Kenay - i love my team

i just wanted to say that i really enjoyed my team that i went with on the Heart for Africa trip. We all had our little american/canadian quarks that we dealt with... but all in all they kicked butt in the work that was given to them, and they loved the kids and people with full hearts.

you can be my wingman anytime.

mad love

scott

Kenya - GRATITUDE

GRATITUDE

One of the things i like about cross-cultural experiences is how much it shows me that i have been molded by a certain culture. More pointedly, american culture. We all are affected by the culture in which we grow up in, wherever it may be in the world. The crux is we adopt this stand point as normal, and that all others outside of that are weird or even worse, wrong. I think it’s a totally beneficial investment to take yourself outside of your culture so you can examine your beliefs, your habits, your actions, and see how they stand up in the face of another society.

One of the things i hear over and over on this trip is “these people have so little” or even “they have nothing.” This statement is true by the standards in which we live in the united states. Most of the people we interact with have two sets of clothes, they live in a house either put together with mud brick, cut stone, or tin sheets of metal. Most have a dirt floor. They have a piece of land that they farm. And some have animals such as goats, chickens, and if you are lucky, a cow. So to our standard of living, where we all “must” have an ipod, they do have very little.

This is how a lot of the world lives though. But let’s not go down that road. What strikes me about this situation is the reaction from the americans who come across this situation and see the demeanor of the people who live here. They are shocked to find on the faces of people joy and gratitude. I will say that you see hardship, pain, and need. That is there as well. But the people that we met with on the whole, at the orphanage, at churches, grandmothers in their home.... they were full of joy.

This was shocking to our group. Many exclaimed this in our nightly debriefing times. I found this curious. I share some of the same responses, so it’s not a foreign thought to me. But i guess in my previous travels i have already delt with this question of joy in the face of hardship.

I think why this attitude is so shocking to us is because we equate material possessions and standard of living with the amount of joy we have. And why wouldn’t we adopt this stance? We are fed this everyday. The one thing that i have come to discover about america is that we are a people who are trained to live in a state of discontent. Everything that is fed to us media wise – print, audio, television, movies – has a goal to make us feel like we lack something, and that something which is the answer to our discontent is the thing that they want us to buy, watch, or adhere too. You can see this all around us and you can even hear it in the way we talk. Ever heard of shop therapy? Because of this, our equation for gaining joy has been placed in the consumption or attaining of goods.

The rural Africa that we were in stood in the face of this belief, and it took some of our group by surprise. I think this is because people started to see something deeper in the spiritual lives of the people we were around... something that calls out our own consumer spirituality.

(before i make my point, i want to just say that i don’t think that these people should have to stay were they are at because they have joy. There are grave injustices going on in the poor places around the world. These people may have very little, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. And i’m not talking about having a GAP and a Whole Foods move down the street, and eveyone given an IPOD. But these people have a lack of clean water, sanitation complications, and a very difficult time achieving any kind of decent education. These kinds of things should be available to all peoples around the world. I’ve heard some americans comment on the joy of the people they have met and have decided that all is fine because these people express joy in the midst of the situation. This is a stupid and callous response. One’s response to a situation does not mean that the situation is fine. Ok... off this tangent.)

What i think that is is GRATITUDE.

What i hear overwhelmingly in the language of Africans who trust in God is a deep belief that God is gracious and loving, and has them in His hands. Many of these friends live on a day to day basis.... living in a state of hope and seeing their needs taken care of everyday. They do not speak about their consistent paychecks and their hope in their investments which will take care of them when they retire. They speak of an individual (who they seem to know well) who knows their situation, who knows what they need, who hears their sorrowful prayers and they celebratory songs, and they live their lives with their hands open.... trusting in this unseen Father.

We might scoff with the simple-mindedness of this lifestyle. It’s comical in the face of the complex world that we live in. And yet those of us who comment on this find ourselves spirituall empty and lost, continuing in our rat race for acceptance, worth, and meaning in the pursuit of material things.

The fact of the matter is living in the tension of hope for tomorrow leads us to a deeper spirituality of faith, trust, and love. And from that we adopt a lifestyle of gratitude.... which gives us a deeper joy. I’ve come to understand that the world of plenty and choice that i live in can squelch the spirituality and relationship with God that I hope to have in my life. I have to make conscious choices in what i buy, how a spend, my stance on wealth, what i read, what i listen too, etc etc. not because i’m some anal nit picky christian who lives his life with a arrogant stick up my butt. No. because i can see the framework of hedonistic pursuits can lead me to a dead soul and a joyless existence.


“ Not that i speak from want, for i have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and i also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstances i have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
The Apostle Paul, Phillipians 4:11-13

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is god’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

day 3 in kenya

Friday july 13

It’s 4 am and i’m wide awake..... which sucks cause at 5pm tonight i am going to be dead tired. The jet lag is annoying this time. I guess i always forget about it. but we have an hour and a half bus ride to the tumaini orphanage and all i want to do is nap during that time. I should have brought some caffeine pills.

It’s day three of being here. We are in a town called varnaisha which is about three hours north of nairobi. We are staying at a hotel that is simple and pleasant.... holly and i have a full size bed that we are sharing which has been delight.

Our team is working at the tumaini orphanage. The orphanage is two buildings which houses about 50 orphans. Most of these kids have become orphans because their parents have died from AIDS. They figure that there are about 1.2 million orphans in kenya due to AIDS, which is a staggering number.

The team is split up into groups and people are doing a variety of things. Most worked in the field planting crops. One of the great things about kenya is that you can plant food all year. The orphanage is very into sustainable gardening.

