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Worship Films
A Miracle at
Embulbul
By: Daniel Hoehne, Worship Films
A Thought for Days
A short while ago, a
friend and brother in Christ Father Edward Muge sent an
excerpt from the Second Vatican Council, Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. (Gaudium et
Spes), 1965 [# 88] “The greater part of the world is still
suffering from so much poverty that it is as if Christ
Himself were crying out in these poor to beg the charity of
the disciples. Some nations with a majority of citizens who
are counted as Christians have an abundance of this world's
goods, while others are deprived of the necessities of life
and are tormented with hunger, disease, and every kind of
misery. This situation must not be allowed to continue, to
the scandal of humanity. For the spirit of poverty and of
charity are the glory and authentication of the Church of
Christ”.
Although these are the
words of the leadership of the men, they are more the
reflection of the words of our Savior, Jesus Christ. (Mathew
10: 5-8, Luke 16:19-31, Mathew 19: 1-30) In spite of the
number of times I have read this, I find myself struggling,
not so much with the meaning of the words but with the
challenging question it poses to me. What am I going to do
about it? For most of my life I have heard and believed the
message that one person cannot change the world. I have come
to believe that, although one mortal man may not change the
entirety of the world, each of us who will claim the name of
Christian has both the burden and blessing of changing what
we can for the glory and honor of the Lord.
These are not my own
words or my own thoughts; they are in fact the Great
Commission of the Christian Church. Mathew 28:18-20 Then
Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you
always, to the very end of the age”. So the question remains
in my heart, what am I going to do about it? How far am I
willing to go and to what lengths will I extend my frailty
as a man to the will of God?
I never gave any real
thought to this at all before we traveled to Kenya to film
two documentaries for the SMA (Society of African Missions
Societas Missionum ad Afros) at different mission sites. I
never thought about much of anything in a Christian mindset
other than being thankful for the Graces, which God has
given Diana and I in our lives and marriage. We had traveled
to so many places and lived through so much together I
imagined that I knew the truth about where we should be
going and what we should be doing with our lives. The truth
is, six months away from our first experience in the Third
World I still wonder what any of this means.
Today, Diana and I
continue to grow our ministry, Worship Films. We have made
so many wonderful friends through this work and pray that
God will continue to bless our work and make us good
stewards of the tasks that are set before us. I decided to
write this essay, for lack of a better word, in order to
share with you our freshman experience in Africa and to help
shed some light on the struggles that these and millions of
people around the world are facing every day. John 5:25
says, “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now
come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and
those who hear will live. We have so much work to do
together in His name. Let us begin with open and grateful
hearts.
Something of Home
We have been home for
months. Two video documentaries shot in Kenya, a CD of the
Turkana music and a new website for our ministry are
finished and in distribution. The problem, or should I say,
the struggle, is that home no longer feels the way it once
did. There is a sense of clarity now that is shedding light
on the illusion my life in America really is. What I have
known of life in Illinois seems somewhat more distant now
than a small, African village where we stayed such a short
time this past summer: Embulbul.

Diana and I never
intended on visiting this place for more than the day it
would take to acclimate to the time change and rest from the
nine thousand mile flight to Kenya. We were going to the
Turkana district of northern Kenya to film with Father
Edward Muge of the SMA and Embulbul would serve as a one day
stop over on our journey to the desert region in the north.
That was the plan. Long before we would leave for Kenya, we
would meet Father Fabian Hevi, also an SMA missionary
priest.
God has a way of changing our best-made plans. We were
hosting a dinner party for Father Ed who had been in the
country for several months. We had met and quickly became
close friends. Father Ed called the day of the party to ask
if he could bring along a friend, Father Fabian, who was
also in the country doing some fund-raising for his mission
work. Father Ed assured us he was a good guy and would enjoy
a chance to meet with us. There really was no need for
Father Ed to vouch for this man. If he was associated with
Father Ed, he was a good man. Enough said.
Father Fabian is one of
those people whose first impression is the true impression
of the man. Actually, it is not an impression at all. It is
simply and wonderfully, Father Fabian. He is a native
Ghanaian and a gregarious man. To hear Father Fabian laugh
is to hear the truest sense of joy expressed from deep
within the human heart. I have never heard a laugh like it.
In fact, when we had finished the documentary we would
eventually shoot with him, no one would need to ask to know
he was in the background of a shot. His laugh is as unique
to the ear as his friendship would become to the hearts.
Our dinner had finished
and we gathered in the cramped space of our living room. The
conversation was light and energetic. It was a joy to see
these two old friends, Father Fabian and Father Ed, together
in the same place. It had been some time since they had seen
each other and the spiritual bond of Christian brotherhood
was obvious, almost tangible. As I listened to them speak
the thought came to me, "If we are going to travel half way
across the planet to film in Kenya, why not shoot two"? I
suggested the idea to Father Fabian and the plan was quickly
set. The plan was set but the planning had yet to begin.
Diana and I had no idea how far over our heads and past our
experience we were about to step into. Nearly a year later
we would discover the meaning of the old adage, be careful
what you pray for, you might just get it.
Getting
There Is Half the Fun
We were in O’Hare
International Airport waiting for our flight to London.
Three of us were sitting quietly in the corner of the
terminal saying evening prayers. I kept noticing a young
woman seated a short distance from us and staring intently
as we prayed. At first, I thought we might be offending her
or perhaps we were just a curiosity, praying there in the
airport. Finally, she approached us and asked if she could
listen. We welcomed her and she sat with us quietly
listening to us pray. Her name was Shoira Usmanova and we
soon learned she we was returning home to a city in
Uzbekistan. Without prompting, she began telling us the
story of how she had found Christ through some Christians
she had met while studying in the US. She also told us of
how Christians are persecuted in her predominately Islamic
nation. She told us of how it would be unwise to declare
your Christianity there and that you would be harassed,
possibly harmed for being Christian. She spoke of how Christ
had spoken to her in a dream and how her life had changed.
