Presenting While at Home

Since I have been back I have had the opportunity to tell many stories. Most have been randomly conjured to my mind when Tim and I have been talking. However, the "formal" presentations that I have done have been very interesting indeed. My supporters who sponsored me on the trip were invited to a luncheon and presentation a week after I was back. This made the first week quite stressful, because it takes a lot of time and thought to piece together a powerpoint presentation. Especially when it is on a testy HP computer.

Anyways, this semester I am in a class called "Promoting Health Globally," which I had the option of doing a presentation on work I've done overseas, or writing a tedious paper. I chose the former and presented last week to my class. My dear professor apparently enjoyed my presentation very much (even though I honed it to present on the global health issues and challenges in two sites in Kenya because I had a time limit). She recommended me to the head of Global Health at the U of I and now I am giving that same presentation at the annual Global Health Studies Reception in November.

God has blessed me abundantly.

Bottletops

It is funny the things that take you back to different and past times and places. It seems that the smallest little trinket can trigger an ocean of memory that puts me back in a place where smells and textures are very real.
I am currently in the process of unpacking my new house, Maggie and I are moving in to our adjoining room, and having a bit of fun fixing it up just the way we like it. I just hung up, on the rim of my book shelf, thirteen pop tops from glass bottles. Four of them aren’t from Africa, but the other nine are, and each one, as I sat back and admired my work, reminded of some amazing times.
There are two ‘Krest’ tabs, one white and one green. The white one is a ginger ale and the green is “bitter lemon.” The white one I drank while Rob and I were in the guesthouse in Nairobi. We were looking about in the gift shop and decided to get sodas. It was our last time in the Nairobi guesthouse, and the memory brings back the layout of the first floor. There was the front desk and two wooden chairs with a table and magazines between them. There was a rather large living room area with African art hung on the wall and African style furniture arranged in a welcoming way. The other Krest cap was from Litein, I had it the night that I was very sick.
There’s an “Alvara” top that is an orangy yellow colour. This we picked up in Kajiado town when we went and had yama choma in the locker of the town. Yama choma is a leg of goat put on a rotisserie apparatus and cooked for a while. Then they bring the leg in on a large wooden cutting board/plate and cut it up with a huge knife. On the edges of the plate are little mounds of salt, which you dip the meat that you tear off in and eat. Daniel (the director of the Kajiado Child Care Center), Rob and I all had this soda with our goat leg. It was a fizzy pineapple and it was very enjoyable.
Another tab is a lime green colour and it was from a “fanta citrus.” This was the soda that I had in Amaya, a mobile clinic that we did while we stayed in Churo. Festus, the nurse for the clinic, went and brought in soda for all of us when we were nearing the fourth hour of our work that day. It was very generous of him, and we all appreciated the cool drink and the break for our feet.
There are more tabs, and each with specific and detailed memories. It is good to remember.

A little girl named Pialo

Kajiado, Kenya is very deeply located in Maasai (a Kenyan tribe) land. Maasai huts are mostly mud and dung mixtures with sticks dried into the mud to stabilize the hut. The cooking is done in the middle of the hut over an open flame. There can be one or two small peep hole windows in huts, but many have no such windows and therefore, Maasai huts are very poorly ventilated. In Kajiado, Kenya there is a child care center (amongst other things) that takes care of children who are physically disabled. Most children suffered Polio when they were very young and still bear the consequences today. Some have spina bifida, some microcephaly or hydrocephaly. Pialo doesn't suffer under such conditions.

Pialo, when she was about three years old walked too close to the cooking flame in her hut and her skirt caught on fire, and she was badly burned in the accident. Her family brought her to the child care center, and she has lived there ever since, because she is of less value because of her scars and condition. She has a beautiful heart that wants to learn and serve others. She vaguely reminds me of Samwise Gamgee, the beloved hobbit from the Lord of the Rings, because she is never far off from another girl, Esther. Pialo helps Esther in and out of her wheel chair and takes Esther everywhere in the chair. They are neigh inseparable.

Though children in Africa were far more friendly and loving towards us wazungu (white peoples) Pialo seemed to love beyond a mere fascination and being around her was quite different than most of the other children that I met while I was gone. She included me in the games that her and her friends were playing on the play ground after school. I went down slides, through tunnels of water vats, ran about buildings and hid nearly everywhere they could think of to stick me. Later that night, after they had all gone and had supper, I was invited into the disabled girls dormitory by none other than the precious Pialo. I helped Esther to understand the one children's book that they had, a Christmas story as she read it in English to the others. Esther had no idea what a reindeer was, and frankly, I think I called it a moose that can fly. When I was going to leave, to be with my team for the night, Pialo teared up and didn't want me to go. To see this broke my heart and made me cry a bit too. Love is strong in the children of Kajiado, Kenya.

