Ordinary Days

Sagana Rafting

2010-05-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

Back in January my pastor called me and another minister into his office to discuss the youth group at Loresho Church. He wanted us to look at the structure of the youth program and come up with some new ideas. “Youth” in the PCEA means anyone between the ages of 14-35 who is unmarried, so it encompasses a wide range of people: some teenagers, some university students, and some young professionals. Ultimately, we decided to break this into three sub-groups: teens, 19-25 year olds, and 26-35 year olds. From there, we needed to find out what each age-group needs from the church… the best way to do that? Get together for a retreat. So, in mid-April we all piled into a bus and headed to the Tana River for a white-water adventure!

We started off with a safety talk to prepare us for the journey, as our river guides explained the equipment and the plans for the day. Anyone who couldn’t swim was given a white helmet for easy spotting, and we headed out. We spent the day rafting Class 3, 4, and 5 rapids and were even allowed to swim through one of the smaller ones (luckily crocodiles don’t like white water). The weather was perfect, and we returned to camp for a barbeque. We spent the evening together in Bible study and good conversation and only managed to go to bed when the lights were turned out on us. We all woke up Sunday morning to have worship by the river and then spent time discussing our plans for the rest of the year. It was a great time of fun and fellowship when we were able to share our faith and ideas with one another and to enjoy the beauty of God’s good creation.

Some Favorite VBS Photos...

2010-05-03T00:46:00.000-07:00

Mambo Sawa Sawa

2010-04-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

This past week, Thindigua Parish hosted a Vacation Bible School for over 400 children and young adults! Each morning we began with a time of praise and worship, followed by a brief devotion. Here is a short video to share part of the joy and energy that this time brought to each day!

The words of the song are:

Mambo sawa sawa. Mambo sawa sawa. Yesu akiwa enzini. Mambo sawa sawa. Mambo sawa sawa.

Things are already better. Things are already better. When the Lord is on the throne, things already better. Things already better.

This song has been a powerful testimony to me since I first came to Kenya in 2006. It continues to remind me of God's presence in our lives and God's victory over the brokenness we know in this world. We live in God's kingdom here and now, and that gives us the hope and strength to continue working and praying for God's kingdom to come quickly!

Holiday Programme

2010-04-15T02:50:00.001-07:00

April is a busy month here in Nairobi. This is largely due to the fact that all of the primary and secondary school students are on holiday. Instead of closing for 3 consecutive months in the summer, Kenyan schools close in April, August, and December. Last week Loresho Church hosted a holiday programme for children age 3-12, so the church was filled with sounds of laughter and song. The older children spent the week learning to crochet and studying what it means to be "Rooted and Built Up in Christ."

Personally, I volunteered to spend the week with the 3-6 year olds, so we spent our time coloring giraffes and kangaroos, singing Father Abraham, playing "Walk on Water," and generally having a good time! Wednesday we took the entire group on a trip to Kikuyu town to visit one of the first PCEA churches established in Kenya. Friday we ended the week with a "Culture Evening," where children presented information about their various tribes. Each presentation included traditional foods eaten, interesting facts, and how to say God is good in the language. We heard from the Luo, Kikuyu, Kipsigis, Meru, Luhya, and many more. We even heard about a strange community called Darlington in a place named South Carolina where they do something called the Shag :)

What Golf Course?

2010-03-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

It is truly by God’s grace that I manage to get anywhere, and I had a good reminder on Wednesday that I never know quite as much as I think I do…

It all began Wednesday morning at 8:00 am. I left my apartment to head to a meeting in Thindigua about 30 km outside of Nairobi. I was running a little late, so I tried a shortcut that worked out perfectly, and I made it right on time! I arrived feeling quite pleased with myself and my navigational skills.

We were meeting to plan for the Vacation Bible School that Thindigua Parish will be hosting the last week of April. There has been an overwhelming response from the community in terms of support and registration, so we all felt greatly encouraged. I was pretty excited when the meeting ended on time, because I had planned to have lunch with a friend of mine who lives nearby. The pastor gave me a lift, and I confidently told him to drop me off in Muthaiga. I walked toward the shopping center where we had agreed to meet and called my friend, Lisa, to tell her I was there. She offered to come and meet me, so I waited.

A couple of minutes later my phone rang, and it was Lisa saying that she was also there. I couldn’t see her, so I walked out to the road.

A few more minutes and another phone call:
Can you see the matatus?
Yes, I see some matatus.
Which side of the road are you on? Let me come over there.

I walked toward the matatu stage thinking she must be near it.

My phone rings again:
What else are you see?
I am near the golf course.
Golf course? What golf course?
Muthaiga Golf Course.

At that point Lisa realized that I was in Muthaiga not Muthĩga, and began laughing hysterically. We were looking for each other on opposite sides of town!

Now, in my defense, both words sound like mu-thê-ga to me, but everyone else seems to know the difference. I eventually made it to Lisa’s house for a delicious lunch... and learned about a whole new part of town in the process!

I Like Bread

2010-03-15T02:38:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday was an exciting day at Loresho Community Church and part of that excitement included Holy Communion. During the service, I happened to have a six year old girl, Nati, on my lap. She is a child I have grown quite fond of over the past few months, so we whispered and giggled as the people around us prepared for the sacrament through song. As the minister invited us to the Table, she began a new conversation:

“Do you eat that bread?” she asked me.

“Yes, I eat that bread.” I replied, a little amused.

“I like bread,” she told me quite matter-of-factly, “all types of bread.”

As the elders began to distribute the bread and the wine, I took a piece. Nati looked at it and asked “Can we share it?”

I let her break the small wafer in two, and we each took half.

Sometimes it takes a child’s commentary for me to remember the basic premise of the Lord’s Supper. In all of the holy mystery of the sacrament, there is bread. Ordinary, everyday bread: the stuff we eat for breakfast or take with tea, the stuff that we all need to sustain and nourish us. I agree with Nati: I like bread. All types of bread, and it is always better when it is shared.

Wedding Festivities

2010-03-05T00:44:00.000-08:00

Weddings are a part of life no matter where in the world you are living. They bring with them joy, excitement, laughter, and friends. It is beautiful to watch as people commit their lives to God and one another, as they promise to walk together through whatever may come. Weddings also bring with them the particular customs and traditions of the people getting married, and it has been great fun to learn new ways of celebrating the gift of marriage!

A couple of weekends ago, I was privileged to join two very dear friends at their gurariũ. A gurariu is a Kikuyu pre-wedding party (think an engagement party with a twist). The celebration took place at the home of the bride’s parents, and it was full of food, speeches, laughter, and fellowship. My favorite part (the aforementioned “twist”) came after lunch and a number of speeches when I had still not seen the bride. I began to wonder where she was and asked a nearby friend. “Don’t worry,” he replied, “she will come when it is time.” Pretty soon after that, an older woman went into the house and led out a line of women, each completely covered from head to toe. They were all around the same size and height and they all stood in a row before the groom. It was then his task to “choose his bride” from the line-up. I watched the groom walk up and down the line looking for his bride, as the guests waited for his choice. Luckily, he chose correctly, and his beloved was uncovered. I was later told that she has worn a distinct color of toenail polish to give him a clue, but even her feet had been covered! I can only imagine how nervous they both were in front of all of their friends and family!

After the groom chose correctly, both families went into the house for negotiations and returned later to announce their success!! We all celebrated with cake, sodas, and lots of singing!

Maisha Tu

2010-02-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

One of the exciting things about living in another culture is the novelty that fills each day. There are new languages to learn, different customs to understand, and, of course, distinct foods to try. Even ordinary tasks seem more adventurous because they are done away from home. After a certain amount of time, however, the novelty begins to wear off. Occurrences that startled or amused or frustrated at first begin to seem quite ordinary and expected. Lately, I have found myself in exactly that place where life is life, in all of its ordinary sacredness. So I find myself just living: creating routines, going to work, having dinner with friends, drinking tea, and building relationships. It is a gift to share life with people around the world, to realize each day that what connects us as human beings is stronger than those things we allow to divide us from one another.

In honor of this, I want to share with you some of the amusing and/or frustrating things that I regularly encounter:

Riding in a bus clearly marked for 14 people with 22 other passengers (not counting children, live chickens, or bags or maize)
Discussing the pros, cons, and theological implications of polygamy on a regular basis.
Eating a goat kidney like a kebab.
Getting stuck in a traffic jam for nearly an hour and realizing at the end that it was a herd of cows blocking the road
Dowry negotiations. I have been told that this is not buying a wife; it is a sign of respect. (It still sounds like buying a wife to me)
Going to the park and having a bag of peanuts stolen by a very aggressive monkey
Riding through a very nice neighborhood (think of Buckhead) and seeing a camel (or another herd of cows) on the side of the road
Being called Roline, Lorraine, Loreen, Loline, because Lauren is very hard to pronounce.
Sitting through a 3 hour worship service in Kikuyu (a language I still can't completely follow). My favorite part is always the Lord's Prayer which makes me feel safe and at home whenever it is prayed.

I don’t write this list to perpetuate stereotypes or generalizations, only to share with you some of the diversity that makes life beautiful and interesting. Each day we have the opportunity to encounter a piece of this diversity as we interact with one another.

Advent: Urgent Waiting

2009-12-11T01:43:00.000-08:00

Three Sundays ago began the season of Advent, the season of waiting before the birth of the Christ-child. Normally, this means a season filled with shopping, Christmas decorations, Advent wreaths, Santa Claus, poinsettias, carols, and liturgical color changes: my waiting is filled with doing and buying. The ironic thing is that all of the traditions and decorations fail to create in my heart the urgent desire for Christ’s coming. That doesn’t mean I love the Christmas season any less, but my waiting doesn’t usually focus on the coming of Jesus. Here in Nairobi, Advent feels a little different: the weather is hot, decorations are few, and the Church does not celebrate in the same manner, so I find myself waiting for the season to begin.
In response to the lack of Advent festivities, some of the volunteers and I created our own Advent wreath out of recycled materials: bottle caps, cardboard, and Safaricom phone cards. We hold our own candle-lighting services where we sing and pray and await the coming of Christ. It has become one of my favorite times of each week. Two Sundays ago we read Isaiah 11:1-9, we lit the Peace candle, and we talked of places where we have seen God’s peace breaking into the world.
Monday morning brought a rude awakening for me. I attended the launch of Picha Mtaani, a youth led initiative to promote dialogue and reconciliation in communities across the nation. On display in downtown Nairobi was an exhibition of photos from the post-election violence that ravaged Kenya in late 2007 and early 2008. The photos captured police brutality, charred shops, violent mobs, and tearful survivors. The exhibition is a graphic depiction of the worst that we as human beings can do to one another, and it offers a moving and disturbing cry for the peace that Yahweh promises where hurt and destruction will be no more. No more pangas, no more IDP camps, no more stones, no more tear gas. All of a sudden, the urgency of our need overwhelmed me, and the waiting seemed too much to bear. We need peace- real, sustainable, holistic peace. We need Christ to be born in our lives and in our world this day! As Advent continues, it is Christ alone for whom I urgently wait, and I thank God that this time of waiting can be filled with the shared work of peacebuilding here and now.

If you are interested in the exhibition, here is the website:
http://pichamtaani.com/home

Baskets of Grace

2009-12-04T01:47:00.001-08:00

After rafting last weekend in Uganda, my friend Josh and I planned to stop in Kisumu on the return trip and spend sometime with our dear friend Anselm at his ancestral home. This is where he grew up and went to school; it is where his mother, sister, and niece still live. Because of some bus complications, our planned arrival at 10 pm Sunday night was delayed until 6:00 am Monday morning (loooong story). When we finally reached Kisumu around sunrise, Anselm met us in town, and we made the hour long journey to his home together. We walked up, up a ridge to his home where we were warmly greeted with smiles, embraces, and a beautiful mixture of languages. We had never met Anselm’s family, yet they embraced us as though we had always belonged with them. We were quickly welcomed in for a breakfast of roasted maize, bread, honey, sweet bananas, and tea. Everything had already been prepared for us by our hosts, and it was a delicious end to a long journey.
After breakfast, Anselm showed us where we could sleep, but I chose to sit outside with him and his family instead. The sun was warm, and we sat in the grass as his mother wove a basket nearby. The late morning brought with it a brief thunderstorm, so we gathered inside and listened to the sounds of the rain. For lunch, we had ugali and sukumawiki (my favorite Kenyan meal) and washed the dishes out in the front yard.
In the afternoon, we visited nearby relatives (uncles, aunts, and cousins) and were warmly welcomed into each home. Later, we climbed to the top of the highest ridge, looked out over the entire valley, and glimpsed Lake Victoria in the distance. When we returned from our hike, it was nearly time to head to Nairobi, but Mama Anselm insisted that we take supper first. She had already prepared a dinner of chicken stew and rice, which we happily ate. As we then stood to leave, she presented us with the beautiful basket that she had woven earlier in the day and proceeded to fill it with fresh pineapples, sweet bananas, and ground nuts to sustain us on the rest of our journey. She then said a prayer over us in Luo, and though I could not understand her words, I felt both embraced and protected by her care. I said thank you many times, but it hardly felt like an adequate response.
Throughout the day, I wondered: What have I done nothing to deserve such gracious hospitality, how can I accept it? There have been times in my life when grace seemed an abstract concept, yet at Mama Anselm’s, it became a tangible reality: Grace is a warm welcome; it is hospitality; it is woven baskets and fresh pineapple and roasted maize. Grace is walking up a mountain in the sunlight; it is a prayer for protection spoken over us. Grace is a Table that is already prepared at the end of a long journey. I am thankful for the reality of Divine grace felt in the embrace of Mama Anselm.