We became very quiet, perhaps humbled, as she spoke. She
continued by telling us that she had seen Christ in several
visions that followed her conversion and that, in her heart,
she was certain that He was The Way.
I had been carrying a
rosary with me I had owned for some years. I had imagined
that I might give it to someone in the desert. There was no
spiritual depth to this thought, I was just still in the
mindset that somehow we would go and help convert many
people in Kenya. It was nice thought, but a thought
nonetheless centered on self and not truly in Him. Before
she left to board her plane, I gave her the rosary. It was
at best an impulsive gesture. It had no real importance to
me other than it helped me pray the rosary. Thinking about
what Shoira had told us about her home and predominantly
Islamic family, I was sure the rosary would end up in her
pocket hidden away.
I left for a moment and
when I returned, I wished her well, exchanged email
addresses and offered her a short blessing. Her face lit up
with this wonderful smile as she pointed to the rosary
hanging boldly around her neck. You see, she had already let
go of fear. She had already become willing to carry her
cross. I am certain, as I can be today, that it was by the
Hand of God that we met her in that airport just a day
before we would arrive in Africa. There were big lessons I
needed to learn and He was teaching me through Shoira. I was
still afraid of nearly everything concerning this trip;
would I get the video we needed, would Diana be safe, where
would we be sleeping, was this work a calling or a spiritual
fling?
The flight went as
scheduled. It was long and considerably boring for me. Some
would call me hyperactive. Okay, nearly everyone who knows
me would say it. Finally, some thirty-six hours after we
left our home, we arrived in the Kenyatta International
Airport in Kenya. We exited the plane and walked through a
series of narrow corridors until we finally reached the
customs desk. With all of the talk on global terrorism and
the ensuing paranoia about it in the West, I had imagined
that customs here would be something of a nightmare to
navigate. Quite the opposite proved to be true. We walked
through customs without ever being asked to stop, show a
passport or declare our destination. At first, I found this
to be quite a nice surprise until I had sufficient time to
reflect on what this experience meant. Perhaps this was a
country without security. Sometime later in our trip, we
would find this to be terribly true.
We moved from the customs area to the baggage claim. The
place was crowded and bristling with energy. There was a
group of Irish boys going on safari and many men and women
dressed in Western Christian garb. There were what appeared
to be some Kenyans as well. You could tell almost
immediately who was from the West and who was not. I
wondered where they all were coming from and what they had
come for. There were many priests, nuns, and other religious
there and I imagined that most of them were there on
mission. Surely, none of these fellow Westerners lived here.
Across from the baggage terminal was the exterior wall of
the airport. Most of the wall was made of glass. I had not
really noticed it before, as I was busy making a grab for
our luggage. There were hundreds of Africans outside of the
wall. There were in fact so many you could not see beyond
the sea of their bodies pressed against the glass. Many of
them were holding up signs alerting the incoming tourists of
their presence. They were taxi drivers, busmen and
representatives of the many safari operations in Kenya.
I scanned the crowd for
the one familiar face I had hoped to identify, Father
Fabian. I looked but could not see him. As we gathered our
luggage in a central location near the exit, the crowd had
already begun to thin out. Still, there was no sign of our
friend. Finally, when we were the last of the people from
our flight in the terminal, we made our way outside of the
secure area to look for him there. I was immediately taken
back by two sights, neither of them Father Fabian. One was
the presence of armed airport security carrying what
appeared to be AK 47's and something similar to an Uzi.
Another more alarming scene was that of a Kenyan army truck
unloading heavily armed soldiers across the drive to the
terminal. It was then I was certain we had just stepped into
the Third World. Later in our trip, we would find that there
had been a major breach of security at the airport a week or
so earlier that had caused a serious scandal in the Kenyan
government. It was a major story to us. To the Kenyans it
was business as usual.
We looked for Father
Fabian for what seemed to be a long time. Actually, it was
just a few minutes. There was no sign of him. As we were
waiting in the front of the terminal for him to appear, we
were approached by a young taxi driver who offered us a
ride. We explained our situation to him and he offered to
help. My Western thinking alerted me immediately to the fact
that he was going to scam me or possibly even rob me. Such
foolish thinking. In fact, this encounter would be the first
real encounter we would have with the graciousness and
kindness of the Kenyan people.
I must at this point be clear. Diana and I had planned every
conceivable detail of this trip. We had gone over every
aspect of every point until we had tired of re-checking
ourselves. If there was a contingency that needed to be
planned for, we had a plan A, B, and C. We had planned for
everything but this. In fact, in our over-zealous efforts to
forget nothing, we had forgotten to bring Father Fabians
cell phone number, the parish number, and his address. One
could say we had been humbled in repayment for our
arrogance. The fact of the matter is we had forgotten to
consider the simple details of the journey.
Here is the good news.
If you want to know something about Kenya, anything, ask a
taxi driver. If you are lost and need directions, ask a taxi
driver. Not sure how to order coffee in the airport shop, a
taxi driver will know. No change for a local payphone or the
basic knowledge on how to use one in Africa, chances are a
taxi driver will. Our young friend pulled out all of the
stops in helping us this day. He got us connected with an
exchange bank at the airport to get some coins for the
phone. He helped us find the number for the local diocese
office. When that all failed, he marched us into the local
safari tourism bureau and had us treated like diplomats. In
short, after an hour or so of phone calls and several cups
of the best coffee I ever had, we connected with Father
Fabian and discovered that a man at the airport had told him
earlier that we were there and already left. Father Fabian
knowing well the impulsive nature of Americans assumed we
had made a go of it on our own and returned to his church to
await our arrival. Welcome to Kenya!
