Christmas in Kenya... and the search for the missing boxers.

We wish you a merry Christmas...we wish you a merry Christmas!!!

Hello all,

Merry Christmas from Kenya. I apologize that we haven't been able to blog in a long time. We are deep in the bush bush in central Kenya. In order to get a signal, we have to climb a cliff and hope it's not cloudy. That makes internetting pretty difficult.

Quick update: We are staying with Jason and Lisa Hovingh at their beautiful house near River Malewa outside of Naivasha, Kenya. We got to their house around December 4th and will be with them until early January. We are actually going on a mini vacation with them to the Kenyan coast from the 4th of January to the 9th. I'm going to swim in the Indian Ocean!!!!! Woohoo!!! I'm pretty much excited. While with the Hovingh's we have been volunteering at the orphanage they are helping to start... digging trash pits, putting together teeter-totters, and sorting through piles of donated clothes from the States... By the way, if donating things to a Kenyan orphanage, please do not send night lights???? Especially if they are for 110 V outlets as we use 240 V over here... We found them and were like, "What!?!"

The girls have been homeschooling the kids and I've been helping Jason around the house and farm and working on booklets and brochures for the retreat center they are setting up. They are somewhat active in the white Kenyan farmer culture and we have been learning a ton about the "Kenyan Cowboys." Most of these people were born here and are actually Kenyan citizens. They either own or manage all the flower farms and it has definitely been an eye-opening experience to see that... I'll try to write more on that the next time I'm online.

Today is my first Kenyan Christmas. I can't believe it's December. We are spending Christmas with the Hovinghs and a family from South Africa. It's been amazing. I'm using the family's computer- BROADBAND INTERNET!!!! Like an angel from heaven. This morning, the girls and I celebrated Christmas together listening to the Michael Buble Christmas album and opening our presents... We had some great gifts.

1. Bethany got a light anywhere match from me so she can rub it in my face that she's a girl who can start a one-match fire.
2. Jill got rocks to skip...hopefully in front of her as she threw one behind her trying to skip it when I taught her how to skip rocks the other day.
3. The girls gave me a beanie (or a Toque? for you Canadians) that was actually a yamukah on my massive head... didn't even get to my ears... Ha.
4. The other day the girls were bored and decided to steal my boxers, hat, undershirt, and socks... I searched for my boxers regularly for about the last week, having no idea where they went... sheesh. I figured they stole them because whenever I mentioned it, they had to choke back laughs. Anyway, this morning after all the other gifts were opened, they told me to go look for my other gift--using the hot cold method as I walked around our little cottage. I got to the freezer and they said I was on fire... I bend down and look in the freezer and there's this wrapped package in the freezer that says Merry Christmas Will... "W'all love you" (inside joke- they make fun of my Texas use of Ya'll so they started saying w'all -we all...) I open the frozen package and find a juice container with all my boxers, beanie, and socks frozen in water. GRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! But I laughed really really hard. Sheesh.
5. Because I had been asking Lisa if she had seen my boxers in the laundry for like the past week, she got me a great gift as well. She knew the girls had frozen my boxers. SO anyway, she and Jason got me silk, leapord print boxers "just so I'd have an extra pair. We laughed for a long time when I opened it. O wow... E is for how EXTREMELY NORMAL THIS IS!

Ok, so it's been a great Christmas in Kenya so far. We had an amazing lunch with lamb (South African custom), impala game pie, chicken stuffing, these amazing pumpkin fritters, some insanely strong South African Red Wine, and some awesome desert with a Russian Skaters name as the name of the dish. I'm almost full... hehe. We're about to play some games so I'm signing off for now but Merry Christmas everyone... and if you ever are missing any boxers, check the freezer. Gosh.

lovewill

P.S. Please be praying for safety as the intensely close elections are two days away... in a third world country, elections can be a scary thing. We love all of you and are missing home and snow... the girls have been listening to Christmas music just to remind them it's Christmas... being from Texas, warmth is normal at Christmas... anyway.