Rafting the Nile

2009-12-03T03:36:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, I could not spend Thanksgiving with my family in South Carolina, so I decided to do something equally exciting: whitewater rafting at the source of the Nile River! It was a day full of laughter, excitement, and moments that felt completely surreal… I kept looking around and could hardly believe that I was whitewater rafting... on the Nile! We managed to avoid the dangers of the infamous Nile hippos and crocodiles, but we didn’t fare quite so well on the grade 5 rapids. Our boat flipped on 3 out of 4 of them, so everyone spent a lot of time swimming through the rapids (except for our guide who suspiciously managed to stay on top of the boat laughing at us most of the time). We spent almost all day on the river, and ended the festivities with a sunset barbeque back at the campground. It was a great time of fun and fellowship, and definitely worth the thirteen hour bus ride from Nairobi to Jinja, Uganda!

**Photos are courtesy of Josh and his waterproof camera.

November Update

2009-11-26T04:13:00.000-08:00

Greetings to you all! I have been back in Kenya for a little more than two months now. My time here has felt both strange and familiar, as I have gotten reacquainted with the sights, sounds, smells, foods, and customs of this place. I have joyfully partaken in eating ugali, fresh mangoes, and nyama choma again, patiently (most of the time) relearned the techniques for hand-washing my clothes in a soap-filled bucket, and laughingly attempted to join those around me dancing in worship.
The past two months have begun a busy and Spirit-filled journey, and I have been blessed by amazing people and opportunities: I have preached my first sermon, participated in a wedding, led worship at the All Africa Council of Churches, helped baptize 17 babies (in one service), visited schools and hospitals, and taken countless cups of chai. Whenever I think that I should be in a hurry to get somewhere or do something, I am reminded to sit down and take some tea first. This past Sunday morning, I arrived at church ready to preach in the English worship service, but I needed to print out my sermon notes. I found the pastor, and after exchanging greetings, he asked if I had taken breakfast. “Well, kind of, but I can eat something later.” I responded. “Sit down and take some tea, then we will go,” he said. There was no arguing with him, so I sat down, and by the time we had finished our tea, worship was beginning. I took a deep breath, and we made our way to the sanctuary. The sermon was probably better without the notes anyway.
A large part of my calling and service here involves taking the time to listen to the voices of the people I encounter, it means letting myself be shaped and challenged by perspectives and experiences different than my own. One particular moment that I would like to share with you all occurred during an Elder Training workshop in Kiambu parish. The pastor was giving a presentation on Presbyterian polity and the reasons that we have elders who lead the church. He explained to the new session members, “If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, we go together.” I have thought back to this statement many times when I sit and take tea, when I spend half an afternoon waiting for someone, when worship services last well beyond three hours because so many people are given a chance to speak, sing, or pray. We go together. It is a belief embodied by both the church and community: we eat together; we take tea together; we pray together; sometimes we move at a frustratingly slow pace, but we move together. We take the time to listen and connect with one another because we need each other. We discern the way forward together, because the Wisdom of the gathered community is greater than that of any one individual. The Spirit lives and moves among us when we gather together as one body.

As I continue to learn, grow, and serve here, I am thankful for all of the support, encouragement, cards, emails, and prayers that I have received from you. It is a gift to be a part of such a loving community. Have a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving holiday!

Grace and peace,
Lauren

Restoration

2009-11-24T04:52:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the annual presbytery convention in Kiambu. It was a huge, festive occasion that began Friday morning and ended late Sunday afternoon. We spent three days dancing, praying, singing, studying, and listening for the Word together. Rev Scott Weimer came all the way from North Ave Presbyterian Church in Atlanta to preach for the 3 day convention. The theme was taken from Lamentations 5:21 - Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored.

My favorite part of the weekend was a Bible study that took place on Saturday morning. The entire gathering broke into small groups to read and discuss Lamentations 5. I joined the youth Bible study with others aged 18-35. As we read the words of the exilic community, I was struck by the way they reflect much of what can be seen here in Kenya: land that has been taken by foreigners, young boys staggering under heavy loads, children orphaned by violence and disease, water that is scarce or unavailable, famine, rape, corrupt leaders. It is like the author of Lamentations picked up the Daily Nation newspaper and transcribed its contents into our Scripture. I wondered what would be said about the passage; I wondered how my Kenyan friends and colleagues would react to the words of lament. As usual, I was challenged by the persistent hope of the gathered community.
The Bible study was not mournful; it did not focus on injustice or alienation. We talked of hope, of restoration, of justice. We talked about the ways that the Church must turn toward God by turning toward the world, by caring for creation, by recognizing the interdependence of all things. We talked about the preservation of the Mau forest, about youth empowerment, about water projects and access to higher education. I heard through our time together about the many ways God is already at work restoring the world through this community. For our context, we defined restoration as “bringing back.” We talked of God bringing us back to a place where we can again see the interconnectedness of our lives and our world. We talked of God restoring to us those aspects of our humanity that have been distorted by selfishness and alienation, and God restoring all of creation to its intended purpose. We acknowledged that the Church lives and acts as a sign of hope in the world, until the day when all of creation is restored.

We had a good time of discussion and reflection that took seriously the issues faced by the Kenyan church today, but it took just as seriously the Spirit’s ongoing work of renewal. I am thankful for the voice in Lamentations that cries out to God in the midst of despair, and I am thankful for the church here that hopes and prays and dances on the Way toward restoration.

Kenya vs Nigeria

2009-11-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from this past Saturday when the Kenyan soccer team competed against the Nigerian team in a qualifying match for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The game started at 4:00 pm, so I left Westlands with some friends around 11:30 am to make sure that we were there in plenty of time. The energy in downtown Nairobi was infectious: the air was full of laughter, music, and excitement. Everywhere I looked there were Kenyan jerseys, flags were flying from car and matatu windows, and people were decked out in the national colors. Strangers were shouting their support to each other across the traffic…it felt like everyone was ready for the game! We ended up losing 2-3, and Nigeria qualified for the World Cup, but we had a great time anyway!

A Sacramental Weekend

2009-11-10T01:43:00.001-08:00

I knew when I left Nairobi Friday afternoon that it was going to be a good weekend: the sun was shining, the traffic was light, and the matatu music was loud. Nicole and I traveled up to Gatundu to join some of the teachers from Icaciri Sec School for 3 kgs of nyama choma (roasted meat) and a night of fun. The meat-eating festivities were quickly followed by a rousing game of Go Fish and a great deal of dancing both to Kikuyu music and Michael Jackson. Saturday morning I woke early to the sound of a persistent rooster and went to have chai with the kitchen staff members. Afterwards, I was able to spend some time with the Form 4 students who are preparing to leave school when they finish their exams on Tuesday. The students at Icaciri have taught me much about how to dance, laugh, speak Kiswahili, walk with style, talk about boys, and share my faith, so I was immensely thankful for the chance to sit and share this special time with them. The morning was as full of laughter and dancing as the previous night.
At around 1 pm, it was off to Banana with some new friends for a wedding reception. Now, I had never met the bride or groom before, but upon our arrival, we were immediately whisked to the front of the venue and given seats among the members of the wedding party. So much for trying to blend into the crowd. During a series of very long speeches, Nicole and I decided to spend some time with the many children gathered around and asked if they wanted to learn a dance. They enthusiastically agreed, so we all practiced doing the Chicken Dance together - I am still laughing at the image in my mind.
Sunday was another early morning, as I headed to Kiambu to preach in the English worship service at Kangoya PCEA. I must admit that I was more than “a bit” nervous, since this was my first time preaching in Kenya, and I doubted whether I had anything relevant to say. As I looked out at the congregation during the Scripture readings, a strange thing happened, one of those moments of revelation: I realized again that preaching is not about what I say; it is about what the Spirit says in and through me. I was nervous because no one in the sanctuary looked like me or sounded like me, but as we stood to sing a hymn, it became clear that we are connected to one another. We all share this gift of life, and we all rely on God’s gracious love. It is a humbling gift to stand and proclaim the Word of God, to speak the good news of our faith, and I pray that I never lose that feeling of nervousness. Later in the service, we celebrated Communion, the physical manifestation of God’s life-affirming grace, and I was glad to be at the Table with the men and women of Kiambu. I thought over the entire weekend and the many sacred, sacramental moments I had experienced: over a plate of nyama choma, walking barefoot in the grass, taking hot chai in the cold morning, holding the hand of a child, and sharing a hug, a story, a laugh. The weekend was filled with ordinary occurrences, yet it was infused with the sacredness that comes when we share ourselves with one another.
I ended Sunday night by eating chapati pizzas in the kitchen with my roommates and watching a bootleg version of High School Musical 3. What could be better?

Lights Please!!

2009-11-03T00:35:00.000-08:00

Beginning on Sunday evening around 6:30 pm, the power went out all over Kenya: Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Kericho, all of the urban centers were thrown into darkness. This is apparently due to a "technical" problem at the Aggreko power station. By Monday morning most of the power was back on and work resumed as usual... until 11:00 am when the power went down again and remained off until late Monday night. Now it is Tuesday morning, the power was on at 6:00 am but has currently gone out 3 times since I arrived at work around 9:00. Each time it remains out long enough to shut down everything in the office.

Some of you are probably surprised that this annoys me. I am not very particular about time management or efficiency. I would rather have a good conversation than finish a report. I have learned as much from long car rides, walks any and everyhwere, and late night discussions as I have in any classroom. I believe that sitting with someone can offer more healing than trying to solve their problems. Pretty much, I like to just "be" whether with friends and family, a cup of chai, a good book, or a patch of grass.

However, yesterday when I had a report to finish, a sermon to write, meetings to attend, and emails to answer, I was not so content to just "be" all day long. I grew tired of listening to stories and wanted to get back to work. Haha. Apparently God (aka Kenya Power and Lighting) had other plans, and they seem to include disrupting today as well. As I sit and type now, I am thankful for this reminder that my life is not defined by my schedule or my to do list. I do not really believe that God causes power outages, but I do believe that I can learn something from my reaction to them.

St.Andrews Womens Guild

2009-11-01T03:03:00.000-08:00

This is a video from the worship service for Fellowship of the Least Coin. I have been trying to upload it for over two weeks, and it finally worked! The St.Andrew's Womens Guild performed a Kikuyu folk song based on the story of Esther. Even if you can't understand the words, enjoy the music and energy of the song!

Intercessory Prayer

2009-10-23T01:11:00.000-07:00

One: Creating, Redeeming, and Sustaining God, you are known by many names and peoples. We appeal to you now, on behalf of ourselves and the communities we represent:

One: God of the North, South, East, and West, for a world divided along lines of race, ethnicity, class, and religion;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Pain-bearer, for women and girls around the world who are told they are useless and unworthy;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Footwasher, for boys and men around the world who are told they must dominate and abuse those they love;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Author of Wisdom, for children who are denied access to education and opportunity;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Earth-maker, for the good creation that we have exploited and contaminated,
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Fountain of Living Water, for those who struggle to survive not knowing where they will find food or clean water;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Proclaimer of Good News, for the media that portrays women as sex objects and men as criminals,
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Life Giver, for communities and individuals who seek relationships of dominance instead of mutuality;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Sharer of Bread, for those who hoard the abundance you have created, impoverishing themselves and those around them;
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Prince of Peace, for the violence that destroys communities, ends life, defiles innocence, and sheds blood,
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

One: Great Healer, for all of those who are tortured by militaries, poverty, disease, and pain,
Many: Lord, hear our prayer.