We treated the taxi man
to a couple cups of coffee in the little café on the corner
and talked about our plans for the films and our excitement
at being in Kenya. He shared a bit about his family with us
as well as his take on the politics of the U.S. It is
strange to hear this country described so accurately, in the
raw, by someone from the Third World. It is honest. It is
also sad to say that what had stuck out in this young mans
mind the most about our country was the Bill Clinton-Monica
Lewinsky scandal. And so it is, the scandals of our
government bridge another gap to truth and democracy abroad.
Finally, we caught a
glimpse of Father Fabian coming across the walkway and our
hearts were lightened. We exchanged hugs and greetings and
assembled our equipment as we headed to the van. We left our
young friend with a few dollars for his trouble. He seemed a
bit surprised that we felt it was necessary to do so. Hey,
he was just being a Kenyan.
We loaded our bags into
the rear of the van and pulled out of the terminal area. I
think we both exhaled a bit. We had made it to Kenya. I
suppose what happened next needed to happen in the first
moments of our time in Africa. We had traveled a few
thousand meters or so when we were motioned to pull over by
a Kenyan police officer. Father Fabian instructed us to stay
in the van while he spoke with this man. I watched their
conversation through the side mirror of the van. It was
interesting to see. The officer would speak, Father Fabian
would give him a stern look and the officer would point at
the van. This little cycle repeated itself a few times until
finally, Father Fabian was doing most of the talking. He
returned to the van, drove off, and smiled.
Not wanting to be nosey, okay, I wanted to be nosey, I asked
what had happened. Father Fabian just laughed and said
something like, "Welcome to Kenya". From what I gathered,
the officer thought there was a problem with the vehicle's
license plates. From Father Fabian’s perspective, it was a
friendly little shakedown from the local authority. Finally,
after some discussion with the officer, it came to be known
that his father was a parishioner at Father Fabian's church.
Ouch! We were soon on our way.
I guess you cannot blame the cop. At best, he makes
twenty-three dollars a month U.S. and probably shares a home
with at least two other families in the same financial
struggle as he is in. The crime was not the shakedown or the
license plates; the crime was and is poverty. Over the next
two weeks in Kenya, we would see this play out repeatedly.
We would in fact see so much poverty that we would
eventually collapse under the weight of it on our last day
in Embulbul. I put this up front so there is no illusion to
what Diana and I are doing with our ministry. We are not
interested in making nature films or spot pieces for Oprah.
We are not interested in making cute films that "tear at the
heartstrings of Americans". We want to make video in raw
without all the enhancing and sweetening that turn the
honesty of a situation into a movie. We want people to see
the truth of what is going on in two thirds of this planet
as it is and for what it really is. What is going on is
wrong, dead wrong.
I began filming our
drive to Embulbul as soon as we had left the airport. It is
unadvisable and in fact illegal to film inside the airport
grounds. The drive to Embulbul would take us around the
perimeter of Nairobi, an area not usually visited by
tourists. As we drove onto the highway and headed east, the
landscape and the buildings looked something like they do
here in the States. Actually, I felt a bit disappointed as I
was still in the mindset that we were going to see the
Africa of Hollywood. I wanted to see elephants, zebras, and
Maasai. What we saw was something entirely different.
It became apparent rather quickly that what we would be
seeing was an escalating view of poverty in a country of
"have-nots". The drive to the mission was about forty
minutes long and with each passing mile the view of poverty
in this region became clearer and clearer. We drove by what
I believe is the largest slum in all of Africa, Jericho. In
the short view of this place we would never visit because of
the inherent danger, we would get a glimpse of millions of
people living in conditions pulled out of the worst of
nightmares. Along the road, we would see people wandering.
They were young and old, children and adults alike, just
wandering. We would see Maasai herding cattle in the middle
of the road. It was visually perculitar to see the antiquity
of Africa in all its glory intermingled with the horror of
poverty that is now too often the static reality of this
place.
Mile after mile we
remained silent. This was the first real glimpse of where we
had just landed. It was not what we expected although
neither of us really knew what to expect. Occasionally,
Father Fabian would point out a mission or a clinic that
served the poor sitting within meters of some gated
community or school for the wealthy whites. To this day, I
cannot make sense of this. Of course the world, and wrongly
so, is have and have not. However, to see wealth within
spitting distance of such terrible poverty...it makes no
sense to me. Lord knows I should not sleep well at night for
the wrongs my life still contains. Nevertheless, how does a
man stay afloat in wealth while his literal neighbor is
drowning in poverty and rest his soul at all. I do not
understand it.
Father Fabian eventually
announced that we were arriving in Embulbul. It was an
overcrowded and cramped place of people piled upon people.
There was such commotion all around us I was glad to be
inside our van. I think we stood out a bit with our white
skinned faces pressed against the windows looking out as
they were looking in. Could we be more out of place? We
would soon learn that the color of our skin would make
little difference to most everyone we met in Kenya. We
rounded a few more turns in this ever-winding and rough road
to see the perimeter of the Brother Beausong Catholic
Education Center where we would be staying.
We turned off the main road to the dirt strip that led to
both the mission and the village proper. We entered the
mission through a gate in the large steel and stone wall
that surrounds the place. I remember seeing a man at the
gate and many people milling about the courtyard as our van
entered the most open space of the center. The mission
seemed strangely out of place in contrast to its
surroundings. Its buildings were modern and well kept.
