Dear colleagues:
Our Kenya Mission Team has almost come to the half-way point of this January 2010 mission. Dr. Don Raney and Reverend Matt Baird (Raney of Petersburg and Baird of Hart) have departed, and have arrived safely in Texas. Daniel Brown and Kelsey Beggs have received their bags, which traversed a quite circuitous route from Lubbock to Nairobi, through Great Britian, France, Madagascar, and other countries. Daniel Brown is like a new man, in almost girlish glee that he has retrieved his clothes.
The mission work continues at the Christlike Academy of the Imani [Faith] Baptist Church in Karanjee, about three kilometers from where our Wayland Kenya Program conducts classes. Josh Williams and Cameron Harper, though young, are clearly experienced carpenters, and have built 37 tables and 54 benches. Ashley Beggs, though a first-timer, fits into the team well, and clearly has experience in furniture building (I believe this experience was gained at Plains Baptist Assembly in Floydada.)
I call upon Kelsey Beggs to assist me in MANY ways, oftening managing the others when I am engaged in Wayland and Baptist Convention of Kenya business. Kelsey continues to demonstrate solid leadership and a cross-cultural sensitivity rarely seen. I am thankful for her, and admire her tenacity and flexibility.
Today, I was invited to visit one of the clients of the Imani Shade Ministry. This woman, who is HIV+, is a delightful "soso" (elderly woman) who has given birth to nine children. Five of these nine are deceased--all due to AIDS. Lucy is raising her two youngest children, and four grandchildren, in a room the size of my office at Wayland in Plainview. I asked Kelsey to accompany me on the visit (it is always essential when a white man visits a Kenyan woman to have another woman with him.) I also requested that Shadrach participate with me in the home visit; Shadrach is the Associate Pastor of the Imani Baptist Church.
When we finally reached this "soso"'s home, we were welcomed with warm embraces, delighted greetings, and great to-do. We entered the dark and dank place, to be seated in a room with wall-to-wall furniture. The old woman had made porridge for us, akin to blueberry MaltoMeal. As the soso poured porridge into metal cups from a bright orange thermos, I chuckled to myself, knowing that Kelsey has great difficulty with this uniquely Kenyan food. Kelsey tells me, "I have difficulty drinking something of that consistency."
In time, the dying Kenyan woman told us of her request, that before she dies, she wishes to record songs that the LORD has given to her--songs in Kiswahili, songs in Kikuyu, and songs in English. She is convinced that these 80 songs are divinely inspired, and she has written them all down. "Daktari Shaw, might you help me?" Unsure of how to respond, I queried the Kenyan woman and Associate Pastor Shadrach just how this might be accomplished. Rather ignorant of the process, the Kenyans looked at me and said, "After we record these songs, might you sell the CDs to old women in the USA, who would be encouraged that the LORD can use a dying Kenyan woman, and that God has a kingdom purpose for them, as well?"
As in so many mission situations, this conversation will lead to many others, and I told the soso and Shadrach that we will converse and inquire of others, and we will return, before our departure to the US at the end of January.
All through the visit, I noticed a young man seated beside the Kenyan woman. After the course of the conversation about a cappela songs by a dying Kenyan woman, I was ready to move on to this reserved fellow.
"Jina lako ni nani?" I asked the young man.
"Jina lango James," he responded.
The young chocolate-colored Kenyan responded by telling me that he was the youngest son of the old woman. 21 years old, James did not attend high school, and seven years ago, completed the eighth grade--primary school in Kenya.
I pursued the conversation by asking James, "What do you do?"
After more than thirty seconds of silence, the young Kenyan, out of shame and confusion, quietly uttered, "Hakuna," [nothing].
Utterly confused, I foolishly probed. "Hakuna?"
James reticently told me of three months of work in Mombasa as a conductor boy for a lorry driver. "But then the driver put me on the outside."
As our visit came to a close, I told the Kenyan woman that we would return in about one week's time. I invited James to come with us. On our walk to a nearby restaurant, James and I continued the conversation. In the end, I made a decision to hire this young man for one day, at a rate of 300 Kenya shillings, to determine if he can work, or not. All the while, I debated in my mind something that my Dean, Dr. Paul Sadler, has taught me--the law of unintended consequences.
So, tomorrow we shall see. I continue to struggle through the processing of the fact that 80% of Kenyan men between the ages of 18 and 25 are unemployed, idle, filled with despair and energy, though without an outlet to expend either. Dr. Don Ashley, my very good friend teaching here from Wayland's Anchorage campus, comments, "Sounds like a political powder keg."
As we work with all that we have and know to be the presence of Christ and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus among these precious people, what do we offer someone like James? When I offered this young Kenyan man a job for one day, the sparkle of hope in his eyes was a clue to part of the answer.
Thank you for your support and prayers.
Rick