Many: Lord, all of creation groans for the redemption you have promised. Lord, come quickly and urgently into this world. Lord, come quickly. Lord, come. Amen.

Fellowship of the Least Coin

2009-10-19T02:40:00.000-07:00

The Fellowship of the Least Coin is an organization that I had never heard of until recently when I attended a meeting to plan for their arrival in Nairobi. Later I was asked to help write the liturgy for their opening worship service, and I gladly agreed. As I have learned about this ecumenical women’s movement, I have been amazed at the power of faithful and persistent prayer when it is combined with acts of justice and mercy. The FLC began in 1956 with one woman's prayers for healing during a time of war, and it has grown into a network of thousands of women from various countries and denominations who commit themselves to pray for justice and reconciliation in the world. With each prayer, they set aside the ‘least coin’ of their currency as an offering. It is important that it be the 'least coin' so that women from any economic background are able to participate. These offerings are then sent to a central office and used to fund projects that provide emergency relief, empower women and children in marginalized communities, and support ecumenical solidarity throughout the world. Grant recipients can be found in communities on every continent including many here in Kenya.

Sunday at St.Andrew's PCEA, the International Committee for the Fellowship of the Least Coin gathered to celebrate their opening worship. This gathering brought together fifteen women from around the world as well as nearly five hundred (mostly) women from in and around Nairobi. We sang traditional hymns, danced to Kiswahili choruses of praise, prayed and laughed together, committed ourselves anew to work for justice and reconciliation, and honored five extraordinary Kenyan women who have committed their lives to empowering those around them. Rev Phyllis Byrd-Ochilo preached a powerful sermon based on the story of Elijah and the widow (1 Kings 17:7-16) calling all of us to recognize the miracles that are worked when we offer whatever we have to the service of God and one another. It was a beautiful time of worship and prayer as well as a reminder of the power we have as women of faith when we gather together.

Prayer Request: Drought

2009-10-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, over the past few months Kenya has been experiencing a severe drought. In the most affected areas it has meant the loss of livestock (cows, camels, and goats) the loss of crops, and the loss of human life (both to starvation and cholera). Pastoralists are leaving their regions and travelling many kilometers to look for grazing land, even showing up along the roadways of the city.
For those of us in Nairobi, the drought has meant the rationing of water and electricity, and in many areas water is available only from Thurs-Sun. At first I did not understand why a drought would also mean rationing electricity, but soon came to learn that much of Kenya’s power is generated through hydroelectric plants. Therefore, the power is cut off on certain days as a conservation measure.
October normally begins the rainy seaston, and this weekend has brought the long needed rain to Central Province. Yet, even as the rainy season begins, I ask that you pray for the nation and people of Kenya as the effects of this drought continue to be felt in the months

A Wedding/ Bus Dedication/ Ordination Service

2009-10-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I again made my way to Kiambu parish where my good friend Rev Martin Mwangi serves as pastor in order to “attend” a wedding on Saturday and the elder ordination service on Sunday.

On Saturday, we left Kiambu at around 6:00 am to travel the 3+ hours “up-country” to Nyahururu where Martin previously served as parish minister. On the way, we made a brief stop in Gilgil to dedicate and bless a new school bus for a local primary school. Once we arrived at our destination, we were warmly greeted by many of Martin’s former parishioners and taken into the vestry to meet with the current pastor. Of course, I assumed that after we had greeted one another, I would go find a seat with the congregation while they prepared for the service. I should have known that was not going to happen. Instead, I was given a part in the service right along with Martin and Rev Muhia, despite the fact that I had yet to meet the bride and groom! As I joined the procession of men and women headed to the front of the sanctuary, I had to smile to myself at the situation: I would be doing an English reading from Genesis in an otherwise completely Kikuyu service and giving a short introductory speech about myself and my work with the PCEA. Thanks be to God, I know enough Kikuyu from my time in Gatundu to say hello, praise God, and then introduce myself. These introductions are always received with much laughter by those gathered. Approximately 3 hours of speeches, prayers, songs, Bible readings, and sermons later the wedding was over, and we made our way to the reception. Afterwards, we visited Thompson’s Falls, a beautiful waterfall, with Martin’s two daughters, Abigail and Wangui. We finally arrived back home in Kiambu around 9:30 pm, so we could get some sleep and prepare for the ordination service the next day.
Sunday morning I prepared to take part in the English worship service, only to be told that the preacher had not arrived, would I fill in? I began to panic! Don’t worry, Martin assured me, your sermon only has to be 20-30 minutes. Luckily, just as the worship was beginning, she walked through the door, and I started breathing again. I gladly took one of the Bible readings and made another short “speech.” When the English service ended at 10:15, we prepared for the Kikuyu service and the ordination that would take place. Each choir from the 8 congregations offered a song to celebrate the day along with many other groups. It was a beautiful service: the new elders were called forward to take their vows, then their spouses joined them, and the forty old elders surrounded them in a time of prayer. The entire weekend was a witness to the work that God is doing in and through the church here and to the embodied belief that we do not simply attend worship but participate with our whole selves (even when we feel completely unprepared).

Elder Training - Kiambu

2009-10-02T02:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was privileged to participate in the elder training at Kiambu Parish outside of Nairobi. One of the great things about the PCEA (Presbyterian Church of East Africa) is the amount of responsibility given to its elders. The men and women who sit on the session are not merely church leaders. In a parish like Kiambu with 8 churches and only 1 pastor, they are preachers, teachers, care-givers, worship leaders, and much more. The newly elected elders came together for a week of training under the care and supervision of Rev Martin Mwangi. They began Tuesday evening and continued each day until Saturday. By the time I arrived Friday evening, they had already covered church governance, pastoral care skills, theology of sacraments, and a host of other topics. It was exciting to see the ways that God is using and preparing these leaders for service in their communities.

I was surprised to see a number of younger men and women at the training, and I believe that the session here might be more balanced in terms of age and gender than many I know in the PCUSA. They have made a conscience choice to represent a diversity of people in their session, and during the training, each individual told their personal story. It was a wonderful way to hear the different voices and perspectives that will participate in leading the church in this place. All of those who were trained last week will be ordained this Sunday, October 4 in a joint service for all 8 congregations. I am sure it will be a day to celebrate. God is doing exciting things in Kiambu Parish, and I am glad to be a small part of them!

Contact Information

2009-10-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have been in Nairobi for a little over three weeks now, and I have begun to get settled and develop a routine. I am staying in an apartment in Westlands, Nairobi with a roommate, Nicole, and am able to receive mail at the church where I will be working.

Loresho Community Church
PO Box 23500-00625
Nairobi
Kenya

My phone number is:
011 254 729 925938
**Feel free to call or text, but remember that there is a 7 hour time difference!

I will post an update and some pictures in the next couple of days… looking forward to hearing from you!!

Loresho

2009-09-17T02:36:00.000-07:00

I have been back in Kenya a little over a week now, and it has busy time of seeing old friends, meeting new friends, and getting reoriented to life here in Nairobi.
I knew that I was definitely back in Kenya on Sunday when Rev Agola picked me up for worship at 8:00 am, and I did not return home until 6:30 that same evening. Before we even left the compound where I am staying, there was a problem with Rev Agola’s car: the battery was dead. Since no one had any jumper cables, he simply took the battery out of our friend Phyllis’ car and connected the two batteries with two metal tools. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see anyone electrocuted. To my great surprise it worked almost immediately, the car started, and we were on our way. We attended Loresho Community Church where Rev Agola is pastor. We sang, prayed, and worshipped together. Afterwards, there was lots of chai to drink and many new people to meet. I spent most of the afternoon with the pastor and his family in their home where we ate githeri, greeted church members, and, yes, took more chai. I am looking forward to everything this year will hold!

Safari Njema (Safe Journey)

2009-09-12T04:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks be to God!

I made it safely to Nairobi Wednesday night after 20+ hours travelling. It is good to be back here, and every moment has confirmed that this is exactly where God has called me to be at this time. Yesterday, I was able to go and visit Icaciri Secondary School where I served from 2006-2007 and was met by a chorus of shouting students. It was great to see kids that I left in Form 1 and 2 (9th and 10th grade) now ruling the school in Forms 3 and 4.

In the coming days, I look forward to meeting the people I will serve with in Loresho this year and to learning more about what God is doing in this place.

Peace be with you all!

May/June Newsletter

2007-06-29T02:17:00.000-07:00

The last two months, I have spent at school in Gatundu during the middle of Kenyan winter. “Winter” basically means that the temperature hovers around the mid-sixties, but everyone dresses in scarves, heavy jackets, and wool caps. Kids walk around with their entire faces covered! I have to laugh sometimes, but I must admit that 65 feels a lot cooler after being in the Kenyan sun for the past ten months, and I am often in a sweatshirt myself!
When we returned from Mombasa in May, we began a new term, my last one at Icaciri. It has been a term full of moments that are both ordinary and hilarious. I have woken up to the sound of drums coming from the church, stepped outside to see the matron sweeping the leaves off of the path to our home with a broom made of bigger leaves, and been stampeded by a group of primary school children all shouting "how are you? how are you?" as I walked by their school one afternoon. I have spent time sitting in the field on Sunday afternoons talking to our students, and laughed when one of my Form 2 girls, Jemimah, looked at me and said "Teacher, you have hair that is for a horse. My hair is for a human being!" One of their favorite activities these days is to imitate the way that Kari and I walk. Our students here never cease to make me laugh, though it is mostly at myself. At the same time, the past two months have been extremely eventful. The Icaciri handball team was second in Central Province, which is exciting because they had to compete against many schools that are more equipped and better funded. Our school had a "Prize-Giving Day" where they awarded all of the top students in the various grades, the athletes, and the prefects for their hard work. It was fun to see them rewarded for all of the work they put into school and to see their excitement about introducing us to their parents and siblings. Our soccer season both began and ended this term, as our team lost in the division finals last week. I even had a visit from Rebecca McRae, a good friend from W&L, which was amazing! It was so good to have her come, to share with her part of my life here, and to talk to her about her experiences in Tanzania where she was also volunteering this month. What a blessing it was to see her for the first time in almost a year!

Towards the middle of June, all of the volunteers that I am serving with in Kenya got together in Zanzibar for our final retreat. It was a time when we could all rest and hear about the different experiences people have had this year. It also gave me a chance to reflect on what my time here has meant and what it means to go home at the end of this month. When I left Darlington last August, I was leaving my home for a mostly unknown place. Now, as the time nears for me to return, I am leaving a place that has become my home and a community that has become a part of my family and a part of who I am. I have learned more about myself and my faith than I could ever have imagined a year ago. It has been a crazy journey over the past eleven months, but I know without a doubt that this is where God called me to be this year and that He has changed who I am and who I will be by my time here. I have come to a place where logic cannot take me any farther, where I cannot reconcile the brokenness of our world to the idea of a merciful God, and that is a good and a scary place to be, because it is a place where faith happens.

I came here with ideas of mission work as a partnership and those ideas have only been strengthened by my time here. I know now that our lives are bound to the lives of everyone else on this earth, that we are a part of a greater humanity. What that has come to mean is that I am not complete without other people, that I cannot be free until others are free. While we were in Zanzibar, we visited the slave dungeons just near the coast. They were the last stop before men and women from all over East and West Africa were shipped out to Europe, America, and the Middle East. We sat in the same rooms where people were held before being sold into captivity, we saw the tree where they were whipped to determine who was the "strongest" and therefore could fetch a higher price. Even while we were still there, thinking of the promise that never again would our world allow such an atrocity to rob a continent and a people of its strength and dignity, I remembered the bondage that still exists today. I saw the faces of girls who live in Korogocho slum, and the smile of a 7-year old dying of AIDS. I thought back to the street children sifting through piles of garbage in Nairobi, clinging desperately to bottles of glue that can dispel the hunger that plagues their days and nights. I thought of women who spend hours each day fetching water, and of girls in Mombasa who sell themselves into the sex trade because they don't have any other options. People who are not free to make decisions. When my own students get sent home for school fees every term, they are not choosing to end their educations; they are simply unable to continue because they are unable to afford secondary education. I have questioned God this year and have failed to find answers, until I realized that God does not always give answers, instead He gives Himself. Through a pain-filled sacrifice made by a man whose heart was broken by our brokenness, by our inhumanity towards one another, He gave Himself. And in those moments when we can ease the burden of someone else, or when we can allow them to ease ours, we come in contact with our Lord. As I prepare to return to the states in the next few weeks, I want to thank all of you for your continued support and encouragement throughout this year. Thank you for all of the cards, letters, and e-mails that have helped me to remember the wonderful community that I have across the globe. It has been such a blessing to serve here this year and I thank all of you who have gone on this journey with me.