Although much of the architecture was incongruent with
itself, it was surprisingly modern. Everything seemed to be
in its proper place although I had no idea where anything,
including us, should be. The people who were coming and
going from the many buildings were all dressed like
professionals and seemed to be quite happy. The longer we
stayed the more we began to realize that their happiness was
real. Inside the walls of the mission, people find a respite
from the stark reality of poverty and crime that permeate
this area.
The van finally came to
a rest at the entrance to another gate to our right. I
suddenly realized that within the mission walls was another
walled in facility. I was trying to imagine why there would
be so much security inside the walls of a Christian
community. During our visit in Embulbul, the answer to that
question would become painfully clear. A priest had been
murdered a very short distance from where we were staying a
few weeks earlier. Catechists and others in the community
would be attacked with a horrible randomness that my Western
mind struggles to understand. Not everyone there wants
things to change if it means people speaking out against
injustice and corruption. It would seem that the smiles on
the faces of the people we would meet existed in spite of
the constant threats to life and safety. The truth is
universal. Poverty breeds violence and poverty becomes mans
violence against his fellow man.
Our bags were taken from
the van and then to our rooms by some young men who seemed
to appear from nowhere. I found myself uncomfortable with
this. I did not want to burden anyone here with anything. We
did not come to be served but it is the way there within the
community. My mind was taken back to pre-civil rights
America for a reason I could not identify. I was
uncomfortable with the fact that we were the only whites in
the area and that yes, Africans would be serving us. That is
my garbage. I truly think the only person aware of the color
of my skin was me. It troubles me today to remember that
moment. I am still so limited and narrow in my understanding
of my place in this world.
From that moment on, I
would feel uneasy knowing I was a Westerner who had nearly
every material need and want satisfied. I felt a sickness
welling up within in me, that I live in a country where I
want for nothing, and that I need very little of what I
want. I would find that from the first moments in Kenya I
would so often have to lower my eyes from the scenes around
me. I actually found myself beginning to become angry with
myself, my country, and my way of life. We have so much and
waste most of it. There would be days ahead where I would
see so many people with nothing to eat. People drinking
polluted water, their bodies covered in rags. I felt guilty.
I felt ashamed. It has been over six months since our return
and still, I struggle with the disparity between what I have
and what I have seen others have not. I still wonder, Am I
part of the problem?
We were exhausted as we
were shown to our rooms. We had been flying, driving,
sitting, and anticipating for three days. I think it would
be fair to say that the only thing keeping our bodies
upright and moving was adrenalin and the coffee we had
consumed at the airport. Father Fabian suggested we all take
a nap before gathering later for a meal. We had come to
Embulbul on this leg of the journey to do nothing more than
rest, before we would leave in two days, heading north to
begin filming at the first location, the Turkwell Mission in
the Turkana District. That was the plan. Rest for a day
before going to the desert to film. We would return to
Embulbul ten days later and film our project there.
Six Feet
off the Ground
Okay, no one ever
accused me of possessing an over-abundance of common sense.
We had no sooner entered our room on the top floor of the
guesthouse and I was assembling the video equipment to get a
"jump start" on project two before project one had even
begun. We quickly changed clothes, grabbed our sixty pounds
of equipment, and drug our travel-numbed bodies downstairs
announcing to Father Fabian, "Okay, let's have a look around
and get a few shots". Surely, he must have been wondering
what the heck we were thinking. However, as it is the nature
of nearly everyone we would meet, he has one goal, to serve
others.
I do not think it is necessary
to mention that every second of video I captured that
afternoon was unusable. It was worse than the majority of
vacation video I have seen. The shots were shaky and as out
of focus and over exposed as we were. It was the first of so
many mistakes I would make on this journey. It is one of
many weaknesses I have yet to let go of. I all too often see
the world and my work as a timeline that exists only in my
head. I fail to trust that God will direct the work as He
sees fit, not as I want it to be. Ugghhhhhh! When I reviewed
the video later that evening to get the first look at my
masterpiece work, I almost immediately hit the erase button
and knew I had been a fool in a place where one cannot
afford to be.
Overall, the first day
in Kenya was and is still a dull blur of indoctrination into
a land I find myself longing for every day since we have
returned. Our first evening was full of wonderful surprises.
A splendid dinner had been prepared for us. We would be fed
so well in this place throughout our stay. One of the great
gifts this mission site gives to the local people is
opportunity for supportive employment. The women who cook at
the site were gifted. Everything was unique to our palettes
and served in abundance.
Moments after we came
downstairs to the dining area, we were blessed to find that
five Irish medical students were on location doing work to
support their medical educations. I could write volumes on
the joy we received from getting to know these fine young
women. They were all so young, alive, and full of the energy
God grants to the youthful. It was interesting to dine and
visit with them as we compared notes on our countries and
got to know each other a little bit. A few moments into our
dinner we were joined by a teacher from Ireland named Eddie.
What a joyful man. He was filled with a hectic kind of
energy. He told us that he came to Kenya almost every year
for a couple of weeks to teach the children there and get in
on a little football (soccer) with the kids. We would later
learn that Eddie spends a lot of time in Ireland raising
funds to sponsor kids to attend school.
This is how it works
here and in so many places around the world. There are
regular people just doing what they can to help where help
is needed. There are no heroes, just Christians who believe
they can and should make a difference. There are medical
students rendering medical care and teachers teaching. You
will find builders building and the faithful praying.
Sometimes you even find videographers and photographers
capturing it all on film to tell the story so others may
come to see the truth. Father Ed once told me that we are
all missionaries when we use the gifts and talents God has
given us to help those who need the help so desperately. You
learn something about people in Embulbul. People are good by
the nature of their creation. Give most people a chance to
do good works and they will. Most of us just never know
where to begin. We found a good place called Embulbul. I
invite you to pause in your life, take account of your
blessings, and find your Africa.