So, I’m in Africa…

I’ve been meaning to write a blog about random Africa things for some time now. One of our comments posed some great questions that I have been meaning to answer for a long time, but I guess I’ve just put off the general info—this is how we live—blog for a long time. So here we go…

If I were to describe Africa in one word I would probably use the word: dichotomy. Everywhere I look, I see glaring opposites and the far extremes. Africa seems so alive…so vibrant and colorful…But, at the same time, never before have I seen so much death, so much pain, and so much despair. The dichotomy of life and death. So much life and so much death. I see a struggle between the age-old traditions of tribalism and the groans of development. Nairobi is a modern city…complete with modern conveniences and appliances. I’ve eaten the Kenyan version of fast food many times—fried dough in a triangle shape filled with meat, onions, and sometimes peppers. It’s called a samosa.

This place seems so ancient and comfortable in those age-old traditions. The culture is beautiful and definitely colorful; however, I see Kenya striving to develop culturally, politically, and economically. Therefore, daily I see the dichotomy and the struggle of a culture of tribalism that is testing its feet in the water of capitalism, democracy, and development. (I have many questions about whether or not the type of development that the West is seeking to impose on Africa is actually beneficial…not the medical and hygiene development, but the capitalistic and democratic development. But that’s a story for another blog).

Dichotomy…that’s my word for now. Even now, I know it’s changing and will probably continue to develop and change as I continue to learn and observe.

Hmm… here we go with the random my favorite things, my observations, and general info on our daily lives. To start with a funny example of a Kenyanism, look up to the last paragraph at how I started that sentence—“even now.” Of course Kenyans have accents, but the girls and I think it is hilarious how Kenyans always start with “even.” Even me, I will vote for this candidate. Even me, I want you to come with me. Even this one, she likes this musician. Even that one, he plays football. All the time. I think it’s hilarious and we always joke about it amongst ourselves… until the day when I actually said it without thinking. We were talking to a Swiss lady who is married to a Kenyan and I actually said, “Even me, I want to do_______.” Wow, the girls thought it was hysterical and I still here about it “even now.” Ha. So that’s my Kenyanism to start with.

Dishwashing, showers, and clothes washing…
I see more of the dichotomy of Africa with the complete schism between the ways of life. While at the YWAM base two months ago, we washed clothes in buckets, took showers with buckets, and washed dishes with buckets. Whoever is making green, blue, and orange plastic buckets is making a killing. When washing clothes, you use two buckets—one for rinsing and one for washing. My Kenyan buddy, Cliff, showed me how to grasp the end of a piece of clothing in your palm and take the other edge in your other hand. Then, briskly rub the end of the item against the part in the palm (actually on your wrist) and squeegee out all the soap and water as you move up the sleeve or pant leg. It definitely took some getting used to. The general tendency for westerners is to just put all the clothes in the bucket and then swish them around and around…then just rinse them. And the Kenyans laugh really hard at us because clothes don’t get clean that way and you can’t ever get all the soap out. When I first started to do it the Kenyan way, Cliff always laughed hysterically at my clumsy attempt to do it like a Kenyan. He says I’m better now. So that’s clothes washing.

Since that time, I’ve done everything from a washer and dryer to just a washer back to the buckets and even not washing at all. So I see the spectrum depending on where I am and with whom I’m living.

Back when I was in Boy Scouts, on campouts we washed dishes with a three bucket system… which is what we do here. The first bucket can be cold and is filled with a soapy lather to just scrub everything. The second bucket is the rinse bucket with hot water. The third is the bleach bucket and is pretty hot. Yep, it’s pretty sketchy.