Grace and peace to you all,
Lauren

An Arrested Morning

2007-06-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

So it turns out some of the police in Kenya aren't always so trustworthy...
One morning as we were on the way to a handball tournament in Makuyu, our school bus came across what appeared to be a routine road stop. Roadstops here, however, involve tire spikes and policemen armed with rifles at least 2 feet long. We came to a halt and one of the officers proceeded to inspect the bus. As he approached the window to speak with our driver, we realized something was amiss. The driver climbed down from the vehicle and began a discussion with the officer. Pretty soon, Kari and I got out of the bus as well to find out what the problem was. We discovered that the inspection sticker had expired the previous week and needed to be replaced. That seems simple enough, but oh no. The officer insisted on taking the driver and vehicle to the police station so he could write a bond. What?! We had 23 students on the bus who had a game to play! Eventually our two fellow teachers, Mr. Njenga and Ms. Kigia also alighted from the bus and joined the ongoing debate. As the discussion progressed, it became more and more heated with our teachers suggesting that we continue on the journey and bring the bus back after it dropped off the students and the officer refusing to allow the vehicle to move. As voices and tensions rose, it looked like the situations was going to turn ugly. All of the students unloaded themselves from the bus in the middle of a highway just in time to see one of the officers slap their teacher in the face and handcuff him. They then escorted Mr.Njenga to a waiting police lorry for "obstructing justice." All of our students were just shaking and many of the girls burst into tears. We later got Mr.Njenga back safely, and the girls won both of their games that day, but it was certainly a frightening way to begin the morning!
As it turns out, the officers were angry because the driver and teachers refused to give them a bribe to let us pass. Kenyan police are notorious for their corruption, and we got to see this firsthand, though hopefully it is not something we will have to witness again.

Congratulations Icaciri Handball

2007-05-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

Handball is a game that I had never even heard of until coming to Kenya, yet somehow I spent almost every weekend in May travelling throughout Central Province watching the Icaciri handball team compete. It turns out we are missing out one of the most exciting and fun-filled sports I have ever seen. Handball seems to be a mix of soccer and basketball: players get called for travelling like basketball, but the ball is thrown into a goal similiar to that used on a soccer field. The game is incredibly fast moving and the ball changes hands quite alot which adds to the energy of the play. Each game consists of two 25 minute halves and a 5 minute half-time. Beginning in March, the Icaciri team started competing in our local zone and managed to make their way to the provinical tournament held in Murang'a District. They beat out hundreds of other teams to play in the finals for Central Province and fell just one game short of going to the national tournament in Western Kenya! Congratulations to them!!

One of my favorite things about the handball team is their ability to smile and laugh their way through anything! Their journey this year wasn't an easy one, but they managed to surpass everyone's expectations because they work together in a way I have seldom seen. I can't help but adore the girls on this team from their captain, Cate, to Gikonyo, the lead scorer. (*Both shown in the picture above) They are amazing and the joy with which they go about every activity never fails to refresh and inspire my spirit.

April Newsletter

2007-04-28T08:50:00.001-07:00

I have come that all may have life and have it to the fullest.
John 10:10

The month of April has been nothing short of hilarious. It has been crazy and hectic, but also full of laughter and adventure! As in December, all of the Kenyan schools close for a month-long holiday and students go home to their families. This meant that the last weeks of March were filled with marking exams, filling out report forms, and saying goodbye to my students and my home for five weeks. As Kari and I left Icaciri, we prepared to go to Arusha, Tanzania where we thought we would be working this month. Little did we know what was in store for us. At 7:30 on the morning of April 11, we boarded a bus to Tanzania with only a business card and the vague idea that we would be working at Enaboishu Secondary School. Well arrive in Arusha we did, only to find out that the headmaster (whose business card we had been given) was out of town at a regional conference. We also quickly realized that the school to which we had been sent was a private school, fully staffed with teachers and 3 British volunteers to do any extra work. Not exactly what we were expecting! 3 days after arriving in Arusha, we boarded a bus back to Nairobi.
After the Arusha debaucle, I began to wonder if anything was going to work out or if we would spend the month of April wondering from place to place. Early Monday morning after our return, Kari and I met with a PCEA minister, Rev Harrison who recently moved to Nairobi from a church in Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. He assured us that he would find us a placement on the coast and let us know by the next day. True to his word, he contacted us Tuesday morning to say that everything was set, so Tuesday night we boarded an overnight bus to Mombasa with nothing but a name and a phone number to call once we arrived. I must say that by this point I was more than a little doubtful about the situation. As it turns out, this proved to be one of the best experiences I have had in Kenya. Kari and I lived with the Kamau family near Mtwapa and walked to work each day at the Shanzu Orphans Home (SOH) nearby. SOH is a beautiful place that houses 21 children from the ages of 2-15. One would normally think of an orphanage as a bleak, depressing place, but SOH is full of life and energy. Since the kids were also out of school for the holiday, we spent our time with them singing songs, teaching them the "Chicken Dance," and taking the older boys to the beach to play soccer. I think Kari and I had as much fun as the children!
Mombasa, as an area, is different than any other part of Kenya I have visited thus far, as it is bombarded every year with European tourists. This influx of people and money sets up a dynamic unlike any I have ever experienced. Aged German, Swiss, and British tourists walk hand-in-hand with beautiful young Kenyans, making child prostitution one of Mombasa's most lucrative ventures. As I looked at the children we worked and played with each day, it was horrifying to consider their options outside of SOH. I had a long talk with Baba Kamau one night about the sex trade on the coast and how poor children continue to fall victim to this gross exploitation. Our walk each day to SOH provided a perfect example of the conditions that allow such perversions to continually occur: just across the road from the luxurious beach resorts is a thatch-roofed village of shanty houses where the workers live with their families. The people in these homes do what it takes to survive.
As April began, my mind was a flurry of doubts and questions raised by much of what I have seen this year. Answers are not easy to find, but on April 7, something wonderful happened... Easter. I have begun to realize that all of the pain and suffering that we see in the world, all of the cries for justice, find their answer in the cross. The obscenity of a seven year old girl infected with HIV is reflected in the scandal of our crucified Lord. All of our suffering is heard in His cries.
I walked into worship Easter morning only half-believing that it would be any different than other Sundays. I left that morning knowing that pain cannot have the final word, because the cross is not the end. Easter dawns and with it dawns the promise that in the end, darkness will not prevail. The risen Christ offers us the healing and the redemption that we all so desperately need.

Our students sing a Swahili song that I think expresses this idea perfectly:

Mambo sawa sawa.
Mambo sawa sawa.
Yesu akiwa enzini.
Mambo sawa sawa.

Which in English translates:

Things are already better.
Things are already better.
When the Lord is on the throne,
Things are already better.

We live in a post-Easter world, our Lord is alive and on the throne, the healing has begun.

Peace to you all,
Lauren

Adventure Arusha

2007-04-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been so long since my last update, but the last few weeks have been nothing short of hilarious! April began with the end of first term and the closing of school for a month long holiday. For the first week, Kari and I stayed behind at Icaciri with our soccer team. Each day we made the trek from school to Mathare (part of Nairobi) for a tournament. Our girls made it to the quarter finals, but only because two of the three other teams in their pool forfeited... we didn't actually win any games, but we all had a great time anyway!
After the Mathare tournament, Kari and I stayed in Nairobi for a couple of days to meet with our coordinator about the next few weeks. On Thursday, April 9 at 7:30 am we boarded a bus for Arusha, Tanzania with only a business card and the vague promise that we would be working at a secondary school in the Arusha area. Well arrive in Arusha we did, only to find out that the headmaster (whose business card we had been given) was out of town at a regional conference. We also quickly realized that the school to which we had been sent was a private school, fully staffed with teachers and 3 British volunteers to do any extra work. Not exactly what we were expecting!
We called our site coordinator to inform her of the mix-up and to find out what other possibilities there were for us this April. So... exactly two days after we arrived in Tanzania to work for the month, we got back on an early morning bus and headed back to Kenya! Safely back in Nairobi, we met with a PCEA minister, Rev Harrison who told us about some work he had done in Mombasa, and a couple of days later we boarded an overnight bus to the coast with nothing but a name and a phone number to call when we arrived!
If nothing else, this month has been a continuous lesson in faith and flexibility. The past weeks have meant taking that first step (or bus ride) down a path you cannot see to a destination you do not know, but trusting nonetheless that our Lord will be there to guide you. And He has indeed been there each time and continues to guide each day that I serve here. God bless you all!

February Newsletter

2007-03-01T01:18:00.000-08:00

February has been another whirlwind month, and it seems like time is flying by these days. We began the month at school with the addition of about seventy Form 1 (freshmen) students who now make up about a quarter of the student body. I am teaching both biology and history to one of the classes, so my number of lessons each week has almost doubled. The students, themselves, however are wonderful. They are excited and enthusiastic about school, which has been a blessing and a huge encouragement for me. Anytime I ask my Form 1 class a question, immediately thirty hands go up waving wildly and echoes of "teacher! teacher!" fill the clasroom.

Much to my surprise, Valentine's Day was a huge deal to our students at Icaciri, and all of them showed up wearing red shirts underneath their blue uniforms. It was hilarious as girls lined up around the school bus hoping to receive a card or letter from a "special" friend. Kari and I made cards for all of the girls on our soccer team, and as I went to class in the afternoon, I noticed that one of our girls had pinned hers to the front of her shirt! Sometimes the students make me laugh out loud.

One of the biggest struggles of the month came just two weeks after our new students arrived. One of the girls in my class, Evelyn Wanjiru, was taken to the hospital for a pregnancy test. When the result came back positive, her mother was called and came to Icaciri to get her. After talking to the deputy principal for a while, it was discovered that the man who impregnated her was the headmaster of her primary school, a man she trusted as an authority figure, and a good friend of her father. Whether or not he will be punished is yet to be determined, but in a culture where the attitudes about women and girls are still highly traditional, the word of a 14 year old girl has little weight against a respected older man. Later on the same week, one of my brightest Form 2 students, Beth Mirigo was sent home because her parents have failed to pay her school fees, and therefore she is not allowed to attend class. Education is the only way for kids in rural homes to get out of the poverty that cripples them, yet that same poverty prevents them from being educated. I sat outside for a long time that afternoon trying to make peace with this system, but I cannot get past the fact that it feels like students are being punished for being poor. We worship a God of love and justice, yet we live in a world visibly broken by inequality and unfairness. My life here brings about questions and difficulties I could never have imagined on my own, but I am learning to trust in the fact that God is big enough to answer the needs of a world that is tearing itself apart.

The last weekend of February, Kari and I travelled from our home in Gatundu to Nairobi to meet with the other volunteers, and head out on an adventure through Kenya. We left the city early Friday morning, loaded into two vans, and headed for Nyanza Province. We made it to the ancestral home of our coordinator's husband just before sunset. Their compound is up on a hill overlooking shambas below and just at the horizon you can see Lake Victoria, it is an amazing view. Ochillo's father had seven wives, and though his own mother is deceased, there were plenty of family members to welcome us, as always, with open arms. They had prepared a feast for us, and we tried a bit of everything, including fish eyeballs, which are a traditional Luo treat. Saturday morning dawned and we headed back down the hill into the village of Migori where we worked on building a children's home, picked maize, planted flowers, and painted a classroom in a local primary school. It was an action-packed day and we went home that night ready for some rest. Instead, we spent much of the evening laughing with the danis (Luo for grandmothers) who don't speak a word of English or Kiswahili, but who sang and clapped with us anyway.

Sunday morning we loaded back into the vans for a trip to the Masai Mara, one of Kenya's most densely populated game reserves. We left the Ochillo home at 7:30 am, expecting to reach our destination in time for lunch and a meeting with our coordinator, little did we know what lay ahead. Shortly after leaving Migori, our drivers decided to take a "shortcut," and that is when the real adventure began. We almost immediately got stuck in the mud, and an entire village showed up to point, laugh, and eventually offer some help. Unfortunately there were a few too many "chiefs" arguing about how they should help us, and we ended up stranded for about an hour. The journey continued in this manner for most of the day, but luckily we got better at pushing the van out on our own so each stop got a little shorter. That is until we made it about 60 km into the Masai Mara game reserve, home to lions, cheetahs, hippos, crocodiles, and an entire host of other wild animals. Just as darkness fell, we got stuck again, and this time we were stuck kabisa. For about two and a half hours we walked back and forth across the savannah trying to get ourselves out of the mud, hoping our noise would scare away any potential danger. Finally some rangers showed up, laughed a little, and pulled us out of the mud. We made it to our lodge at about 9:30 pm, approximately fourteen hours after leaving Nyanza!