Getting to Churo

There is so much to explain and I will eventually post who all of these people that I tell stories about are, but for now please bear with me.

Paul H. has spent 7 years in Uganda and 13 years in Kenya with our Organisation, and he accompanied us from Nairobi to Kijabe and Churo. After our stay in Churo we dropped him off in Nakuru to catch a matatu (taxi) back home to Kijabe. Paul H. is a MD, but is no longer practicing, he does another job, which I am not sure of the title, in Kenya. Paul H., for the first week, drove our landcruiser. The first day that we were in Nairobi and then the first day in Kijabe it had rained very hard.

Personally, I had been praying for some African rains before we even arrived in Kenya, and I really got what I had requested. Rob and Kristina weren't so chipper as I about the rains, but they managed. When we got to Paul H.'s house, his wonderful wife, Pam, told us that Kenya had just recently gotten out of a two year drought and had been praying for little smatterings of rain. The past couple of days had been a blessing because Kijabe, and most of Kenya, had not seen rain like that in over two years. I was thinking through this the other day and realised that God had used my prayer to bless the Kenyans, and in this I rejoice.

About Kenyan tribes:
There are about 48 tribal family groups in Kenya and we interacted with four of them. That to say, what you read from me will not be a complete picture of the Kenyan people, but with any luck, you will have an accurate snapshot of four tribes: Kikuyu, Samburu, Maasai(the most popular for African photographs) and Pokot.

When we left Kijabe after the massive rainfall, we started out on a three and a half hour ride to Churo, in the east Pokot land. We were nearing the final stretch of our journey to Churo when we were faced with a spot in the road that had two small ponds on either side of a fallen tree. We chose the right, and apparently should have gone left. We got incredibly, award winning stuck in the reddish 'clay-mud' that didn't smell like it was just mud (there are animals on the road all the time, so it most likely wasn't just mud) and murky water. The stuck that I speak of is bottom of my knee (literally that's where I sunk down to) deep puddles with our left front and right back wheels spinning free when we tried to muscle the landcruiser out of the road swamp.

We eventually decided that we needed to get out of the vehicle and push while Paul H. tried to drive out. We tried. We failed, Kristina was splattered by the spittle of the tire she stood behind. We tried piling brush and smaller rocks underneath the two spinning tires to get some traction, but to no avail. All the while a group of Pokot onlookers were quite enjoying their opportunity of daily entertainment: Wazungu (white people in Kiswahili) Stuck In the Mud. After about half an hour of heaving, piling, pushing and sweating, a younger Pokot mechanic, also named Paul, came into the mud with us to help. He became just as dirty as we were, it was amazing to see the love, compassion and righteous work that he gifted to us.

Someone, maybe Paul, came up with the idea of jacking the landcruiser up and putting large rocks beneath the spinners to see how that would go. This took about 25 minutes to do, and we all got much dirtier than we were before. Rob (Mississippian on the team) and Paul were the most instrumental in stacking things, and Kristina, Kathryn and I brought them the big rocks from the road side. We also decided to tie the rope we had in the cruiser to the front grill and had a force pull from the front. I began tying rope to the front and some of the onlookers decided to get involved. I tied five ropes on, and women and men grabbed onto them in preparation for the upheaval. One of the women helped me cut the rope with her machete (which is merely a gardening tool in Kenya). We prepared, had pushers in the back, a pulling crew in the front and Paul H. behind the wheel, and the cruiser came out of the swamp.

The team washed off a bit in a stream, except for me, and then we drove the last 200 yards of the journey to Churo! Paul H. had neglected to tell us that we were in walking distance. I sustained the only injury of the entire ordeal, which I believe I got rather early on. A rock had worked its way into my chaco (a secure sandal brand) and cut the bottom of my big toe. The cut was into my callous and didn't bleed, which I count as a blessing of God. My foot could have been, logically should have been infected or introduced some type of protozoan or bacteria into my blood stream, but instead, I paid a little pain of the cut and then Kathryn cleaning the muck out, and I was healthy.

* The giraffe in the photo by my chacos is Marley, he originally belongs to Karthryn and he was our team mascot, and went nearly everywhere that we traveled.

Journey Map

This is my attempt to give you a physical idea of where our team went, so that when I refer to a place, you will have a vague idea of what I am talking about.