Public Transportation
Oh, the matatu. Imagine a Nissan 14 passenger van…absolutely no leg-room. The outside is government regulated and must be some color with a yellow stripe around the middle. The outside must be pretty plain. But the inside—hmm, any creative license is acceptable. Subwoofers, music video screens, all kinds of music at full blast. Everything from playboy stickers to soccer player posters to R&B and Hip Hop posters. I am continually amazed at how cheap the matatus are. We have traveled for 2½ hours on three dollars a person. The matatus are the public service vehicle but the government doesn’t regulate the prices and the lack of a competent police lets the matatu drivers and conductors do whatever they want. There is always a driver and a conductor. The conductor sits next to the sliding door and advertises, harangues, and pretty much yells at everyone to get in and go with this matatu because it is SOOO much better than the newer, nicer looking one next to it. Oh, and this one time I actually heard a guy advertise the matatu we were riding in by saying in Swahili, “Come ride with me… Ride with white people.” So Jill, Bethany, and I are the new matatu advertising campaign. We’ve had some funny stories with matatus. One time, they actually crammed 23 people in a 14 passenger matatu. Another time, they crammed a rather large lady in the back seat with me and she pretty much exiled me away from MY seat. Then Jill and Bethany sat in each other’s laps and I eventually ended up sitting on top of the seats, banging my head on the ceiling frequently. It is actually physically impossible for me to fit my long legs in between the seats so I had to get up on the seats so that I didn’t have to stand in the seats. Then this Akamba lady starts yelling at me and cackling because I was on top of the seat. That was pretty annoying actually.

The annoying part of matatus is the fact I’m white. So we get ripped off quite often. Normally they charge mzungus (white people) double what they do the Kenyans. Oftentimes, we’ll talk them down and because we are beginning to carry ourselves like we know what we’re doing, they are beginning to know ahead of time that I’m not going to pay the crazy price. There have been a few times when the Kenyans around me will yell or gripe at the guy for overcharging us. If that happens, they usually charge us the normal price. It’s pretty frustrating that they charge us extra just because we’re white and they think we have more money. Reverse prejudice or something.

Ok, that’s enough random Kenyan observations for now, but I’ll keep answering questions and giving observations in the next couple of days… Bye for now.

lovewill

Food for thought:

“The real authority does not reside in the biblical text itself, in the ink on paper, which is always open to misinterpretation—sometimes, history tells us, horrific and dangerous misinterpretation. Instead, the real authority lies in God, who is there behind the text or beyond it or above it. In other words, the authority is not in what I say the text says but in what God says the text says.”
-Brian McLaren- New Kind of Christian

The most random, unorganized, and spastic thing you will ever read.

I want to be alive...to love. To be radical. To run with passion but not be afraid to come to a standstill. To talk about love. About politics. About philosophy. About the world. About social justice. About injustice. About faith. About religion. Heaven and hell. The supernatural. Music. Poetry. Paintings. Art. Wisdom. Listen to Death Cab For Cutie and Dave Matthews. Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros while watching the sun go down in its own explosion in the sky. Talk about social justice and the church while listening to U2. Pray while listening to This Will Destroy You. Dream about a new world, a new heart, and a new life while listening to Angels and Airwaves. Laugh and cry. Scream about injustice but whisper about love. Run through open fields and sit under the stars. Watch the nightlife and when we get bored of the city find the sunset and the sunrise. Be independent. Screw up badly but then try again and again. Write songs and poems. Love much and speak little. Enjoy the little things. Dance with abandon and cry freely. Learn what love is. Learn about sorrow and about hope. About despair. About poverty and about wealth. Feel loved, but experience loneliness. To run, to hide, as we tear down the walls that hold us back tonight. Run to a standstill and in that stillness, find the God of burning bushes and still breezes. Be still. Enjoy community. Find Jesus. Seek humility but tell their story. Study eyes. Get lost in beauty. Run away from rules to create our own. Cry with orphans and laugh with widows. Play with the children and wash their feet. Smile at and hug alcoholics, prostitutes, and drug addicts.