Each day that I wake up here, I am thankful for the opportunity God has given me to learn and to grow, to see life in a different way. It can be challenging and overwhelming, but I would not change one moment.

Thank you all for your continued support and encouragement, your thoughts and prayers are a great blessing.

Grace and peace,
Lauren

Photos from Nyanza Province

2007-02-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from our journey to Nyanza Province. Enjoy!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=ao36oqbn.9a9mv5sn&Uy=-hejy6t&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

January Newsletter

2007-01-27T03:29:00.000-08:00

As January quickly comes to an end, I find myself wondering where the month has gone! My school reopened on January 8, so I am back to the day to day routine of teaching, coaching soccer, and living in rural Kenya. When it was time to leave Nairobi, I wondered whether or not it would be difficult to readjust to life at Icaciri, whether or not people would be happy about our return. The readjustment could not have been any easier. We were welcomed with open arms and enormous smiles, with lots of shouting in Kikuyu and hardy handshakes by everyone in the community. It is quite refreshing to be back in a place that I love and feel loved by so many people, to be back in a place where I wake up to sunshine and children laughing at the primary instead of car alarms and shouting. I feel more at peace here than ever before, like our return has made us even more a part of this place and these people. Our first week back was filled not only with classes, but every afternoon we had a different home to visit, and every time we left full of mukimu, ndoma, or some other Kikuyu dish.
Upon our return, we were greeted by Njeri, the daughter of our school's secretary, and her younger brother Njau, who readily informed us that all of the children were wondering where we had been and why we were gone for so long. She is a good ally to have, because she also let us know that they refer to Kari and I as "the tall mthongo" and "the short mthongo" in Kikuyu, and that they are not really sure we are human because they think our skin is the color of pigs!
The newest part of my routine here involves Gatundu Children's Home. Kari and I have begun volunteering there each Saturday, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the week. Every time that we go, we are greeted with laughter and hugs. We play and dance; we eat sukuma wiki and ugali and then help clean the compound. The kids spend so much time just petting our hair because they think it is "so soft" and that theirs feels like steel wool. It is a home that houses 43 children from the Gatundu area who have been orphaned by AIDS or poverty and who have nowhere else to go. They are children whose relatives, the people in traditional African society who would care for them, have abused and mistreated them. Florence, the manager of the home, goes on a visit to see each child before they are taken, and accepts only the most desperate cases. There is Mary Wambui, a skinny 8 year old whose seventy year old grandfather was discovered to be abusing her before she was taken at the age of six. There is Ester Wainana, a light-skinned girl of 16 who is mentally retarded, she cannot understand how to put on pants (she puts both legs in one hole) and who was sexually abused by every man who passed through the home of her aunt and uncle because she could not tell. There are Micheal and Patrick, brothers who were taken from a market in Kikuyu town where they lived with their mother and her "customers." There are twin boys, Njoroge and Muthoni, who are five years old, who wrestle and fight like any kindergarteners. There is Kamau who can climb to the top of a mango tree quicker than a monkey. There is Njambi who just finished at Kenya High School, one of the best national secondary schools in Kenya; she wants to go to university and study pharmacy once she gets her KCSE results. There are Susan, Naomi, Jane, Simon, Mbari, forty-three children who have a home, who have food to eat, and a chance to go to school because of Florence and all of the people, local and foreign who support them. On our first visit, Florence explained to us why she works as hard as she does, and why she knows that this is where the Lord has called her to work even though she turned it down at first. Now when the Lord asks her "where were you when I was hungry? when I was lonely? when I was sexually abused?" she will have an answer.
When I look at the children here and think about the pain that has marked their young lives, I realize anew that the battle against AIDS, poverty, and injustice is one that we must all fight. Because one of us is affected, we are all affected. Whether we have skin the color of pigs or hair like steel wool, we are all human. When one of us suffers, we all suffer; when one of us, even the smallest child, is abused, we all feel the pain. When one person is degraded, we all feel the shame because we are all human beings. God poured out His grace on the world in the form of Jesus Christ, and in doing so, he offered us joy and freedom, yet there can be no real joy, no real freedom for anyone, unless there is joy and freedom for all.

May the grace of our Lord be with you all.

Lauren

Safari Njema

2007-01-08T01:05:00.000-08:00

Tsavo National Park is about five hours east of Nairobi... it is a place with dense underbrush and extreme landscapes... the perfect place for stories and legends. Beginning in March of 1898, when the railroad was being built from Kenya to Uganda, the lions of Tsavo are said to have devoured over 142 railway workers as they camped by the sight. The workers built fences, set traps and ambushes, but the maneless male lions were too sly to be caught and managed night after night to drag the workers from their tents. Finally, on December 9, 1898, engineer J.H. Patterson shot the first of the two lions and the second followed three weeks later. Their reign of terror was over.
Last week, all of the volunteers travelled to this fabled park for a weekend retreat. Unfortunately, we saw none of the famous man-eating lions, but we did see elephants, zebras, water buffalo, and a few giraffes who held up traffic as they crossed the road! It was a wonderful way to end our time here in Nairobi as Kari and I prepare to head back to Icaciri later this afternoon, and it gave all of us a chance to come together and rest from our normal routines. It was also a great reminder of the amazing history and wildlife that this country has to offer... what a wonderful experience!

December Newsletter

2006-12-30T07:26:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy and eventful month for me. My school closed for the December holiday on November 23, so Kari and I moved to Nairobi to live and work. This city is quite a change from Gatundu, and I have learned about an entirely different aspect of life in Kenya. When we first got here, we weren't sure what sort of things we would be doing, but soon discovered that we would be moving from rural life straight into the center of an urban slum, Korogocho, to be specific. Every morning we travelled from our home in Westlands through downtown Nairobi to the nearest matatu stage and then walked the remainder of the way to Tumaini Church through the roads and alleyways of Korogocho. I must admit that the first day I was absolutely terrified. The only instructions we were initially given was to "carry nothing, wear no jewelry, and dress in very casual clothes." What were we getting into?
As it turns out, we had the opportunity to participate in a camp run by the TULIP ministry that encourages both discipleship and scholarship in the girls that it sponsors. This organization takes girls from the slums, girls who have few options in life, and teaches them first about Christ and then pays for their education. The girls themselves are amazing. They are open and honest about their lives, they are not ashamed or embarrassed by the circumstances of their birth. My very first day at camp, two girls from my Bible study group walked me around the area and asked quite frankly "Have you ever been in a slum before?" I had no idea how to respond.
After camp ended, Kari and I began tutoring a smaller group of girls. We discussed chemistry, biology, history, English, business studies, Christian education, basically everything they study in school except Kiswahili, which became a running joke between us as they taught us new phrases each day. As we made our way to the church which we turned into a schoolhouse each morning, we got to know not only the girls, but also the residents of the pathways we walked. We became accustomed to the sight of many things: the man selling bottles of a sticky red "cure-all" medicine where the paved road ended and the dirt began, the boys with carts of boiled eggs and sausages at the matatu stage, the women sitting on potato sacks under umbrellas peddling half rotten bananas and avocados, the old and the young sifting through piles of garbage that lined the roads. Most of all we got to know the children who inhabit Korogocho, or at least the small corner that we know, and each morning I looked forward to them running full force in our direction screaming "Wambui! Wangari! How are you?" We picked them each up individually, swung them around in the air, and set each one down laughing, only to repeat the process again. I left on our last day, my white t-shirt covered with smudged, dirty fingerprints from dozens of tiny hands that hugged me on the way out.
I am not sure what to think of the time that we spent in Korogocho. I am thankful for the opportunity to see another way of life, to know the faces and the stories, yet it brings me back to the same questions that I cannot answer. On our last day, one of the girls took us to her home for tea. Leon is one of five children supported solely by her mother who sells vegetables at a makeshift stand down the road. Their home is made of sticks and mud with a dirt floor and a tarp ceiling to keep out rain. The outside is lined with scraps of tin and the smell of sewage is ripe everywhere you turn. How do I react? Do I feel sadness? Anger? Pride? I am angry at the circumstances that have forced them into this life, sad at the brokenness of our world, yet proud of who they are and happy for what they have.
This month we celebrate the coming of our Lord into the world, the birth of Jesus Christ. Throughout Advent I have sung the familiar carol "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" each week. As I sat in candlelight at the Christmas eve service, I began to think about what it means that Christ would come into a world of such brokenness and dwell among us. I wondered at the circumstances of his birth and life. Then I realized, of course Christ was born in a manger to poor, marginalized parents, that is how most of the world lives today. Of course the smell of dirt and manure permeated the air, that is the smell most of the world knows. Emmanuel, God with us, God with all of us. The same God, with us in Korogocho and Darlington. The same Christ offers us respite from the reality of our own sin and brokenness. And He is not only with us, He is also in us. Christ is the hope, the light, and the beauty in each of us. He is the love and joy of God given to all of mankind.

Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel, shall come to thee, O Israel!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-28T04:59:00.000-08:00

Holidays this year have been decidedly different than any other time in my life... on Thanksgiving I ate Chinese food with three of the other volunteers and on Christmas eve, I had Ethiopian for lunch with some friends in Nairobi... neither what my mom would usually allow! Also, December is one of the hottest months in Kenya, so instead of getting colder, the temperature has been steadily rising... definitely a change from Lexington, VA.
However unusual it may have been, Christmas eve was one of the most delightful days I have spent here. I started off the morning listening to Pastor Bob preach a sermon about how God's grace arrives in our world through Jesus Christ, and as we stood to take communion, I could feel the in pouring of God's love and peace into my life. I could sense the joy that we have only in Him, and it provided a welcome rest from all of the questions and frustrations that have plagued me recently.
After worship, we travelled to Askah's house (one of the members of the NILC congregation) to sing Christmas carols and pray over her as she recovers from surgery. It was such a blessing to be a part of the community here, to see the faith that Askah and her family demonstrated in the face of enormous difficulty.
Next, we joined Pastor Bob and his family for Ethiopian food, and then it was back to church to participate in a live Nativity scene... there were wisemen, shepherds, cows, goats, Mary, Joseph, and an entire host of angels raising their voices in songs to celebrate the birth of Christ... it was beautiful, and the look on the faces of those passing by was priceless. As afternoon faded to evening, we all made our way into the sanctuary for the Christmas eve service, for a time when God's love and acceptance were evident in the community all around me. This year, I have been more able to see Christ as the original Christmas gift... without the promise of Santa Claus, I could look forward to the revelation of God's magnificent love through Jesus. As the noise of the afternoon quieted, the words of a familiar carol struck me afresh:

Silent night, holy night!

Son of God, love's pure light

Radiant beams from your holy face,

with the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at your birth.

As we sat in the candlelight, in anticipation of that miracle of all miracles when God became man, I thought of the impossible hope, the joy, the healing that are bound up in that child, and I prayed for Christ to be born again, to be born in me.

Children of Korogocho

2006-12-12T04:57:00.000-08:00

As Kari and I go to work each day in Korogocho, we have developed quite a following among the local children. We have had the unexpected blessing of getting to know some of these small, small ones as we wait for the girls we are tutoring to arrive each day. We dance and play, and sing the "banana song" together each morning... their smiles and laughter are absolutely infectious, so I wanted to share a piece of it with all of you.
Jesus said "let the little children come to me," and He must have meant the screaming, mischievous masses of barefoot little ones who run through the streets here. Who yell out "kawaru! kawaru!" which means potato instead of "how are you?" and then scamper off giggling as Kari and I walk by. To look at their surroundings, I see pain and poverty, but to look in their faces, there is all of the joy and playfulness of childhood.

