When Trade Isn't Fair

STEM

Over the week of Thanksgiving, we had a team of Americans come to spend some time here working and learning. It was my first time being on the receiving end of a short term team, and it was quite the experience.

It was nice having them here, because it meant extra hands that were willing to work (And they brought food for Thanksgiving!), so we were able to put together desks for two different schools and do a medical clinic. Laura and I got to spend all three work days out at the schools building desks, which was a lot of fun. – And, Warren had fun laughing me on the first day while I was trying to use a hammer that probably weighed more than my arm, on small nails no less. Needless to say…I found a smaller hammer. :P

I think that we did more manual labor in those three days behind the walls of a school compound than we have done during the rest of our internship combined. (Culturally, women here don’t really do manual labor – including painting – so we don’t do nearly as many projects as the guys are involved in…)

They worked hard, and it was fun to see them learning – although I think that their learning curve was much less steep than what my parents experienced when they came. (There is a definite cushioning effect of coming with a larger team and having special work projects to focus on.)

Even though it was a cool experience, it was exhausting by the end of their week, and I wasn’t even directly responsible for them in any way. I definitely have a new respect for people like the Grandberrys who have teams come out all summer long, one after another, after another. It’s nice having short term teams, but it’s a lot of WORK.

Promoting Literacy

During a recent conversation with some of the other interns, I realized how much of a theme there has been to the ministries that my team has been involved with. Somehow, a large number of the things that we have done or are in the process of doing have been literacy or communications media related.

Rebecca headed up the Bible story pictures that we painted on the walls out at school and then spent last term going back out to the school to tell the preschool and kindergarteners the stories. Now, she is working on illustrating culturally appropriate health and safety posters, helping a friend illustrate an English children’s story set in North Eastern Kenya, and working on a Kiswahili children’s book that uses the alphabet to name attributes of God.

I am helping to re-write a pre-primary school curriculum and working on Bible story picture books in Kiswahili.

Ashley and Melissa run a Bible club at school where they work on sword drills and memorization with the kids and where books are given as prizes. Additionally, both of them have helped the teachers at school to grade student tests, and answered countless questions about English – and every other subject under the sun.

Laura makes our video blog entries, is teaching a computer literacy course to the teachers at school, helps in the office and grading papers as needed, and has organized a pen pal program between students here and students in America. She also spent Saturday evening sitting down with me to edit the English children’s story that our friend is writing, and is considered one of the grammar nerds on our team.

Esther was able to get a hold of a solar/crank/wall charged device that contains the entire New Testament in Kiswahili, and attends a weekly Bible study where they spend part of the time listening to a passage. In a few months, she is planning to visit Nigeria to spend some time with a Wycliffe Bible translation team there and learn more about the work that they are doing.

Heath teaches guitar lessons and helps with a worship team at his church, and Warren has found some really cool discipleship materials that fit well into this context.

--No worries. We do actually do other things that have nothing to do with literacy or communications media as well. They just don’t fit into this post. :P

Who is my Neighbor?

The Parable of the Good Samaritan:
A Modern Re-telling

“But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And, who is my neighbor?’ Then Jesus answered and said:”

A certain man went out to the coffee fields to earn a living so that he could feed his family. While he was working, an international corporation came and purchased the fields, adding the crops and the laborers to its plantation. The corporation grew rich off of the scheme and pushed coffee prices down so low that the other farmers had no choice but to sell their land to the plantation. Soon, the man found himself in debt to the corporation, and, even when his wife and children joined him in the fields, they could not earn enough money to buy food or clean water.

A missionary came and stood on a large stage, telling all the people about their sins, but the man was too tired from working to listen, so the missionary left.

Some rich Christians came and stayed in his country for a week, but they returned to their jobs in America and forgot about the man and his family on the plantation.

Then, a humanitarian, straight from one of America’s most liberal colleges came to the man’s country. He set up a co-op and taught the farmers about fair trade and a living wage. He put up a building and helped them to hire teachers, so that their children could go to school. Then, he left them in the hands of another farmer from a nearby community, who had been trained in all that they would need to know, and returned to America with their coffee. “I will sell this for you,” He promised, “and, if you need anything else, or if I learn new things to teach you, I will return to work with you again.”