Dinner was finished and
I walked outside to find it had become quite dark as night
falls quickly in Embulbul. We said our goodnights and went
upstairs to our rooms. I found that I was at this point
really noticing the architecture of the inner sanctum. It
was constructed largely of breezeblocks and had a somewhat
Arabic look and feel. Our room looked over the center most
courtyard that now had fallen into complete darkness. I
stood outside our door and smoked my last cigarette of the
day. I could hear singing in the village that surrounded us
on three sides. There were sounds of the occasional dog
barking and the footsteps of the mission's security men
patrolling the perimeter of the wall. I was so tired it was
hard to think but I did not want to go to bed. I did not
want to miss a second of the life going on around us.
Nonetheless, I returned to our room and found Diana
organizing some of the clutter we had made earlier in the
day.
We would be leaving very
early in the morning for the Wilson airport just outside of
Nairobi to catch a bush plane to the Turkana District near
Lodwar. There we would begin filming with Father Edward Muge
at the SMA’s Turkwell Mission site. That of course is an
entirely different story. I thanked God for our safe arrival
and the comfort of the beds we had been given. We were in
Africa. We were about to sleep in a place I never thought
the Lord would lead us. Our ministry was about to begin in
ways we could never have guessed possible. I had spent the
last two years praying that God would lead us as we formed
Worship Films. I did not care where we went as long as it
was where He would have us go. So many things had come
together to make this all possible. So many people had given
of their time, treasure and talent to send us on this
mission. What I had prayed for was unfolding before us. I
lay in bed that night struggling to quiet my mind and get
some sleep.
We awoke very early in
the morning. I remember an incredible sense of hurriedness
and pressure. It was Thursday morning and we needed to get
to the Wilson Airport to meet with the Missionary Aviation
Fellowship folks to catch a small bush plane to the north of
the country where filming of the Turkana mission site would
begin. We had a small breakfast and loaded our gear into the
van. We made it to the airport to find that we would be
waiting hours for the fog to clear in the Rift Valley. In
this region, flights are conducted by visual reference and
the fog that is common in the valley would make it unsafe to
travel. Finally, some five hours later, we departed to
Lodwar, in the Turkana District, where we would film for
eight days.
We would return to
Embulbul twelve days later following a three-day, punishing
ride across the mid-section of Kenya by four-wheel drive.
The drive would be one of the most physically punishing
experiences of my life. It would place us in harms way and
expose us to a completely new level of poverty in the
country. We would see the Rift Valley up close and personal.
We would stand on the edge of the African Escarpment and
behold the savanna lands below it. We would spend a night at
Lake Baringo where we would photograph the most spectacular
birds we had ever seen. For three days, we would breathe in
the essence of the country as it morphed from Sub-Saharan
desert to the mountain region of the south. In spite of the
struggle and risks we took, it was a trip I do not regret. I
am certain I would not make this drive again but I am glad
we made journey as we did. We had driven through the
birthplace of humanity.
Our last stop before we
reached Embulbul was a city they call Naivasha. We had not
planned to stop anywhere but we had just blown out the third
tire of the trip and had broken a shock absorber, snapped a
rear spring and knocked off all the balancing weights on the
tires. It was no longer safe to continue driving without
fixing the tire. Naivasha is a large, very industrial
looking city. The traffic was frenzied and appeared to be
out of control. We saw a large Shell station up ahead that
had a tire (spelled tyre in Kenya) repair sign. We pulled in
and became the instant center of attention although no one
approached us.
I cannot imagine how out
of place we must have seemed in every town and village we
stopped at. I recall there were workers tearing out an old
section of the stations concrete drive by hand and shovel.
Across from the area where tires were repaired, we saw a
small café near the end of the facility. There was also a
sign that read “toilets”. We made our way across the long
drive and row of petrol pumps to the café and restrooms. We
walked around the back of the building under the scrutiny of
the locals who were sipping bottles of cola under the awning
of the station. This is not a place you let your wife walk
alone so I accompanied Diana to the door marked “woman”. The
facilities were equipped as they are throughout Kenya with a
squat hole. I don’t think I need to elaborate do I?
We both took care of our
business and made a quick visual across the way to ensure
ourselves that Father Ed and the truck were still there. Of
course he was and we made our way over to him to see how
long we might be there. We were assured that it was going to
be awhile. No one is in a hurry in Kenya. Actually, after
you adjust to the rhythm of it all, the slower pace of
expectancies becomes natural and welcome. I smoked a
cigarette and surveyed the life happening all around us. It
was amazing to see. I had been in hundreds of large cities
in my life but nothing quite like this. The sounds and the
motion were a bit surreal. There were people shouting in
Swahili and cars that seemed to be on a roller coaster that
had lost all control. It was like a circus of life without a
ringmaster. Beautiful.
Finally, the truck was
patched up enough to get us back to Embulbul where more
intense repairs would have to be made. We decided that we
would pull the truck around the corner of the stations’
office and eat our box lunches we had received at Lake
Baringo the evening before. There was a security person
there and he greeted us pleasantly. The odd thing about
security in Kenya is that you never know who is who or whom
they are serving. They may be private or local police. They
may be Kenyan army or National Park police. There never
seemed to be any method to their presence. We spoke with
this man a bit, which was difficult due to our total lack of
Swahili and his very broken English.
As we stood around the
truck, we noticed a large group of kids hanging around the
street across the way from us. They seemed a bit out of
place even in this place. We asked the security man who they
were and it was explained to us that they were “street
kids”. What street kids really means is something horrible.