It is a new day. Things will never be the same. WE will never be the same... OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL! For His glory, make me alive because I am dead. Dead without his life... breathed into the world in the sunsets, sunrises, and stars...those explosions of light, sound, and color in the sky...The stars that light up the darkness. I want to be filled with that love, that life, that passion. I want to gaze at the sunset as if fades to black...dotted with the stars and talk about love. I want to look upon that love and talk about how small I am...how broken I must become. To learn together. To pray together. To love together and to love one another. To talk about Africa...about life... about God... about what it means to actually be ALIVE in this life. TO remind one another of our joy in light of the glorious rtiches given to us by the blood shed on that cross, so long ago. To learn together not to wait out the storm but to dance in the rain. To follow that light we see on the horizon. That speck of light at the end of the dark tunnel. The golden tear shed by the eyes of God for this world. To chase that light, that unfathomable love, until we are called home. That incomprehensible, undeserved love for this world that has rejected that light and that love. To chase that forever...To pick each other up when big feet and long legs trip us up...to trip, but then to look up and find the light once more. To pour ourselves out again and again... offering hope to the hopeless and love to the unlovable.

We must open our eyes to the world...screaming at the injustice we see but whispering love to those persecuted by that injustice. Loving much but speaking little. We must be still, but run as fast as we can all the while listening to Love and screaming that love through our eyes...our hands... and our feet as we seek what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ. Learning what it means to actually BE the CHURCH...not an institution but an organism that is eternally alive and changing...promoting life. We must learn that this life is not about the destination but that it is about the journey.

Walk this earth, always looking for that which we haven't found, but that which we are looking for. Recognize that we are not defined by what we do, but that we must recognize who we are...and let that define what we do. But finally, I want to be aware...aware of love, of providence, of people, and of this world...and then maybe I'll be alive.

Be radical but ordinary.

lovewill

"May we find the Way, the Truth, and the Life in a world of shortcuts, deception, and death."
-Shane Claiborne

These are a few of my favorite things !

Jill got her hair braided today, and she looks a lot like a mermaid.

Yesterday Jill and I were talking about our favorite things about Africa on the way into Ngong, so I thought I would share a bit of a list:

• In Africa, the food you eat comes from Africa. If you have a tomato chances are it was grown very close to where you live. I love how the cycle of life is so evident here. They grow their own food, or buy it from neighbors at the market, then they eat it and feed the leftovers to the pigs. All the natural organic products seem to have their own natural, organic life cycle. The rest of the garbage is another story though, as they burn pretty much everything else ! In North America it is the "Organic" food that costs a fortune, whereas here it is the packaged and imported food that costs a fortune. That doesn't really make sense to me.
  
• I love mangoes. They are like 15-20 Ksh at the market, and they are so delicious. I hate, on the other hand, having to barter for them because the vendors typically try and rip us off, and make us pay extra. Some of the vendors are kind though, and give us a fair price.
• I love "Africa Time". Seemingly, nothing happens fast here. There is so much less stress, and less to get done, and more time to do it in. There are alway people lounging in the grass on the side of the road, or riding their bikes to town. When I first arrived in October one of the things that struck me was the number of people riding bikes, and the number of people walking places. I love being able to walk 5 minutes to get to the store and buy a coke. And then getting to walk 5 minutes back to the store to return the bottle.
• Pop tastes better out of a glass bottle.
  
• I love Kenyan-isms. Almost all the Kenyans we've met all talk using the same vocal inflictions and the same "sayings". For example, you'll ask them a question like, "Do you like oranges Jane?" and they will look at you and say "Me?" and after you've confirmed that you were indeed talking to them, they answer. They also don't really have a word for "hello" in Swahili, so when you are greeting some one you instead say "habari yako ?" which means "how are you?" and they other person will say "msuri" which means "fine". So when we say "Hello" in English, they almost always respond by saying "Fine". Jill is the best out of all of us at imitating their speech patterns.
• I love how most of the matatu's are "pimped out". They have music blaring, stickers of rappers and hip hop women, and some have screens to play music videos on. One time we were on a matatu that had a sticker on the mirror that said " Don't kis tha driver!" (*see photo above... it was so funny we had to take a picture) In the windshield of every matatu there is a piece wood or cardboard that has the route number on it, and once we were in a matatu that had "Route 23" on one side and " On a date" on the other side.
  
• Mmm mendazi! Mendazi are these delicious triangles of fried dough that taste like heaven when they are fresh. You can get them for 5 Ksh at just about any store, although some are better than others.

