We are currently in the IU compound. Sunday night we got in right when the sun began to go down. We all got our stuff in and into our rooms and saw the different houses with the kitchen, computer room, pool table, 'soccer' TV, and office in different houses. After getting set up we met with Joe and Sarah Ellen and heard about why Indiana is in the middle of Kenya (it was because of Russia invading Afghanistan). Hearing of how the program began just to set up a Medical school and then evolving into an HIV center and then further and further into carefor families and jobs, going out into the villages, women's health, and now becoming comprehensive care is staggering. What good is getting done and seeing how these people have affected Joe and Sarah Ellen is truly moving.
It is Monday morning and we are getting ready to move out and see the Riley Mother Baby hospital in Eldoret. I am very exited about getting out into the city and seeing the work being done. I have had enough talk and now want to DO. Brian asked last night how we might be able to take this experience with us. We only have a few days here, but hopefully we will be able to make relationships with the people we meet and become their friend and learn something of their life to take back with us and change us forever. Through all my years of service this is exactly what I found to be true. Through ASP meeting with those families for just a week is hard to make a relationship and learn about someone new and become their friend. Here we have even less time, but if we are able to, I can see the benefits of this trip and those relationships and how they will change us all being much more than the other trips I have been on.
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But isn't it odd, Spencer, those creeping questions of doubt and insecurity that sneak into your sleeping thoughts? I know they kept me awake, lying on my cot in the IU compound, listening to the dogs rummaging beneath my window.
How much good can I really hope to do? How much do the relationships I build in the next few days matter, at least in the long-term?
It can be powerfully discouraging, and I'm glad to hear that you have some perspective on it. I would just encourage you - and the other youth - to remember to not feel the pressure to instantly develop long-lasting relationships with each individual you meet. If it happens, so be it! But remember: your first charge is to act as a sponge, soaking the names and faces and heartbreaking stories up, and bringing them back home to those of us who couldn't make the journey with you.
It's a burden, Spencer, and one that I distinctly remember struggling to understand. It didn't seem fair, really, that we were sent to this strange and wonderful country, exposed to shocking degrees of pain and suffering, and asked to bear the emotional toll back to our own community and congregation. It can be absolutely exhausting.
At night, I remember tossing and turning as our trip neared its end, fitfully musing on what a massive responsibility North Church had charged my group with. I wonder if you might be tossing and turning as well. But remember: there is a time, later, for righteous indignation. Right now, absorb and acknowledge this pain – but don’t forget to look for the remarkable joy that permeates Kenya and its people.
I’m so proud of all of you – this group seems much more prepared than mine, and I can’t wait to hear your stories!
When your with my mom (aka Lela Russell) Can you make sure she doesn't fall down....She kinda has this problem of talking and not watching where she is going and then next thing you know she's on her knees. Ask her... she's fallen several times either when she's been with her grown kids or on trips with the confirmation kids several years ago.
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