Street kids are those children, and I mean children, who are
orphaned by AIDS, crime, or poverty and now live in a feral
manner in the streets. There, they spend there days sniffing
glue, committing crimes, taking other drugs and alcohol, and
begging for food. Their shelter is the streets and doorways
of abandoned buildings. They are perpetually victimized,
they in turn victimize, and the cycle of poverty-induced
hopelessness is born and bred.
It was not so long ago
that the Kenyan government had declared open season on these
children. The policies involved the systematic abuse and
beatings by the police and older street dwellers, and
rounding up large groups of them, perhaps in the hundred,
and sending them off to detention centers were many would
die of disease and neglect. Although many of these policies
have changed due to international intervention, the fate of
these children is impossible for me to understand in a world
of such abundant resources. Imagine it, billions for a plane
that does nothing but kill, and we build hundreds of them,
and so little in international aid to this region. To bad
they do not have oil or they would certainly be receiving
more assistance. I wonder how much longer it will be until
the West and all its gluttonous excesses literally fall off
the scales of justice. I wonder how much longer God shall
remain patient.
It was difficult and then became impossible to eat anymore.
We asked the security man if he would allow a few of them to
come across the street and on to the property to take the
rest of our food. He agreed and we gave him some to eat as
well. The kids were actually very orderly as they danced
across the street and received the fruit and cake we had in
our boxes. I was happy to see that they were sharing it
among themselves. I was surprised that they thanked us for
the food. We had heard so many negative things about them. I
am guessing that little of it is true. How else would a
child left alone in the streets learn to survive?
Please allow me to
digress a bit more. It is a frustration to Diana and I that
we can produce and share the images and documentaries of
this area but they are entirely ineffective at portraying
the depth of the problems in Kenya and a thousand other
places. I do not pretend to understand it myself. In the
worst of it, we knew we were going home at some point to
anything we wanted. How do people survive like this and know
it is not likely to improve? People so often say, “They are
used to it, they don’t know any other way”. Wrong! Dead
Wrong! A child knows when his stomach is empty. A woman
knows when she has been raped. A family knows it when they
are living in the street. We just tell ourselves they do not
know any better so we can sleep at night. It is all so
irrational on our parts. We delude ourselves into believing
that, not only does the Third World not know any better, but
that we don’t have a Christian responsibility to our
brothers and sisters abroad. I remember what Gandhi said;
“We are all such sinners I should leave the judging to God”.
Let us remember what
scripture teaches us about our responsibilities. James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless
is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James
2: 14-16 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to
have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily
food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep
warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical
needs, what good is it? Proverbs 19:17 He that hath pity
upon the poor lendeth unto Jehovah, and his good deed will
he pay him again. 1 John 3 We know what real love is because
Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give
up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters. But if
anyone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or
sister in need and refuses to help – how can God's love be
in that person? Dear children, let us stop just saying we
love each other; let us really show it by our actions. It is
by our actions that we know we are living in the truth, so
we will be confident when we stand before the Lord, even if
our hearts condemn us.
We returned to Embulbul
as planned and were greeted by Father Fabian. We were
completely exhausted from the heat of the desert. Our skin,
our noses and clothes were still impregnated with the dust,
dirt and sand of Turkana and the road to Embulbul. We drug
ourselves upstairs to our room and dropped our gear on the
floor. I took a shower and scrubbed my dirt stained skin
three times. It was so good to stand in a clean, hot shower.
I got out of the shower and dried off with a white towel
that quickly became brown with the dirt still deep in my
pores. Back into the shower I went.
We finished getting
cleaned up and joined Father Fabian, the Irish girls and
Eddie in the dining room. Behold a hot meal! We ate well and
spent the evening talking on and on about what we had
experienced in Turkana. The girls filled us in on what they
had been doing at the hospital in Nairobi. They were such a
joy to see and listen to. I walked outside to the courtyard
and stared up at the sky to see the stars we had come to
love in the desert. They were a little less intense here but
I wondered how many of the children we had met in Turkana
were looking up at the same sky. I listened to the sounds of
the village just outside the high walls. Strangely, I felt
like I was home. In fact, I had never been so far from home.
Still, I was there with my brothers and sisters in Christ.
They had so quickly become family. I find myself thinking of
them and praying for them nearly every day. God is so good
to us!
Into the
Truth
We awoke the next
morning still exhausted from the drive the days before. We
made our way to the kitchen and I made some Kenyan coffee.
If you have never had coffee made from Kenyan beans, you
have never had coffee. I was surprised that coffee selling
for two dollars a pound in Kenya, just miles away from the
plantation where it is grown in Karen, sells for twelve
dollars a pound at Starbucks in the States. I wonder where
the ten dollars goes. Certainly, it does not go to the
people who plant, care for and harvest this crop. It is just
another exploitation of the poor I suppose. None of it
really makes sense.
It was important to
Father Ed and Father Fabian that we did not leave the
country having seen only poverty. They wanted to take us on
safari in the Nairobi National Park to see some of the
animals. We learned later that few of the native Kenyans
would ever see the inside of this park. They cannot afford
it. Imagine that if you can; to live in a country where
twenty percent of the GNP is made in tourism and, as a
native, you cannot afford to go. Again, it makes no sense.
What makes even less sense is that the government of Kenya
owns the parks. The people profit little or nothing by any
of it. Profits in the parks and other tourist areas rose
over fifty-one percent in 2005 totaling five hundred and
fifty two million dollars. Not much by our standards but in
a country with a gross national product of nine billion
dollars U.S., this is substantial income. Regardless of what
is raised in tourism, precious little of the profits go to
the indigenous people.