That's all I've got for now. There are many other things that I know I love about Kenya. It's a really beautiful place, equally because of the people as the landscape.

peace,

Bethany

Some colored pencils and a guitar

Sometimes unexplainable things happen. It seems as if the longer I am here in Africa, the more frequent those things become. I have been meaning to write about one of those times for about three weeks. At Huruma, I've been teaching creative arts class for some of the different classes as much as time and class schedules allow. Three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to work with the second graders. The following is a just a retelling of all that happened that morning. This is an excerpt from my journal about that day. Before beginning I'd to tell you about two of the children that are in that class.

One of the little boy is named Nicholas. He is deaf. I don't know why he is deaf or if he's been deaf since birth but he is a beautiful little boy that always seems to have a smile on his face.

One of the little girls is named Miracle. She has an amazing story. When she was little, her parents found out that they had both contracted HIV and that their children had it as well. In Kenya, there is a huge stigma around HIV and AIDS because of the fundamental Christian influence and the fact that HIV is a sexually transmitted disease. Miracle's parents decided that they didn't want to deal with having HIV... they didn't want that stigma placed on their family. So they hung themselves. They hung themselves in their living room in front of their children's eyes. Right in front of two year old Miracle. She does remember it. When she came to Huruma, she tested positive for HIV. However, after some time, she was tested again, and the test results were reversed- she was negative. That is unheard of... They renamed her Miracle.

Thursday, November 8, 2007
Creative Arts Class- Grade 2

Yesterday before lunch I went to Jodie's class to do their creative arts time. For the first thirty minutes or so, we talked about what it means to be creative. A lot of them said that playing football, singing, dancing, and drawing were part of their own personal creativity. I thought about how they all have innate creativity within them and how it is largely ignored and even suppressed in some cases. It seems that the teachers do not emphasize creativity whatsoever and in teaching creative arts I have met with some resistance because the teachers don't think it is important.

We started our little session with a singalong. We sang "How Great Thou Art," "Awesome God," "I'll Fly Away," and "Silent Night." At the end of the singalong, Jodie came back with paper and colored pencils. This was the part that I was excited about.

Two days before, I remembered something that my English professor did with us my senior year and thought I would try it with the kids. He had us all sit down, dimmed the lights, and played one song on repeat for the remainder of the class time. We were encouraged to listen to the song twice through and then to begin to write... writing whatever came to mind from the song whether it be prose, poetry, or lyrical. It was one of those times in life where you feel something happen inside you... you can't explain it, but you know that something was different and my writing that day reflected that. Because of that memory, I wanted to try it with the kids.

I asked the kids to sit down, separate at their desks and to put their heads down. I explained I would play a song and that I just wanted them to listen to the song, keeping their heads down and not talking with their classmates. I began to play "Mexico" by Jump Little Children. As I played and began to sing, a feeling of peace swept over the room... I watched as peaceful expressions washed over their faces and many of them began to smile. Even Nicholas, the deaf boy was smiling. I feel like he felt the music rather than heard it because his whole demeanor changed as I began to play.

After the song was over, I asked them to lift their heads and begin to draw or write whatever they felt after hearing the song. I asked them not to talk with their classmates and to keep their eyes on their own papers. They did exactly as they were told. I began the song again and played for about thirty minutes as they sat and listened and drew. I don't remember feeling that peaceful or that happy in a long time.

At the end of the time, I silently put my guitar away and walked around the classroom to see what they had drawn. My heart began to flutter, beating faster as tears came to my eyes. Probably 80% of the kids had drawn hearts...some drew one heart, some drew lots of small hearts, some drew Jodie and I with hearts around us. Even some of the boys drew hearts. (Well, of course one boy drew a lion and the other traced an elephant... that would have been me.) The deaf boy, who is actually extremely artistic, drew a heart. Even now, I still can't totally believe it or hope to comprehend what happened that morning. They hadn't seen each other's work, but they had drawn hearts as I played the music.

A class filled with the world's abandoned, orphaned, sick, destitute, and abused children drew hearts and wrote about love. The song didn't directly speak of love, but they drew hearts. Out of thirteen kids, ten drew hearts.