For more pictures:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=ao36oqbn.3nv7bn8b&Uy=jm2qtn&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=154977108073_212627238107

Out of My League

2006-12-07T04:18:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned before, Kenyan schools operate on a different time schedule than their American counterparts... 1st term lasts from January until the end of March, 2nd term lasts from May until the end of July, and 3rd term lasts from September until the end of November. With that being said, my school recently closed for holiday, and I am now in Nairobi. When Kari and I left Icaciri, we had no idea where we would be volunteering this month or what we would be doing. After a few days of uncertainty and a few meetings with our coordinator, Phyllis, we got a phone call instructing us to meet at St.Andrews PCEA church at 8:00 last Wednesday morning. Little did we know what was in store for us.
We met Rosemary at the specified time and proceeded to follow her through the crowded streets of Nairobi to a matatu stage downtown. As it turns out, we spent most of last week working with the TULIP ministry at a camp for girls in Korogocho, one of the city slums. Never in my life have I been anywhere like a Kenyan slum. As we walked through narrow alleyways with rusty homes made from whatever scraps of tin could be found, trying to avoid the streams of sewage and refuse that ran through the garbage paved paths, I wondered what the girls we were on the way to meet would be like. Would they be bitter? Would they be angry? Each day last week, we spent time in Bible study, listening to speakers, and practicing vocational skills along with about 60 teenage girls. We sang with these girls, we ate with them, we laughed with them, we strung together beads for bracelets and necklaces. Girls who have grown up in the slums, who have dealt with all of the difficulties that life at the bottom of the third world means. Girls who have watched their parents and friends suffer and die of AIDS, girls who know what it means to be abandoned, to be hungry, to look at life and see only darkness. And yet they themselves are the light. They are the hope and beauty of tomorrow. Through the TULIP ministry, the girls that qualify are sponsored in secondary school and therefore have a chance to get an education and to end the cycle of poverty that traps so many women and children.
There were and are definitely moments when I look around at our surroundings and think I have no idea what I am doing ... I have absolutely no experience to prepare me for this... I am way out of my league here. Yet God has been with me each moment, and He has shown me how real faith can be. As I sat with Group 9 in Bible study each morning, I was amazed at the strength demonstrated by each girl. I found myself asking "what difference does God make here?" and they continually reiterated the fact that God makes all of the difference.

Photo Album

2006-12-04T06:10:00.000-08:00

You can view pictures from my past few months in Kenya at the link below:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=ao36oqbn.9b4wiwnn&Uy=-mttlcs&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=199855143117_320490397107

November Newsletter

2006-11-28T02:35:00.000-08:00

Give thanks with a grateful heart,
Give thanks to the Holy One,
Give thanks,
Because he’s given Jesus Christ his son.
And now, let the weak say “I am strong,”
Let the poor say “I am rich,”
Because of what the Lord has done for us.
Give thanks.

My life in the past few weeks has been comprised of very ordinary occurrences. I have been teaching biology each day to my Form 1 (freshmen) students and teaching Christian Education to two of the older classes. I wrote an examination and then graded somewhere over 200 examinations in return. I walk to town and buy produce in the local market where the colors and smells are as tangible as the tomatoes, onions, and pineapples themselves. I actually spend a large amount of time washing my clothes, and I am quite convinced that God is paying me back for every single time I packed up a month's worth of dirty laundry in Lexington, VA and drove it down home to Darlington for my mom to wash. Now I would be quite happy to put my own clothes in the washing machine, but instead, I put my clothes in my grayish-silver bucket, boil some water, scrub each piece individually, rinse them thoroughly, and then hang them out to dry, which takes a bit longer during the rainy season. Life is becoming more settled and routine. I am learning what it really means to live here. As I walk down the road now, children stop and greet me with a smile instead of running away screaming or laughing hysterically. I spend time with our students, singing, dancing, talking, worshipping. They have a million questions for Kari and I about life outside of Kenya, and I have just as many for them about their lives and culture. When we leave school now for meetings in the city, our students hang out of the windows shouting about how much they will miss us.
Every Sunday Kari and I attend two worship services at Icaciri. First, we participate in a student lead service at 7:30 that I can hardly describe. Each morning we walk in to dancing, twirling, girls shouting praises at the top of their lungs. It is magnificent. Afterwards, we stick around for the community service which is completely in Kikuyu. As I sit through this service each week, I realize that even though I can't understand most of the words, there is something familiar and comforting about the commnity of faith, something that makes Icaciri PCEA Church feel like home thousands of miles from my actual home. There is something reassuring about the words of the Lord's Prayer being recited in unison, even if they are not my words. Living here has helped me to realize the connection that each of us shares with the rest of humanity. Every time I walk down the street in Nairobi or look at the faces of my students, I am thankful for the beauty and diversity that exists in our world. I realize over and over again how great our God must be that He made each of us as individuals. What speaks to my soul may be different from what speaks to yours. Yet we are all made in God's image, and that image is reflected differently in each of us. The image of God is made manifest in hundreds of races and ethnicities, in thousands of languages, in millions of faces throughout the world. In Kikuyu the word for God is Ngai, in Swahili it is Bwana, the Jews called Him Yahweh, we call Him Lord. And He answers to every single one, and He delights in each of us when we call out to Him.

Swahili phrase: Asante sana. Thank you very much.

Unexpected Blessings

2006-11-18T00:20:00.000-08:00

Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground."
Exodus 3:5

There was a moment a few weeks ago when I looked around at my students and could only think about how different we are. I could only see that they had grown up in rural Kenya, that most have never had electricity or dependable water, that their families and traditions look nothing like mine. I was mad at the rain that drenched me only hours before, and as I sat looking at a family struggling not to lose all that they had, the absence of God was more evident to me than His presence.
Yet as we rode home on the bus at the end of the afternoon, the air was filled with the joyful noise of our students singing praises to mighty God. Their energy and laughter brightened my soul as I could feel the gracious voice of my Lord whispering: I am still here. I am still with you, in the midst of darkness and doubt, I will not abandon you. Despite times of frustration and doubt here, always one crucial fact remains:despite the disparity between rich and poor, sick and healthy, American and Kenyan, black and white, Christian and Muslim , young and old, beneath all of our labels and differences, we share one basic thing, and that is life. We all have, for this brief moment, each of us, a part in the beauty and the pain, the ordinariness and the sanctity of this mystery that we call living. We are all bound to one another simply by our being. And perhaps in these ordinary moments, in a market or on a school bus, these times when we share ourselves with one another, these are the moments that are sacred, these are the times when we are sitting or standing or riding on holy ground. I expected the afternoon to be tedious and ordinary, yet how glorious is our God that He turns what we expect to be ordinary into unexplainable blessing. The songs of my students were their gift to God, which He in turn shared with me.

Harambee

2006-11-17T23:40:00.000-08:00

Harambee is an ideal left over from the Kenyan struggle for independence which means a "coming together" or "uniting." It is a beautiful sentiment and leads to beautiful events where entire communities come together to support one another in times of need or crisis. My first experience with a harambee came last Saturday as all of the teachers and staff from Icaciri were invited to participate in the support of a family in our community. One of the Form 1 or freshmen students, Margaret, passed away from heart failure the same week that I arrived in Gatundu, so one of my first experiences here was her burial. Unfortunately medical care is scarce in rural areas and expensive when it is available, so her week long hospital stay cost her family everything that they had in terms of money, and they were forced to offer the title deed to their land as payment. Here in Central Province, land means much more than just the place where a family lives, it is their livelihood and a guarantee that they will have food and provisions for the future. For a family already struggling to survive, to lose your land is an unthinkable detriment. So, on Saturday, people from our commnity came together at a local PCEA churh to share music, food and laughter and to offer money and prayers in support of this family. The people of our community offer whatever they have, whether it is much or it is little, in the hope that the family who already lost their first-born daughter will not lose their land as well.
One would think harambees would be somber, penitent events of mourning or sorrow, but indeed they are not. Saturday was an afternoon filled with joy, singing, and most of all hope. Hope in the power of people united for a common purpose, hope in the promise that when someone falls, a neighbor will be there to pick them up. Hope that has illustrated for me more powerfully than anything else what the body of Christ should look like.

Happy Birthday Wambui

2006-11-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

Many of you are probably wondering who Wambui is. Well, in the Kikuyu alphabet, there is no "L" and the "R" is pronounced differently than ours, which makes Lauren one of the hardest names imagineable. Therefore, after about two weeks of butchering my name in every conceivable manner, my colleagues christened me Wambui, a simple, easy to pronounce Kikuyu name. I now answer to either.
I woke up on the morning of October 29 at about 6:30 am to the sun shining through my mosquito net and the sound of African drums marching across the field as our girls prepared for Sunday worship. It was a beautiful day, and as I made my way out of bed and into the kitchen, I realized that my wonderful roommate had decorated our entire home with streamers, blown up latex gloves, and newspaper letters with a special birthday message. It was incredible!
After our breakfast of tea and mandazi, we made our way to the student worship service where we sang and danced and laughed much like we do every Sunday. We also stuck around for the Kikuyu service that the older members of the village attend, and we both ended up with children on our laps playing a "moja... mbili... tatu" version of pattycake that Kari invented last week. Naomi is a little girl of about 3 years who absolutely brightens my day with her smile every single time I see her, so it was a beautiful blessing to sit with her through the service that I cannot understand. It was such a joy to spend so much of my birthday praising the Lord who created me and who loves me more than any other.
After worship we returned home, I got to open some presents, we fixed lunch, and spent much of the afternoon doing laundry and getting dancing lessons from some of our students. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the life God has given me than by spending it with those He has called me to serve.
Thanks to all of you who also made my birthday special with your cards, letters, and e-mails, I am continually humbled by the love and support I feel from all of you. God bless.

Short Rains

2006-11-04T05:59:00.000-08:00

The entire time I have been in Kenya, I have heard people talking about the short rains that begin in October, and I have wondered what that would mean for my life. Well, they finally started, and basically it means that the sky is fairly sunny during the day, but it pours rain at nighttime. The farmers that live in my community are thrilled, and any time I walk down the road I can find women working in the shambas just as happy as can be about the rain that means food is guaranteed this season. However, the rain and I are not on such friendly terms. First of all, every road in my life right now is made of red clay, and when it rains, the clay turns to mud and sticks to everything it touches including my shoes and clothes. Even worse than the mud, because mud is an issue I could foresee and expect, there are bugs. Our house is totally and completely infested with every type of insect imagineable. Every night, hundreds of buzzing, flying, crawling, swarming things invade our house seeking sanctuary from the rain. There are bees, wasps, termites, flying ants, beetles, spiders, fruit flies, house flies, winged worm things, and, of course, mosquitos. Every night a new battle begins between me and the insects, but I am afraid I am losing. I can't explain how much amusement and frustration these creatures bring to my life. There are a lot of problems and challenges that I expected when I decided to move here, but I guess I never thought I would spend so much time armed with a rolled up paper, spinning in circles, swatting at the air.

October Newsletter

2006-10-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

Muriega! My second month in Kenya is quickly coming to a close, and I am not sure if I have written yet about the beauty of this place. Central Province is by far one of the loveliest places I have ever seen. My school is surrounded by coffee farms and small shambas. The soil is a deep reddish-brown color, and it grows everything from sukuma, carrots, potatoes, onions, and tomatoes, to mangos, avocados, bananas, and sugar cane. The sky and the vegetation have that vibrant color to them that all equatorial lands share because the sunlight makes everything seem brighter.
Life in rural Kenya is much slower and simpler than any place I have ever lived before, yet in some ways it resembles life in small-town South Carolina. People are friendly, they greet each other on the street, and everything the wazungu (aka Kari and I) do gets seen by someone and passed along the chain to everyone else. On the way home from a walk one afternoon, one of the gatekeepers at Icaciri stopped Kari and I on the road to invite us into his home. Mzee Henry, as we call him, has lived in this area for his entire life. His home is next door to that of his brother, which is the home where his parents lived until their deaths. We were able to meet his wife, Susan, and to have tea and nduma with them. I cannot even begin to explain the depth of Kenyan hospitality. I thought that the South held the prize for hospitality, but we cannot even hold a candle to the people here. No matter what someone has, they are willing to share it, and always the best of it with you. They are always willing to have less so that you can have more. Wageni, the word for stranger is the also the word for visitor or guest. Therefore, around here, there are no strangers, everyone is a guest of the community and is welcomed accordingly. People all along our road invite us into their homes to eat their food and join their families. I already have at least two Gatundu mamis and at least six cucus (pronounced shoo-shoo) or grandmothers. There is no way that I can ever repay the graciousness with which I have been received, so I only hope to show gratitude in my actions and behavior.
Despite the gracious hospitality and seeming availability of fresh produce, I come face to face with hunger and poverty every day both within and outside of the Icaciri compound. Just this week about a third of our students were sent home for failure to pay school fees which amount to about $400 a year. You see, primary education in Kenya is free, but secondary school must be paid for by families, and for people living hand-to-mouth, that is a lot of money. One of the most striking conversations I have had this month occurred on the road one afternoon. A man stopped Kari and I as we were walking to a kiosk for some cabbage. The first time we met this man, he was sitting at the gate in front of our school compound, and he looked up at us with tears in his eyes, calling us his savior. This time, he admitted to being a bit drunk before, but now he was completely sober and carrying a heavy load of firewood. He asked if we could help him in anyway. We tried to explain that we are just volunteers and are teaching at Icaciri for the year through the church. But he insisted that we have steady jobs and income, and that he can struggle from morning to night to earn even a single dollar. He was asking for anything, even a suggestion of how he could better his life, and we had nothing to offer. So often here, I feel like I come up short when it comes to helping others. I feel a deep, unutterable sadness rising within me that asks why the world is in the condition that it is? A sadness that wonders at the luxury of my life at home when families here struggle for food and survival. The same system that offered me so many advantages is built on the exploitation of others; others who now have names and faces, others who invite me into their homes for tea and nduma. As I think about the systems that gave me so much and gives others so little, I am forced to ask what difference the cross can make in this world? What difference does the scandal that is Christ crucified make in my life and in the way I live? As Christians we cannot fix all of the problems in the world, but what a difference it would make if we were willing to give of ourselves and our time in a way that resembled Jesus Christ. What if we were willing to have less so that others could have enough?
Some of the problems here seem rather overwhelming to me with my very American sensibilities, but in every conversation that I have with a Kenyan, they insist that "Kenya is a good place." Whether we are talking about the corruption that runs rampant in the government, the tribalism which still causes conflict all over the country, or the poverty you see all around, the conversation always ends in the same way: "but this is a good place." The lyrics of a song we sing in worship expresses this sentiment perfectly:

The time to be happy is now,
the place to be happy is here,
and the way to be happy is to make someone happy
and to bring a little heaven down here.

