it again, so they can laugh harder. Guess I pronounce the "n" too hard. What's it there for, I think, if you're not going to pronounce it?
The humble task of language learning. It's a sport for 2-5 year olds, not "grown ups" like me. It's good to be laughed at though, keeps the ego down.
pleading
I will spend next week on Lamu Islands where the rate of incest and sexual exploitation of children is high. Remember, this is the location where we have a “Crisis Room” within our facility – a place where children who have suffered abuse can find temporary care and respite from the trauma.
We’ll be talking to teachers and caregivers about how such trauma impacts the normal development of children.
“There must be a pleading on the part of God’s people all over the world that the (abandonment), raping and killing of these children be stopped. If our hearts do not cry out for mercy upon them, and if our hearts are not burdened by the reality of their lives, then we are a people whose hearts have grown stony and cold. It is time to bend the knee and humbly ask the Lord to take out the old stony heart and create in us a new heart of love.”
- David High, Children in Crisis
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh."
- Ezekiel 36:26
“Mark 10:13 says, ‘People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them…’ May it be said of our generation at the end of the age, that they brought the little children to Jesus.
the tea plantation miracle
a happily ever-after tale
A local tea company with an international demand approached New Life Homes after scouring the country, searching for the glass slipper, the perfect fit – the right children’s home to propose to. We are, as it turns out, their Cinderella.
The tea company owners are a husband and wife team. The wife felt pressed to do something about the Kenyan orphans, so this is what they have proposed:
The donation of 4 acres of land (to start) on their tea, flower, and tree plantation to create children’s villages where our children who are not adopted can grow up in families of 8 to 10 children with house parents.
The plantation is a self-contained community in which 16,000 people live and work. There’s a hospital on the plantation where our children will receive free medical treatment. The New Life children who excel in school will have full rides to university. The other children will have the choice of trade colleges or working on the plantation. Every child will have a secure future. As the children become adults, we will build houses on the plantation for them! All of this is no cost to New Life. We are simply to oversee the running, operation, maintenance, etc. of this grand God plan!
In 2008, we will hopefully begin by building 4 houses for 10 children each. Then we will grow from there.
Isn't this great news? We're all really excited and in awe of this news. I feel as if I've witnessed a modern-day miracle.
All of the orphans within our care, will be taken care of.
God has their backs.
death notices
One of my friends came into our office last week, put her head down on her desk and sobbed. Her brother had been in Kenyatta Hospital for the last month struggling with various “undiagnosed” health problems, or so she told us. So we’d been praying for his recovery, not knowing that he was in the last stages of AIDS.
Even in the work that we do, she kept his HIV status hidden. There’s such a stigma and shame attached to this disease.
My friend at the embassy says there are “death notices” practically every week. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, passing away from AIDS. Every someone here knows someone who’s sick and dying. And now I do, too. Numbers have names. They’re my friends and I see their grief, and as best I can, share in it with them.
Our office has been in mourning.
Tomorrow, we’ll go to his funeral two hours upcountry.
language learning
Nduro.
Nyayo.
How would you say those words?
I try to pronounce these words. The office erupts in laughter. They want me to say it again, so they can laugh harder. Guess I pronounce the "n" too hard. What's it there for, I think, if you're not going to pronounce it?
The humble task of language learning. It's a sport for 2-5 year olds, not "grown ups" like me. It's good to be laughed at though, keeps the ego down.
pleading
I will spend next week on Lamu Islands where the rate of incest and sexual exploitation of children is high. Remember, this is the location where we have a “Crisis Room” within our facility – a place where children who have suffered abuse can find temporary care and respite from the trauma.
We’ll be talking to teachers and caregivers about how such trauma impacts the normal development of children.
“There must be a pleading on the part of God’s people all over the world that the (abandonment), raping and killing of these children be stopped. If our hearts do not cry out for mercy upon them, and if our hearts are not burdened by the reality of their lives, then we are a people whose hearts have grown stony and cold. It is time to bend the knee and humbly ask the Lord to take out the old stony heart and create in us a new heart of love.”
- David High, Children in Crisis
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove from you your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh."
- Ezekiel 36:26
“Mark 10:13 says, ‘People were bringing little children to Jesus to have Him touch them…’ May it be said of our generation at the end of the age, that they brought the little children to Jesus.
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