There are so many implications of what happened that morning. The power of music....I have aways wondered if music actually does have power. But apparently, music is able to convey love, thereby giving music some sort of supernatural quality. I will never understand what happened in that room and I won't attempt to understand now.

I have struggled with how to love these children... the abused, the abandoned, the destitute, and the dying. I have tried so hard to do something to change the world for them. I have tried so hard to wrap my mind around the big picture and fix things for them. But all it took was a guitar and a voice to convey more love than I could have ever come up with on my own. Something happened in that room that science and reason cannot explain. Something happened that was beyond my human understanding.

I think that was the simplest and yet most profound experience of my life. Don't overcomplicate love. Just love. I cannot explain or understand what happened that day... I just wanted to tell you about it. Smile about the children and go out and love someone today.

lovewill

"In a world overwhelmed with words, sometimes the most powerful communication is action that is fueled and inspired by love."

God, I want so much for you to open my eyes, because they need me to look into theirs.

P.S. This morning I was sitting and writing and I heard this crazy loud song coming down the road. As it drew closer I recognized Johnny Cash singing about being the man... And when it drove by I realized it was a presidential propaganda car... They go around blaring propaganda about a certain candidate in the election... and it was blaring Johnny Cash. HAHAHAHAHA!!!

:-)

Rob Bell, Stars, and a Rat

Tonight, two little boys continually said, “Give me, give me about random things and then proceeded to go crazy and slap Jill and I on certain lower anterior areas of our anatomy. To which Jill responded, “What? Are you serious?” haha

Tonight, I saw a rat on a wall. And it was way too big. And it ran really fast.

Tonight, the sunset was beautiful… simplistic in the fact that the sky was mostly clear of clouds, vibrant in colors, and quite subtle as it faded into an endless blue dotted with specks of light. Infinite, incomprehensible beauty.

Tonight, the girls and I listened to a Rob Bell sermon on the second of the seven woes, recorded in Luke 11 and Matthew 23. In the passage, Jesus criticized the Pharisees for being more concerned with the outside of the cup (our life) than with the inside… Though they cleaned the outside of the cup, the inside was filled with greed, wickedness, and self-indulgence. Bell’s point was that we should live an undivided life, where the outside of the cup is just a reflection of the inside. Clean the inside and the outside will take care of itself. Be real before God and man.

Tonight, God encouraged our weary hearts, stimulated our minds, and lifted our spirits with love.

Tonight, I was reminded once again of the truth of the following statement: “The pursuit of the truth is far more important than the possession of it.”-Albert Einstein

Tonight, I partook of my first communion in Africa which consisted of mandazi and water… And I about cried because of the beauty that I found in that simplicity.

Tonight, I was reminded once again how much I love Jill and Bethany.


While listening to Rob Bell’s sermon (yep, for all my friends- Jill goes to Mars Hill and gets to listen to Rob Bell on a regular basis—lovewins…lucky) from Mars Hill from September 16, and something that he said really hit me. It wasn’t even part of the sermon really, just something that he said at the beginning of his comments on Jesus and a conversation with the Pharisees. During a prayer at the beginning of his talk, he said, “As we long for a reconciled heaven and earth, please tap us into the big themes—the big story—so that we can be a part of it.”

Tap us into the big themes. The big story…. so that we can be a part of it. The big picture. After he finished his sermon, I tried to think about the big picture for the first time in a long time as I listened to Explosions in the Sky while watching the sky grow dark and the stars grow brighter and brighter…seemingly exploding into the night sky. Lately I’ve done a terrible job about being concerned with the big themes. Forgive me for the jumbled up, disorganized train of thought that could possibly follow…

Love… blinding, bright, passionate love that lights up the sky at night as the bright sun descends and sets in an explosion of color while being capped off by the subtle transition to a black sky filled with small specks of light… representing that star, burning fiercely millions of light years away…

Love…that lights up the night sky in the morning as the sun begins it’s ascent in a softer, but equally beautiful sunrise in which the darkness of night is finally chased away by the light of the Son, as it pierces the darkness and extends its long fingers into the shadows…

Love...unconditional, radical love that died on a cross for the sins of the world and broke the chains of legalism, tradition, and sin for all who cling to that cross. And that same Love chased away the darkness of death after three days, claiming victory over darkness, pain, and death for all time.