Amen. The way to be happy is to make someone else happy, and in doing so we bring a little of the divinity of Christ into the humanity of our lives. May God bless and keep you.

Mungu awabariki,
Lauren

Learning to Laugh

2006-10-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

I have always thought that I am pretty good at being able to laugh at myself, but Kenya has taught me a new appreciation for this skill. You see most of the time in Gatundu everyone else is laughing at me, so I have little choice but to join in the fun. From our very first day at Icaciri, the students have enjoyed my accent and the differences in my hair and skin color. They spend a great deal of time during worship watching me fail miserably at the traditional dances that must seem so natural to them.The teachers, too, join in the amusement, and make a game of trying to pronounce words the way that I do, or of watching my face as I hesitantly try to chew up goat intestines at lunch.
One afternoon as Kari and I walked a little ways down the road to get some bananas, a group of primary school children stood in their yard literally pointing at us and laughing so hard that they were falling over.
Similarly, on a recent visit to the market, I walked up to one of the local sellers to buy a basket so we could carry our vegetables home, and upon simply saying hello, the lady burst into hysterical laughter. What? Then I remembered, many of the older villagers speak only Kikuyu, so I am sure my English sounds like nonsense to her.
Every time we leave the school compound, groups of primary school children follow us down the road giggling and whispering in Kiswahili, and I feel like a very real version of the pied piper.
While drinking a coke one time at a kiosk near our school, a little girl approached us, very slowly and cautiously. When she was close enough, she peeked up at Kari and I with wide eyes, we smiled at her and asked habari yako? Immediately she turned and ran screaming in the other direction. I don't think I have ever scared a small child before, but the other people gathered at the stand found the incident hilarious. Of course.
At times, I get frustrated at people's reaction to me. I am tired of repeating myself countless times and of having to explain things in five different ways before I am understood. Then I remember that I am a guest here. Everyone I have met has been immensely patient with me as I butcher their language and misunderstand their customs. I can't even pronounce some of the Kikuyu vowel sounds because my mouth refuses to move in certain ways. Yet my teachers are loving and encouraging; they rejoice with me at even the smallest successes. If I remember a word for even a couple of days, they are incredibly impressed.
As I look at my life here, I wonder how much time our Lord must spend laughing at the situations that He has led me into. What a sight it must be to Almighty God watching two wazungu walking down a dirt road surrounded by a bunch of barefoot children trying to communicate in any way that doesn't require actual words. How funny He must find it when I repeatedly say I am fine instead of How are you? when greeting people in Kikuyu on the road. What a God we worship that He would fill my days with such joy and laughter.

Monastic Vows

2006-10-17T00:49:00.000-07:00

Who knew that so much of my experience here in Kenya would be involved with brothers at a Benedictine Monastery? Or that so much of what I would learn would come from their selfless attitude of service and joy? Yet a couple of weeks ago, I found myself waking up to my alarm at 5:45 am, making the 4 km trek into Gatundu town, catching a matatu to Nairobi, a 6/9 bus to the city centre, and another vehicle the 45 minutes to Limuru so that we could make it in time to witness the ceremonial vows of five of the brothers we met during our earlier stay in Tigoni. They had lived and worked at the monastery for five years, and were now committing themselves to a lifetime as brothers. Of course, as travelling goes here, we were about thirty minutes late, but we made it just in time to hear the vows explained. They included stability and constancy in seeking God's will and searching for Him in all things, conversion and committment to a monastic lifestyle, and obedience to the superiors. It was an experience I find hard to articulate as I sat and watched the five brothers standing up there repeating their vows and was able to think about the community and way of life they committed themselves to. What a great mystery it is when God calls us to Himself, to abandon all other aspects of life out of love for Him, and what an even greater mystery when He then gives us back all of the wonders and joys of this life in a truer and more beautiful form. When we can experience love, faith, community, and humanity as they were intended.
When we first decided to attend the service, I assumed that monastic vows would be a dark, somber ceremony, full of rituals and chanting. At Tigoni, however, the entire day was full of joy, laughter, praise, dancing, and embraces... it was quite the celebration! The excitement was absolutely contagious. The chapel was decorated with streamers and balloons, and after the new brothers signed their vows, they got a hug from every single member of the monastery.
As they lined up for the Holy Communion procession, Kari and I were standing in the back of the chapel (since we were late) and Brother John called me over to carry the ceremonial wine and cup. Now I am neither Catholic nor Kenyan, so I nearly dropped the whole tray from shaking. But that is how they do things there, with a smile and a chuckle, everyone is included.
It made my day when a group of nuns preceeded those of us carrrying the sacraments and made their way down the aisle dancing and singing! It was one of the liveliest and most vibrant expressions of joy I have ever seen, and the entire ceremony did a remarkable job of combining Catholic tradition with a spirituality that is uniquely African.

My New Home

2006-10-16T02:10:00.000-07:00

Mwathani agocwo! Sorry it has been such a long time since my last post... at the end of September we finished orientation, and I moved out to my placement for the year. I am now living at Icaciri Secondary School about a 4 km walk from Gatundu town up a red clay road that is going to be pretty impassable during the short rains later this month. Our school has about 300 students, 200 girls who board on campus and about 90 boys who are day scholars from the surrounding villages. It is definitely more rural than Nairobi, and I love it!
There is one other volunteer, Kari, stationed with me at Icaciri, and we are sharing a flat on the school compound. There is no electricity where we live except for three hours in the evening when the school generator is on from 7-10 pm, but we don't really need it for anything except light when we are cooking dinner so it hasn't been an issue thus far. Our kitchen consists of a sink, a counter, a single propane burner, and a small table for storing vegetables from the local market. Luckily we do have running water (most of the time) and a filter to make it drinkable.
Our first day at school was hilarious. Since we are more in the interior of the country now and away from the city, many of the villagers, including our students, have never interacted with a mzungu before. Kari and I got out of the car to shrieks of laughter and pointing from the windows of every classroom. Our first walk around that night ended up with us in a circle of about a hundred girls all patting our arms and rubbing our hair. Every time we opened our mouths to speak there was a fresh peel of laughter as our accents and version of English are much different than the Kenyan version. Luckily the girls are getting more used to us every day, and we are learning about a side of Kenya that we hadn't seen before.
I am teaching biology to the Form 1 students which is roughly equivalent to ninth graders in America. The school system is a lot different from ours, but very similar to the British system from what I hear, a remnant of colonial times and institutions. I think I will also have the chance to help teach CRE (Christian Religious Education) to some of the other Forms which should be an adventure as the Kenyan church and theology are uniquely their own as well.
I finally have an address and can receive letters at the school PO Box, so feel free to write to me anytime!

Icaciri Secondary School

PO Box 66

Gatundu 01030

Kenya

September Newsletter

2006-09-26T01:10:00.000-07:00

Hamjambo all! As I sit here tonight and look back at the last month of my life, I cannot help but realize that it has been a continuous lesson in both humility and flexibility. Since the night we arrived at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, Kenya late on the evening of August 29, it has been a whirlwind of culture and activity.
During the past four weeks, I have lived in a missionary boarding house, in the home of a Kikuyu family, in a Benedictine monastery, and in the guest house of a convent. I have been to multiple churches and denominations, as well as a Hindu spirituality center. I have been to an AIDS orphanage to feed and care for abandoned babies, and learned how to bargain in Swahili at the traditional Massai market. I have learned about the politics and history of a country that is not my own, and I have tried to understand a people who look and sound totally different than myself. I have walked the streets of a rural village and heard the children chanting "Mzungu! Mzungu! How are you? How are you?" (mzungu means "white person" in Swahili) Through all of it, I have met God in unexpected places and unknown people.
One of the most profound examples of this type of blessing occurred this Sunday when I attended church with a student from the nearby St. Paul's seminary. I have to admit that I was dreading this experience, for it was another in a long line of activities, and I was going to an unknown location with a stranger I had yet to meet. As we made our way across the early morning Nairobi streets, I couldn't help but think I would much rather have slept an extra two hours and then gone to church with the other volunteers. About forty-five minutes and three crowded matatu rides later, we arrived at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Kahawa Sakuri, a part of the city I had not previously visited. We got there a few minutes before 8:00 am, just in time for the minister to ask me to say "a few words of encouragement" at the early morning youth service. From the moment the service began, I felt the joy of God's presence with us as we joined together in songs of praise and thanksgiving. The entire service was full of energy and enthusiasm for the Lord, and the worship team was excited about knowing God and sharing Him with others. One thing about African worship, they know how to rejoice! By the grace of God, I managed to stand and say a few words of introduction in my broken mixture of Swahili and English. After the service, I attended the youth Sunday school class, during which time I had a better chance to interact with the youth and their leaders. I got to listen to their thoughts and ideas. I got to hear them talk personally about their faith, and what God means in their lives. When it came time for introductions, every person stood to say their name, and then added that they were "saved" or "born again" and that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. I was struck by the fact that one of the most important identifying factors in their lives is Jesus Christ. What if we all identified ourselves that way? I have had to introduce myself dozens of times recently, and it usually includes my name, my hometown, my university and degree, and the location where I will be serving this year. What if I just said: Hi. My name is Lauren, and I am in love with Jesus Christ who saved me. What if I stopped trying to sound impressive, stopped trying to earn respect or recognition and realized that everything I need can be summed up in that one sentence. The only status that actually matters is that I am loved by Almighty God.
Here in Kenya, they have a much deeper grasp of this fact. Yes, Kenya has problems: poverty and disease are running rampant, the streets are dirty and crowded, the slums are overflowing with individuals who cannot find a permanent home, and yet there is life here. There is humanity here. There are beautiful, capable people who have put their trust in the Lord, and who are in love with the same Savior that I have come to know and to love. As we took communion this Sunday, I was reintroduced to the God who cuts across all of our make believe borders. For the God we worship in America is the same God worshipped here in Kenya: He is the God of justice and mercy, the God of the physically sick and politically oppressed. He is the God who gives rest to the weary and food to the hungry. He is the God who gives us privilege so that we can use it to make a difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters around the world, the God who unites us all through the body and blood of His Son.
In the coming week, I will be moving out of the city into my permanent placement for this year. I will be heading to Ichachiri High School, in Gatundu, a rural village in the Kiambu district. As I go, I pray that God will continue to challenge me, that He will continue to stretch my identity and my faith. I love you all, and thank you for the encouragement and support that has allowed me to come and to serve here.

Blessings,
Lauren Scharstein

A Funny Story

2006-09-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

So this is my second post for the day, but I really want to share this story with you all.

Before I begin, please keep in mind that things do not always work as they are expected to, and flexibility is a skill that must quickly be developed... a lesson Taryn got the chance to relearn last night.