The drive through the
park was breath taking. We saw animals I have only seen in
film. The park was like a country within the country. It was
clean and well kept. There was no litter or signs of
poverty. The weather was a bit overcast and cool leaving the
park almost entirely to us. Since I was a kid, I have always
found the giraffe to be one of God’s most amazing creations.
We were blessed to see many of them and to photograph them
in the raw. We stopped at the rear of the park and hiked a
trail around a long and narrow lake that serves as a hippo
pool. A Kenyan park ranger who carried an M1 rifle
accompanied us. I am guessing it was to protect us from the
animals as we left the safety of our van. Near the rear of
the lake under very heavy cover of trees and brush, we came
upon a Maasai settlement. We watched them awhile from across
the lake. The ranger explained that the government had
allowed them to stay on this land. I wonder if the truth is
that, no one messes with the Maasai. They are, as you might
know one of the great warrior tribes of Africa.
Anyone who knows me knows I like monkeys too. Okay, very few
people probably know I like monkeys. I suppose it just does
not come up in conversation very often. From the moment we
entered the trail that bordered the pool, we heard rustling
in the trees and strange sounds coming from the brush.
Suddenly we saw a few faces peaking out of the brush. They
were Vervet monkeys. I remember giggling like a kid. Then,
as we looked more intently, more and more faces came peering
from the scrub and trees. There were dozens of them. I think
they were as curious about us as we were about them. I
pointed the camera and must have shot two-dozen images. This
was just part one of our “Vervet Odyssey”. We stood there a
bit exchanging monkeyshines with them. Actually, I think I
was the only one making monkeyshines. I think they won that
contest. They had a lot more practice.
We headed off down the
trail towards an area where we hoped to find the hippos. We
could hear their little feet (I think you call them feet on
a monkey don’t you?) pattering down the trail behind us. I
turned back to see that they were indeed following us. I am
not sure that Diana found this comforting at all. We walked
a bit more and I tried to photograph the monkeys trailing
behind her. They stood still for the shot. She did not. They
eventually stopped following us as the brush cleared and a
large grassland opened up in front of us.
We walked back to a rest
spot near our van and ate lunch with the ranger. You know, I
just could not help it. What do they always say about
engaging wildlife? Anyone? Don’t mess with the wildlife! I
was not really messing with them I just wanted a close up or
two of one particularly crafty looking monkey. I had this
great idea. Why not get up real close with the short lens to
cut down on the distortion. In fact, why not get part way up
in the tree with him. I figured, heck, it is just a little
monkey out here in the middle of nowhere far away from help,
medical care, and rabies shots. Sometimes I just cannot help
myself.
I got close and filled
the lens with some very tight shots of my new friend.
Suddenly and without any provocation, other than the
presence of a white guy two feet from his face, my new
friend screamed at me and showed me his two-inch fangs. Hey,
I didn’t know Vervet monkeys had fangs. Guess what else I
did not know. I can still move pretty fast for an overweight
white guy with a pound of titanium implants in his spine.
Ah, the splendor of nature.
We spent the last of our
visit to the park high upon a ridge overlooking the
grasslands below. The scene was breathtaking and majestic.
The air was cool and the sun had begun to make itself
apparent in the sky. We watched a group of black rhinos
grazing far off in the distance with a group of zebras. It
was Africa as I had seen in film. It was the image of Africa
that belies the reality of this continent. What I had seen
on National Geographic specials and the Nature Channel was
such a thin and distorted slice of the truth. Yes, there is
great beauty in the landscapes and people of Kenya. In fact,
it is in abundance. The picturesque views that are relegated
to calendars and the covers of magazines only further the
acceptance by the West that what is happening there is right
justified.
We left the park and
made the short drive back to the mission. We ate lunch and
talked about our plans for the weeks’ filming. Father Fabian
made a few phone calls, which gave us a chance to look
around the place a bit. There is such a wonderful energy
that happens there. People from all over the village come to
participate in numerous activities. Over the course of the
week, we would be blessed to see and film many of the good
works going on at the center.
It was late in the
afternoon and the light had become quite nice for filming.
There were many clouds in sky, which glowed with a peculiar
purple tone. Father Fabian, Diana, myself and two of the
medical students made our way to the rear of the grounds
where the gate to the village would open up to us a whole
new view of the world. The walls around the mission are high
and access to the village is made through a very tall and
wide metal door.
As we opened the door to
the village, I could feel my heart beat a bit more quickly.
We had seen much of village life in Turkana but this we knew
would be different. This was a slum. I hate the word. I
suppose it is not so much the word as what it represents;
needless and extensive poverty isolated to a specific
location for the gain of another group, where people’s
voices are unheard, where human suffering is allowed to
grow. I am not sure how Webster defines slum. I can only
define it by what I have seen.
There is an amazing
thing happening in Embulbul that becomes apparent as soon as
you cross the threshold from the mission site to the
village. Muslims are living side by side with Christians in
peace and relative harmony. Behind us was a Catholic church.
Not a hundred yards away stood a mosque. There were loud
speakers overhead and the Muslim call to prayer was being
broadcast. No one seemed to be alarmed or disturbed by this.
People just moved to where they needed to be. Imagine it, in
the poorest of places, Christians and Muslims living in
peace. I have wondered for some time how this could be. The
media is ripe with images of warfare being waged between
these two groups. In Embulbul, violence among the groups is
rare. The only answer to this riddle thus far has been that
no outside government or group is pushing an agenda here.
There is no interference from the West. No one is there
trying to “whip a little democracy” on anybody. The help
being offered by Christians and others from around the world
here is being done so in culturally relevant ways. There is
no other way that works.
There was recently an
uproar in Embulbul. When I learned of the cause, I found
myself shocked and dismayed. A group of “Christians” had
come to Embulbul to forward a religious agenda of their own.