And I get to see it…. I get to experience it. I get to feel that blinding, unconditional, and vibrant Love that daily puts on a light show of explosions in the sky just because it can. I get to see that love bring tears to the eyes of a child who has been driven from home to the brutal streets by parents that beat him…I get to see that love rescue a young Masaii girl from a future of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), forced marriage, and polygamy…I get to see that love rescue an abandoned child addicted to glue from the streets…I get to see that love bring three very different people together to embark on a quest to experience that love, follow it, and seek to lose enough of ourselves in order to become channels of that love to the world.

“So what can I say and what can I do, but offer this heart, O God, completely to You? So I’ll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned—in awe of the one who gave it all. I’ll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered. All I am is Yours.” -Hillsong United

Now that I have seen these things and experienced this great love…I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead. This love manifested in salvation allows me to have an inexpressible joy, an unfathomable peace, and an unexplainable hope…even in the pain, suffering, and death I see daily. These things that I have seen and this love that I have witnessed demand my life, my time, and my all… Maybe I didn’t ask to be here and be responsible for all that I have seen, but I’m here, I’ve seen it, and I am now responsible to do something about it… to tell the world of that love. To feed and clothe a child on the streets. To look at an AIDS victim and pour forth love from my eyes. To tell their story so that they may never again be invisible. And while doing so, maybe then I’ll actually be alive… not just in a medical sense, but truly alive. That’s the big picture…at least for tonight with my characteristic idealism.

The big picture for me tonight revolves around love. I will never completely understand… I may search for all the answers, but I will never know them. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for—heaven on earth—but I’ll keep looking ahead to that…and I’ll keep pursuing truth on this journey. And I’ll continue to believe that along the way, all three of us will discover our vital connection to God and one another. That we will truly be ALIVE.

Never settle!

lovewill

"We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we are called home." To Write Love On Her Arms

Emmanuel

I am the sort of person who loves hearing stories, so I thought I would share a story about Huruma.

Some of you, who have done your research, may know that Huruma houses about 150 children, 25 of which are HIV positive. The effect of HIV on the social fabric of Africa, and its ubiquitous presence here is not something that is easy for me to understand, or even recognize all the time.

But I got a little closer to understanding this weekend after we came back from Lake Naivasha and learned that one of the children, Emmanuel, had passed away. Emmanuel was a boy I didn't know very well, he was in class four and he was HIV positive.

Medically, I don't know enough to explain exactly what happened, but I can explain what I know which may or may not be biologically correct. Emmanuel had not eaten anything on Friday, probably by his own choice because Mama Zipporah is very adamant that the children on ARV's ( Anti-RetroViral) get enough to eat, and no one noticed until the next day. So his immune system became compromised, and he was taking ARV's without food, so all in all it was a bad situation. They took him to the hospital on Sunday after he didn't want to wake up or eat anything. They found out that he had contracted meningitis , and after the doctor put the IV in , he went into shock and died.

When the arrived at the hospital the nurse told Mary, a staff member at Huruma, to ask Emmanuel if he knew where he was. Emmanuel said "Yes, I am dying. I am dying." It's hard for me to imagine a child in grade four saying that.

I didn't personally know Emmanuel, but I know I had met him, and I know that I had played seven up with his class two weeks ago. I find it really eerie to know that a child I had spent time with is now gone.

When Mama took him in, she knew that he would die eventually. She understood that if he stayed wherever he was before Huruma he probably would die faster. But she chose to take him in and show him love for the time he had left. She committed to be his mother and offer him the best she could, until HIV took hold. I really admire her for seeing the value in all her children, while the rest of Kenyan society views them as a burden.

So that's the story I have to share. I hope it offered a brief glimpse into life in Africa, and maybe gave a real, human face to the AIDS crisis.

Peace,

Bethany