“’So, which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’ And he said, ‘He who showed mercy on him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”

Luke 10:29-37

Truth Trackers

Two of the girls on my team having been teaching a Bible club at a local primary school (K-8) on “clubs days,” doing lessons and sword drills and memory verses.

This past Wednesday was the last club day for this school year (They close school in November and start a new school year in January), so…

The kids all got their prizes.

They earn points for prizes by attending club, bringing their Bibles, and memorizing verses. Just a few verses earned them a sweet. More verses earned them two sweets (did you know that they make coke flavored hard candies?! It’s like a cross between a bottle cap and a lifesaver…) or even two sweets and a pencil sharpener.

Saying all of their verses earned them a brand new book.

Some people in that States donated several sets of YWAM missionary biographies, and the kids were very excited to receive them as prizes – almost as excited as they were about the candy…lol.

No. Really, they were excited, and proud. I watched one girl get off the bus and proceed to show her book to every person that she passed on the way to her house.

Of course, now, everyone is going to want to be in Bible club next year. I mean…who wouldn’t want to join the club that gives out sweets and books?

Thoughts from My Parents

In the movie Sahara, treasure hunters are searching for a great lost treasure on the continent of Africa. During the movie one of the main characters says a line that will always remind me of the way most of the world thinks about Africa. The line goes as follows: “It’s Africa, nobody cares about Africa”. The continent of Africa has been called the Dark Continent, the Forgotten Continent and for most of the modern world it is probably one of the most misunderstood and least thought about places of the planet.

Although we would never claim to be any type of authority on African culture, we were recently blessed with the opportunity to visit the country of Kenya and get a very small taste of what it is like to live in a country that has great beauty, wonderful people, and day to day challenges that make living there an adventure.

After landing in Nairobi and traveling 6-7 hours by bus to our final destination it became apparent that many of the modern conveniences we have grown to simply expect would not be so available in Kenya. Things such as power, water and smooth roads would soon become a treat that, when available, would elicit great joy and excitement.

We spent the majority of our time simply doing what our daughter and her fellow class mates do everyday. We were blessed to be able to visit two different schools in the area and meet several of the students, teachers and administrators that have taken on the day to day challenge to give this generation of children the best education they can. Two of these administrators were a couple that we spent time with on several different occasions. This couple has taken on the challenge of running a preschool, building a new home a bit at a time, and just plain trying to make a difference in the community. They are a fantastic couple who love the Lord and are doing His work to the benefit of those they meet everyday.

We were treated to fantastic Kenyan hospitality and food. We visited a giraffe park, went to the market, attended a local church, ate goat and camel, drank lots of water and the occasional soda, sweated a lot, prayed for electricity and water and simply looked forward to each day’s activities. We walked a lot, tried to talk in Swahili as much as possible, remembered how good cinnamon on toast is and learned that water doesn’t have to be clear to use for bathing. We were re-introduced to the art of simply sitting around for hours and talking to each other about any subject during those times when power and water were not available. We learned that you always take a flashlight and bucket of water with you whenever you enter the bathroom, and that it is actually possible to kill a hundred flies in less than twenty minutes without ever leaving your chair.

We remembered how good a cool drink of water tastes, and that a person can survive without napkins, ice, the internet or even Mountain Dew. After spending a few days in the country we discovered that those things that appeared to be total chaos when we first arrived were simply the way things are in a country that takes chaos and make the best of it. We learned that it is possible to dig a 200 mile ditch by hand, that when it comes right down to it the people are what make a country great and not the government, and that God loves those people dearly. Our hearts were opened for the people of Kenya and we discovered that when the love of the Lord shines, even in the slums of Nairobi, it can put a light in people’s eyes that shines for the entire world to see.