I will describe the places in Kenya and Minah by terms of medical sites we visited, because they dictated our route, but our learning was a majority of non-medical, more cultural and spiritual things. This is not to say that we didn't learn a tremendous amount of medical based things, but God surpassed what the doctors taught us all the more.

From Moline IL, I flew out May 24 and stopped over in Detroit on my way to New York. Pearl River, NY is the HQ for the US base for our Organisation. This is where Rob, Kristina and I met. Then, May 26 we began a long trek from New York to London, which I believe was neigh seven hours. After a few hours of layover in London, we got on another plane to Nairobi, Kenya, nearly a nine hour flight. We spent the night in Nairobi at the Organisation's guesthouse. The next day we began our ride around Kenya.

The places we went and why...
Kijabe: hospital, homestay and to orientate with Pam and Paul (longtermers in Kenya)
Nakuru: church, game park (safari), the only hotel (one night)
Churo: dispensary, Amaya moblie clinic, the most rural place we went
Nakuru: dropped Paul off to go home to Kijabe drove through
Litein: hospital (up close and personal)
Nairobi: stay in guesthouse (one night)
Kajiado: Childcare center, dispensary, mobile clinics in Partimarou and Piliwa, girls school
Nairobi: guesthouse for a night and flight to Minah

Minah is divided into four "provinces" in a way, like Canada, only it takes a 30 minute plane ride to get from one to the next.

We spent time in two "provinces" which we shall call GC and MH.
GC cities:
Oni: homestay, Catholic hospital, Muslim Hospital, Dr. Cortino's (a Ugandan) private practise, Kathryn's team in GC. We spent a week in Oni and then went to another "province" MH and stayed with Ruth (Kathryn didn't come with us).

MH cities:
Ezi: Staying with Ruth, visiting Heather
Ani: dispensary
Boni: hospital and clinic
Goni: hospital and families

Then we went back to GC and went to Dja for debriefing. Then back to Kenya, and back to London and New York and IL and Iowa.

Please note that the cities in Minah are magically abbreviated to be not the real names. Now, once we are all caught up on how the navigation of the trip worked, I will tell you the good stuff.

Mind's Eye

Greetings to all,

I have been in Iowa for a few days now and have been thinking about what to write on here first, what order it should go in ect. So that you know, I don't believe that what I write will be entirely chronological, maybe not at all. I will eventually write about the order as a reference though. Also, getting everything out onto the blog will most likely take a lot of time, and I have no goal as to when it will be finished. Even if I were to write all I thought through, there will still be many ways that this 2010 trip will be moving my life in the future. So I believe it will never actually end.

It is strange being in Iowa, even New York and London were weird. First off, there are so many more wazungu (white people- non derogatory). Secondly, Rob, one of the four people that comprised our team, we left at the Nairobi airport on the 29th of June. While I was in Kenya, I began listening to the Lord of the Rings radio version, and when we left Kathryn and then Rob, and then I left Kristina, it very much felt like our fellowship was breaking (which, in the physical sense, it was).

I have over 2000 photos from the trip, and my mother and I were flipping through some of them. We got to one from Kajiado-a place you will hear much more about in the future- and my mind, for a second, took me back there. I cannot adequately explain it, but I felt like I was standing (which I was when I took the scene in the photo) but my physically intact body was sitting. I squinted my eyes because of the sun, by it was dark in the room. I snapped back and took a deep breath- it was so odd.

Every now and then when I am missing a certain bunch of people, I will close my eyes and my mind takes me back to them. A few moments ago I was missing people in Kajiado- for some reason my mind went back to a very specific day in Kajiado compound and rewinded me through my walk to morning devotions, waking up and having a small disagreement with the mosquito net, then the night before, sitting at the table and talking with Kathryn and Rob. Its amazing. I remember rocks, little details, sounds, lighting, colours of clothing and who was there, where they were, what we were talking about, everything. It's amazing.

I asked God to help me remember so that I could bring small glimpses of Kenya and Minah back with me. So that I could share. So that He could use what I shared to change peoples' hearts in my home country. He answered that prayer, just like He did throughout the whole trip. One right after another, we saw Him healing and loving and walking with us, and answering our prayers. He answered this one.

Team Building

Since three pm on the 24th of May, our team of three have been getting to know each other and spending a lot of time together, since that's what you do here.

First off, AIM's HQ is not at all what I expected, but it is really really nice. Its very similar to the house that my family used to stay at that was just outside of Wisconsin Dells. There's a train track that is close, so I get to hear the whistle every now and then, and there are lots of evergreens and plants surrounding the HQ building. Its really a nice place, sort of like a hotel, but more home like than any hotel that I have ever ventured into.