You see, she was doing a very normal thing: going to the bathroom in our new home at the Assumption Sisters Convent. The problem occurred when she tried to leave said bathroom: the door wouldn't unlock. I don't mean like it was kind of stuck, and she just needed to push a little bit or turn the key a little harder, she was stuck. We tried everything imagineable to get her out: a credit card, vaseline, a screwdriver, pliers, a nail file, a hammer, and the actual key. Nothing worked. The door wouldn't budge. Finally, one of the sisters came, looked at us like we were crazy white people all crowded around the bathroom door talking to Taryn and then proceeded to try all of the tools we had already found useless. After about an hour and a half of our frustrated, yet hilarious efforts, the sister came back with a crowbar and basically broke down the door: Taryn was free.

If at any point during the week you feel sad, just picture a nun walking down the hall in her nightgown with a crowbar and a pair of pliers, it will undoubtedly brighten your day. :)

Careful - Kind of Gruesome

2006-09-23T01:28:00.000-07:00

I will have to say that last Thursday was one of the most emotional days I have spent here in Kenya. We woke up in the monastery just like every morning for the past two weeks, but this particular day we had the task of first slaughtering then preparing our own lunch. That meant that we started off with a white goat and six brownish chickens and ended up with a bucket full of nyama choma and a pot of chicken stew. Needless to say it was all of the steps in the middle that were difficult...
Here in Kenya, slaughtering a goat is a celebration. It is a time of joy and fellowship when communities come together to feast and give thanks for the gifts they have received, for us it was a challenge. Luckily,it is also a man's responsibility, so Stephen, Paul, and Kirk were elected for the task. This meant tying its legs together, laying it out on the concrete floor, and then slitting its throat. I have to admit that the scene was hard for me to watch, as a goat is a pretty fair-sized mammal, and it screamed in a way that was both chilling and nauseating at the same time. Once it was over and most of its blood had drained into the floor, they hung it up on a metal hook to begin the process of skinning and dismembering it. At this point it was time for us to take care of the chickens.
It felt more like a funeral procession as we walked from the butchery to the kitchen, and I think most of us were realizing how disconnected we are as Americans from the source of our food. Brother Sylvester caught one of the fastest chickens and demonstrated what we were supposed to do: first catch one, pin down its legs and wings with your feet, pluck the feathers from its throat, stretch the neck out over the drain, and cut. Kari went first and successfully slaughtered her bird, and I decided to go ahead and get it over with next. At no other point in my life have I picked up a living, breathing creature and put it back down a lifeless carcass. It was definitely a different feeling to cut through the skin and flesh of a live chicken and then continue holding it until it stopped flapping. I was more than a little shaky when I finished. From there we plucked the birds, emptied their organs, sawed off the legs and proceeded to slice them into a more familiar sight, similar to what we see on the grocery store shelf.
As I thought about our activities both during and after that day, I began to realize what little knowledge I have about life in most countries. Everything in the third world is more labor intensive and more connected to the earth than it is in my world. Children here are not surprised or disgusted by the concept of slaughtering animals for their food, whether it be goats, chickens, or cows. Theirs is an innate awareness of where things come from and what it takes to survive. As an American, I am able to separate myself from the realities of life that permeate every aspect of this and most cultures. In order to have meat, you must kill an animal, in order to have vegetables, someone must grow them. I have definitely been more thankful for each meal I have eaten since then, not only for the food, but for all of the effort that goes into harvesting and preparing it. I haven't actually been able to eat any meat since that day, but I am better able to appreciate the role that other animals play in our lives, and to see the inherent connections that exist between ourselves and our world.

Not Zaxbys

2006-09-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Just in case you were wondering, here are some of the things I have eaten recently:

nyama choma - this basically translates as "roast meat"... take meat to mean what you will, but in Kikuyu land it generally refers to goat
mukimo - otherwise known as irio - this is a combination of potatoes, maize, various beans, and pumpkin leaves all mashed up together
gulab jambu - boiled milk balls, which are deep fried and covered in sugar

Definitely not chicken fingers and fries!

New Life Home

2006-09-16T02:04:00.000-07:00

We have been in Kenya now for about two and a half weeks, and each day it feels more like home. As we walked the 4 km from the monastery to Limuru Town this morning to use the internet, our group was met by calls of “How are you? How are you? Mzungu! How are you?” (Mzungu, being the Kiswahili word for white person) I sometimes forget that in Africa we are an anomaly, that our skin makes us stand out, especially to the young children who line the rural streets as our group walks by.
We had the opportunity this past week to visit the New Life Home for orphans and abandoned children. There were 51 children there between the ages of 9 days and 3 years old. We had the chance to hold and feed the little ones and then spend time playing in the one year old nursery. It was a moving experience to say the least, both humbling and rewarding. The faces at New Life Home made so many of the issues we have discussed real; it gave names and identities to the AIDS pandemic sweeping Africa… Ezra, Clive, Erica, Joseph… they gave life to the effects of the poverty and hunger that have left these babies without family members to care for them. Many of the children here are HIV positive, and they will live with the consequences of that disease all of their lives. Yet these children are the lucky ones, they have a place to live and a place to play. They have beautiful, capable people caring for them, people who believe in the home and the futures of these babies. These are the children who have been given a chance.

Bob Marley and Benedictine Monks

2006-09-09T06:22:00.000-07:00

Well, our home stays ended this past weekend, and I was reunited with the other eight volunteers Thursday afternoon to continue our orientation. We met at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church and loaded the bus for our next destination. As our bus travelled out of Nairobi, which is a large and crowded city, it wound its way up 2000 ft to the hill top town of Limuru. Here we will be staying in a Benedictine Monastery for the next two weeks. I cannot even begin to explain the beauty or tranquility of this place. The region is dotted with trees and tea farms, and the air is pristine and wonderful to breathe after a week in the city. Brother Amsel greeted us at the entrance, and preceeded to walk us around the entire estate, showing us the tea plantation, the garden, the animals, and the bakery. Everything consumed here comes from the fields or the barn, and the brothers grow it all.
There is a feeling that permeates this entire place of a peace like I have never known. In Hebrew the word for peace, shalom, meant more than the absence of war, it meant fullnes. It meant having everything you needed to be wholly and happily yourself. That is the feeling that is so strong here. It is the feeling of being in the presence of the divine, of being so well loved by Him, that all else comes second. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn and rest here.
At night time, after dinner and evening prayers, Brother Amsel and Brother Eugene bring out guitars, and we join together to sing everything from Lord I Lift Your Name on High to No Woman, No Cry to Johnny Cash. Paul, another volunteer, is a great musician, and he and Brother Eugene trade off leading songs in English and then Kiswahili. Last night we sang the chorus of "God is so Good" simultaneously in Kiswahili, English, and their African mother-tongues... what a joyful noise it must have been in the ears of our Lord!
I cannot help but sit back and wonder at the place that God has lead me. If you had asked me at any point in my life where I would be the year after graduating from college, I am sure it would not have included sitting in a Benedictine Monastery in Limuru, Kenya surrounded by African monks and various Presbyterian and Lutheran volunteers. What God is this that would bring me to this place? What wondrous love is this that Christ would die to reconcile me to the God of all creation, this God of love and beauty who walks with me here.

Trust in the Lord

2006-09-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5

"Trust in the Lord" is something we often hear, but it is something that has always been a rather abstract instruction to me before now. Trusting in the Lord has taken on a whole new meaning to me here in Kenya. Here in a foreign land where my own understanding has never been less sufficient. You see, my own understanding is limited to American customs and English words. It is tainted by a life of privilege that fears letting go and being without. My own understanding that cannot fathom the hospitality of this place and these people who have embraced me and who already call me family.
And so, I am humbled. Humbled by my 3 year old host niece, who speaks not only English and Kiswahili, but also Kikuyu, her mother-tongue. Humbled by my host mother who has opened her home and her heart to me, who shares with me the details of her life and her history. Humbled by people who welcome me gladly into the joy of their community.
I spent my first full week here in Kenya living in the house of Polly Mwangi, my host mother, along with her son, Mark, her three year old granddaughter, Suki, and Jane, a local teacher. During this home stay, we were given the opportunity to learn what Kenyan life is like on a day to day basis. I have learned how to eat traditional Kikuyu food which consists mainly of rice, beans, potatoes, greens, and goat... mixed together and mashed up in various ways. My favorite thus far is ugali a mixture of boiled water and white maize flower which is eaten with sukumaweke, a combination of chopped spinach, cale, tomatos and garlic cooked together with water.
At times, it is still difficult to be so far from home and familiarity, but I am learning to depend on a God far bigger than the one I used to know. I am learning to depend on the God who knows us all, who loves us all, and who unites us all. A God who is stretching my idea of what constitutes family, a God who is stretching my idea of what it means to have faith, and what it means to have enough. Though letting go of my previous beliefs is painful, it is immensely freeing to know that my Creator is continuing to mold me and to teach me what it means to trust in Him.

We Made It!

2006-08-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

Praise God, I can now say we have made it safely to Nairobi!

After saying goodbye to many of you over the past few days, I must say that leaving Chicago, I struggled with a mixture of ideas and emotions... my soul was longing for a place I had never been, but my heart was crying out for everything I had to leave behind. Needless to say I was more than a little sad, luckily the friends I made at orientation were wonderful and supportive and understood what I was going through, and even more than that, the God who created me and who knows me inside and out remains constant, especially in our struggles.
"Christ is all and is in all."
Colossians 3:11
This verse has developed a special meaning to me in the past few days... it has provided me comfort and the promise of God's presence always.
As soon as I boarded the plane to Kenya, I knew that it was right. I had the most overwhelming feeling of peace and sheer excitement. After months of preparation and years of calling, I was on my way to Africa, AFRICA!
We left Chicago at 5:50 Monday evening and after a short yet eventful layover in London (they really mean it when they say your carry-on must be SMALL) we boarded a plane for Nairobi! We arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta airport at 8:50 pm Tuesday night and spent our first night in Kenya at the Precious Blood Boarding house in the city. I slept under a huge mosquito net, had hot tea for breakfast this morning, and took the coldest shower of my life... three things I am told I will be getting used to over the next twelve months! I cannot wait for the days and weeks ahead as I get to learn more about these people, their language, and their customs!
I know that God was here before me, I know that He is here with me now, and I know He will remain here once I am gone... I only hope to see His work and His love in those that I meet.

Orientation in Chicago

2006-08-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

So, this is my blog, neat, isn't it? a little bit about what I am doing... a little bit about my thoughts and feelings now... a little bit about what I have learned... I will try to update this as frequently as possible over the next year and I will try to post pictures as soon as I figure out how to load them from my camera to the computer... please let me know what is going on in your lives over the next year and how I can pray for each of you...

I left Darlington to begin this journey on August 20. Since then, I have been in Chicago for a week-long orientation program where I have had the opportunity to share thoughts and experiences with other young adults going out to serve as partners in the global community. We have gotten the chance to reflect on the journey about to begin and the inevitable changes that will occur in and through us because of this journey.
I know that God has called me here this week, to share in the struggles and excitement of this place and these people. I have been so blessed by the speakers we have heard and the friendships we have formed as we prepare each day to take part in God's mission in the larger world. My eyes have been opened to new ways of looking at problems and new ways of defining my place and my call. We go out into the world, not to save it, but to simply to offer our presence... To stand up as the body of Christ with our brothers and sisters all over the globe... to commit to the fact that we are all connected... to commit to the idea that when one of us hurts, we all hurt; when one of us hungers, we all hunger...
On Monday we looked at the parable of the Lost Sheep, not from the perspective of the one, but from the comfort of the 99. I have always thought of myself as the one who was lost, and I found reassurance in the Shepard who would find me no matter where I wandered. While this is still very true in my life, I have also come to see myself as a part of the church that is comfortable, the church that wonders: Why would the Shepard leave us to go after that one? And dare we risk following if it means endangering our status or privilege? The answer came as a surprise to me... you see, without that one, the ninety-nine are incomplete. We cannot claim to be a part of the great Church universal if we do not find ways to reach out to those who are lost and hungry and hurting in the world. Not because we can save them, not because we can teach them, but because we are not whole without them. Our humanity rests in their humanity, and there is no status or privilege worth risking that.
As the time to leave for Kenya draws closer, I pray that God will give me eyes that see beneath the surface, ears that can understand the meaning behind words, and a heart open to the pain of others. I am going as a stranger to a new place, a place of unfamiliarity and discomfort... perhaps during this time of transition and newness, I will be shaken up enough to be changed by the stories of Christ lived out in the people of Kenya.