My job has changed over the last two days. I thought i was coming in a doing about 6 days of work with kids – art lessons and having them make pieces that we can sell in the US. Now i have three days to work with them, they want us to repaint the walls in the room we are meeting in, i’m doing a heart for africa mural, and i’m painting three nights during speakers. This is all fine and doable. I think i just get lazy when the jetlag hits in. last night when i was painting during the sharing time, i felt dizzy and nauseous... not fun when painting.

The kids we had yesterday were great. I ran some of the older ones through some drawing exercises and they did awesome. i would like to do more but we don’t really have the time. And i was thinking that learning to draw is hard, laborious, and it can be boring. It’s not boring per say. It’s more like, to play in a concert which is awesome, you need to have hours and hours of practice to get it right. Learning the skills of art is practice practice practice... which looks like a lot of eye studies and learning how to see the world and translate is to a medium. Anywho, i don’t want to bore the kids.....

I’m not sure what to even write about right now. This trip hasn’t been anything epic for me. Not that it should be but i guess there is some part of you that believes you should be having these “ah” moments all the time. Others who have shared have had them.... i guess the poverty for them has been very eye opening, and that’s great. What do you do though when you’ve already experienced it? i feel like i’m here to accomplish a job and i want to do it well. frankly, i don’t feel like i’m that stellar of an artist to do it, but that’s just the artist self-doubt creeping in. or the enemy.

I just wish i could sleep so i could be 100% today.

first day in nairobi

July 11
Wednesday

After 20hours of traveling... here we are. Nairobi. It’s 6 in the morning but i’ve been up for about an hour. I was awakened by the early morning muslim prayer at 5:15. such a strange phenomenon.... to be sitting in your lightly illuminated room listening to this prayer song echoing across the city. So foreign. Yet my time here feels so familiar. It’s been a little less than a year ago that i was here with jeremy and david. And yet i feel like i know the place. It is true that fear in traveling really just comes from unfamiliarity.

I just woke holly up from typing. She’s going to take a shower. I can’t wait for mine. I’m still a bit groggy from the whole traveling experience. A shower and some good kenyan coffee will do me wonders. One good thing about traveling to kenya is they have killer coffee and tea. Not watered down stuff like you find all over the states. But rich dark tasty black coffee. I know there are other things to focus on while here, but being a seattle coffee snob, i appreciate the brew.

There is one thing that i want to write about this morning.... and it will probably get me in trouble later on... and reveal what a cynic i am... but i want to write about how much i hate traveling in large american groups. I’ve lived over seas a few times in my life so far. When i was 18 i lived in strasbourg france for 7 months. The great thing about living in a foreign city is after awhile, you fit in. you get how things are done and run, and it gives you perspective on how you act and the culture that you come from and act out from. When in france, i could always pick out the americans. One they didnt’ look european... so that helps. And two... they are so stickin loud! Everywhere they go, if they are in a large group, there volume level is above everyone else.

I must admit that i was just like that as well. when i was 15 i went with a christian mission group to scotland and worked alongside other local churches. The group leaders were very cool and had a lot of cross-cultural experiences. On of the things we talked about early on was how loud we could all be in public places. It was a struggle for me a first but i remember being in the glasgow train station and being next to another group of americans, a realizing “man, they are really loud.”

So that’s one aspect of the group we met up with. I must say that they are a great group and i am looking forward to getting to know them better. A vast majority of our group is younger than 18 and i think that has something to do with the noise level as well.

My second thing about big american groups is the matching t-shirts. From living in europe , i see that our american fashion style is very lazy and sloppy. So when we showed up in brussels with all of our matching t-shirts and name tags, i just couldn’t take it any longer and i went and changed in the bathroom. My own issues, i know. I get the reason we all wore matching shirts – so we could recognize each other and be able to stay together on a long journey. But why do shirts have to be so ...”american” looking? My advice: smaller logos and black shirts. The heart for africa shirts are black, so way to go. And despite my own finiky desires, the shirt where brough about quite a few questions from fellow travelers ... so maybe it’s worth it.

In the nairobi airport though, there was another group from the georgia that had matching tan shirts. And on the back was a verse about them bringing light to the nations in really big letters. Now if you were at your local airport, and you saw a group of goofy matching looking foreigners wearing shirts that say they are bringing light to your nation (refering to you as dark), would you think that was a little egotistical? I would. That’s a weird thing about american missions as well.... this unconscious belief that we have so much to bring.

In my experience with cross-cultural experiences, i feel like i know enter into places feeling like i have so much to learn. So much to listen to and reflect on. I feel very humbled coming into kenya. What about a t-shirt with small writing that says “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That seems more appropriate.

Ok. Shower time.

going to kenya

I've had a lot of change in the last few weeks. things that i thought i was going to be doing have not transpired... and i'm left with a big open next year. this can be a scary thing.... especially for those who believe they are in control of their lives. i am not one of those... but i do believe that a certain amount of life is responding to that which is in front of you, walking in the ways that are open, and being the change you would like to see in the world.

i realized a bit ago that the only real walls that are holding me back are the ones i have set up. somewhere in my subconscience i said "i can't do that" or "that's impossible"... and so i didn't do it.

and here i am.

so in this next year, i am going to toss those walls away and see what happens. i'm not sure what the goals are, but i'll keep you posted.

until then, i am going to kenya for a few weeks. i'm working with heart for africa and doing art projects at an orphanage where the finished art will be taken back to atlanta and shown in a gallery there. it's part of a big show that will hopefully raise money for further orphanage work.

and....

well, i ran out of time for this blog. i plan on writing down my experiences for the next two weeks. i'll keep you posted on what comes up....

peace

scott