I finally got to meet Rae on the first day that we arrived and it was great. I am rooming with Kristina and Rob is all the way down the hall from us in the upper level of HQ, where there are twelve housing rooms to accommodate the missionaries that are passing to and fro. As a team, God is pouring out blessings which are above my wildest dreams to imagine or comprehend.

We have only been together for about twenty-four hours and we are already a close-knit unit that only God could have made us into for this trip of His to Kenya and Minah. The first night that we had together we spent about two hours talking about the initiation information that comes along with meeting new people. Stuff like families, quirks, interests and Rob's southern accent. Then we had supper with Rae. Finally, we finished off the evening by playing an assigned team building game, cleverly titled, "Getting to know me." I admit an initial hesitance, even when we were first talking, to be open, emotional (at a normal person rate, not a drama queen, but normalish). The assigned game was simple, there was a deck of cards (not playing cards though) and we spread them out on the table and took turns choosing cards and answering the questions that were on them. God, being sovereign over a little thing like the game we were playing, had me choosing really deep, emotionally involving, character revealing, challenging cards and answering questions that I simply could conceal myself through. For example: "What are your spiritual strengths and weaknesses?" Rob and Kristina, on the other hand, got questions like, "What is your favourite type of music?" (Kristina's). Or, "What is your favourite month?" (Rob's). God moved so that the stubborn and disobedient Chelsy would have to lie or be vulnerable, and the truth side of me would have none of the faking it stuff, so on the first night I got very real with people that are not strangers to me anymore. Praise God that He has looked at all the details and is powerful to compensate for my introverted tendency. Praise Him.

So, the 25th, today, was full of instruction from different staffers. We had a culture + worldviews "lecture" this morning, and then we had lunch. We were supposed to meet with Rae after that, but she was detained for the day with business for another trip. So instead she gave us these books and told us to go through the spiritual warfare chapter together. In the first hour and a half we made it through a page an a half. There were many side tangents that we were kind of "reliving life" together through, because before yesterday, we were unable to actually live life together. We talked about deep things; things that I haven't gone so deep with some of the gals in my Bible study. We talked about spiritual giftedness, for some reason Kristina was really interested in what gifts I had and especially what the gift of discernment looks like in my life when it is fleshed out. We talked about weaknesses and strengths, we took a long hard look into our individual weaknesses actually. We looked at them again later on in the night through the context of the armour of God, and what we find that we are good at putting on and keeping on, and which pieces that we struggle to carry with us. Its crazy, no group of people that I have ever heard of have had their hearts mesh so fluidly, and it is only because of the grace of God and the Spirits interweaving and interlocking of our heart that this bonding has happened. We have discovered that where one of us is weak, another seems to be very strong, and when this compensation and complimentation doesn't happen, I have reminded myself that we still have a team leader to meet tomorrow, and God will make up all shortcomings that we have to bring a child of His into the Kingdom.

I do not know who will understand this when it is read, but I will say it anyway, and this is my warning. When I was at Village Creek Bible Camp, a dear friend that I made over the years working there was Andy Wolfe (Hi, Andy). He could tell me what I was thinking most of the time. Verbal communication was not amazingly necessary when we were in the same room, especially on my part, because Andy could just respond to my thought, which was really scary the first time I realized that he was able to do it. In the same token Grant Baker (Hi, Grant) is readable to me. It drives him absolutely crazy sometimes because thought life is supposedly private, but for him, not so much. I say this because I can read Kristina and Rob in very similar ways. So much so that I felt comfortable to lovingly and gently challenge Rob today. God has showed me some of their gifts that they aren't really fully aware of. God has been opening my eyes and having me see them as He sees them. Its amazing. Through the Spirit telling me and shedding light on Kristina's life, a was able to tell her what the spiritual gifts were that she already knew that she had. It was crazy sitting there thinking to myself, "She's got evangelism and hospitality, yeah hospitality hard core." Then when she said them, I was blown away by realizing what the Spirit had just done. Also, at supper tonight, Kristina and I had our first nonverbal communicae, Rob, I feel, is soon to follow. It is God's plan, and that is the best way that I can come up with to explain it.

I do not know how to tell you about the relationship bonds that God has made between us in the short time that we have been in New York better than what I have said so far, so I digress, hoping that what I have tried to say will be proven as God works in us in Africa.

I am well, we leave HQ tomorrow at 2pm to catch a 6pm flight to London. I am excited.
Finally, we need prayer warriors who are willing to take up the cause of Christ by praying for our team and the plans that God has for us in Kenya and Minah. Please, take it to the prayer closet. We are meeting with God in a similar closet, and will be there, even if we are miles away.

Love, cj