30 Days of Nothing

I stumbled across this blog the other day, and thought the concept was interesting. (Plus, it was fun to read her family's reactions to things like hand washing a load of laundry or living without electricity for a day -- things that are normal here, but very not normal in America.)

Her idea was to live for one month without buying "extra" things like lattes or clothing, more or less as an experiment to see how much money they could save and what sorts of things they could learn.

When I get back to the States, this would be a very interesting "experiment" to try -- but, maybe I'm just in a very 'live off the grid' sort of a mood lately. Or, more likely, it appeals to me because it is a tangible act of social justice, something that goes completely against the grain of American consumerism.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share my find with you. Enjoy.

Avast There!

We really do do ministry here, I promise -- I just don't seem to post about it on this blog!

This last Saturday, though, we spent the evening dressed up as pirates and townspeople and played a giant mystery game with some of our friends.


One of us got "murdered" at the beginning of the game, and we had to try to figure out who did it, kind of like a really complicated version of clue or mafia. I turned out that Daniel, one of our friends from the peace corps, killed the first mate of the pirate ship, because he didn't want the first mate to get any of buried treasure. Not a very good friend, is he? Lol.


We had a lot of fun making our costumes -- and we think that we should get school credit for learning how to make costumes in North Eastern Kenya...but our teachers don't agree with us. My jacket started out as a skirt, before I chopped it up and added braided trim and coke bottle cap buttons. Pirates totally made their buttons out of pop bottle caps, right?


So...maybe it wasn't the most historically accurate costume ever, but you work with what you've got, right?

Welcome to Our Planet

One of my teammates had his twenty-third birthday yesterday, and, for his Stargate themed party, we built a stargate in our front room and invented a planet. Yep. We're a bunch of nerds like that, but it's all good.

We filled "Daniel Jackson's notebook" with all sorts of notes about randomly invented planets

-- including a code
The birthday boy and the stargate that Rebecca made

An Unchun farmer chilling on planet P1122

Decoding the ruins of an ancient civilization with his handy dandy notebook
-- this took longer than I had anticipated. Oops! Note to self: it takes much longer to decode something than it does it to code it.

My job was to create ruins with a brief history of our planet
-- it may have taken up three and a half pages like this one... Sorry, Warren!

Question Words

Who: a college aged Christ follower seeking to live out the faith that I say has changed me forever -- and anyone who decides to follow along via the blog

What: the record of a life experiment in social justice

Where: North Eastern Province, Kenya and, in a few months, Minneapolis, MN and Eastern Washington State

When: from now until I'm dead -- or I find a new medium to record in

Why: to keep myself accountable and insure that I practice the things that are rolling around in my head

How (that poor little extra question word that doesn't fit in with all of the others): we'll find out as we go. Things will likely change radically as I move from place to place and into different phases of life.

Welcome. Enjoy the journey.

The Things You Learn

Last week must have been a good week for learning random things about Kenyan culture. It seemed like every time that I had a conversation with someone I was learning something new.

I learned that this lizard (the red headed rock agama) is considered by Islam to be an unclean animal, like a pig or a dog. One got into a classroom and the kids were screaming like American kids might if a really big spider fell from the ceiling. Apparently, the prophet Mohamed was lost and needed directions. The only thing around to ask directions from was one of these lizards -- I guess it is kind of like Balaam's donkey talking to him...


Lizards must not be as smart as they look, though, because it gave him the wrong directions. As it's punishment, he made it an unclean animal. That means that, if you touch it, you are unclean as well, and you can't say prayers until you do a ritual washing. Thus, the running away and screaming when it came in.

I also learned that, back in the day, the only test to see whether or not you could get into first grade was that you were asked to reach over the top of your head and touch your ear. Still haven't figured out the logic of that one...let me know if you figure it out.

And, I learned that in at least one of the tribes from Western/Central Kenya, they have a saying that, if your hands are shaking, it means that you killed a lizard, and, if your legs are shaking, it means that you stepped on a lizard (Somehow, I learned a lot about lizards this week!). It is kind of like how people in some parts of America say that, if your ears are burning, it means that someone is talking about you.