They had come to convert people to their style of religion.
In doing so, they had disseminated literature that pitted
the local Catholic Church against the Muslims. From what we
were told, the literature was anti-Islamic and contained
images and wording that are common to the Catholic Church.
The Muslims were grossly offended and rightly so. They
formed a sizeable group and approached the mission site
threatening to burn it down. One must know that the mission
employs many Muslims and offers all of it services equally
to them.
Father Fabian was called
to quell the problem and was successful in doing so. It was
soon discovered that members from a western church were
found to be distributing the literature. I will not disclose
their religious affiliation as the guilty party’s certainly
fall well outside the teachings of their own church. They
were arrested by Kenyan police and, at the time of this
writing, remain in a Kenyan prison awaiting formal charges
and hearings. It is all to often the problem in this region
of the world. Some misguided folks evangelizing through
fear, hatred, and the incitement of unrest. May God forgive
them and all who claim to be working for the Lord and do
such things.
The village is a sprawling area of rough, dirt streets that
are strewn with litter and debris. In the rainy season, the
streets are impassable. The houses and shops are built
mostly from corrugated steel and a vast array of discarded
materials. Some of the homes sit in small groupings and are
closed in by tin or wooden fences. Smoke from fires used to
cook on and provide heat rise from holes in the roof and
cracks in the walls. Goats and chickens roam the streets
freely and I am still unsure as to how anyone knows which
animals belong to whom.
The streets are alive
and bustling with life. Children are everywhere playing as
children do. I watched many of them through the lens of my
video camera and every so often dropped it to my side to
absorb the scenes through the nakedness of my eyes. There
were many men gathered in small groups outside of small
shops talking and taking in the site our presence was
creating. The farther we walked the larger the group of
children in tow became. The openness and curiosity of the
children there was joyful to me. Over and over again they
would call out to us, “How are you”? I think it was the only
English many of them knew. We would shout in reply, “How are
you” or attempt to answer in Swahili. Regardless of our
answer, they would laugh and run about with each of our
replies.
We would occasionally
come across a mother watching her children play in the
street and upon seeing us coming, she would gather them
quickly back into their homes. There is an almost complete
absence of vehicles in Embulbul so the streets serve as
playgrounds as well. I imagine we were quite a surprise to
many of these moms and everyone else as well. It is very
rare that Caucasians are present in the village.
In the past and all to
often, Caucasians in the village equals exploitation of the
locals. Many people come to Africa for many reasons. Many
have come to film and photograph the people with grand
promises of money and assistance in exchange for the
privilege of filming. Almost none of them follow through.
This was an obstacle removed for us by the trust of the
people in Father Fabian. There would be many times on our
trip that we would turn the cameras off or away in respect
for the people. We did go to Kenya to be voyeuristic with
our lenses. We did not go to film the private sufferings of
anyone. If a scene or a shot could not be used to build
something of use for the people, it was not filmed.
We walked down the main
road of the village and began taking turns into what became
a maze of new paths. Within a few minutes I had lost my
sense of direction and had no real idea how many turns we
had taken. Around each corner was another scene waiting to
be discovered. There were women cooking on charcoal fires
just off the road and in front of their homes. Everywhere we
looked there were children running and playing in the
streets. Groups of teens would pass us by for a look at the
commotion surrounding us, reappearing moments later for
another look. The village was alive. It breathed. It had an
energy that is impossible for me to describe. I have
traveled through most of the U.S. and its towns and cities
and have never seen such life.
Were it not for the
constant reminders of poverty, the buildings made of scrap
materials and the lack of sewers and electricity, one would
imagine they had fallen into a wellspring of life’s own
source. The air was a carnival of sounds with street corner,
fundamentalist preachers and a see of native voices coming
from all directions. African pop music blended in with it
all, making that landscape of the unfamiliar even more
foreign to me. Even as I stood still filming shot after
shot, I felt as if I were spinning in circles around some
irresistible force. I think it was during this village tour
that I felt my first longing to stay in Kenya forever. They
know something about life we no longer know or believe.
Perhaps we cannot know it any longer with the overloading of
our senses this Western culture breeds. I wonder today if
the first people to arrive in America knew what the people
of Embulbul know. I bet they did. To see this side of their
life makes me wonder who is truly better off.
Thomas, a Catechist from the
church, joined us on this walk. I could write volumes about
this man and never scratch the surface of the genuine and
gentle spirituality of this man. He was so soft spoken that
I would find myself leaning into him to hear him speak. I
watched him pray during mass one day and the look in his eye
as he stood before the cross humbled me. He was not
attending mass he was part of it. He looked at that figure
of Christ as if it were Christ Himself standing there before
him. I wonder what it takes to have that look fall upon your
face in church.
Perhaps Thomas touched
Diana most deeply in this place. Diana is a nurse who cares
for premature infants. In her work, she is witness to the
constant struggle between life and death. When Thomas
learned of this, he shared what must be a most intimate part
of his history with Diana. He told her of how his mother had
considered not keeping him. Obviously, her thoughts changed.
He told Diana of how someone had met with his mother and
encouraged her to have her baby. Somehow, Diana had reminded
him of his birth.
When we would finally
leave this place for home, Thomas gave Diana a poem he had
written for her that honored her life and her work. I have
rarely seen Diana more moved by such an act of love. I
wonder how many people Thomas has touched in his life and
how many more await his loving touch. What a Grace it is
that God should love us so well as to touch us through the
lives of strangers in strange places. I wish everyone
considering abortion as an option, when they find themselves
in the worst of life situations, could meet Thomas and learn
something from his life, a life that was fulfilled.
We made our way to what
must have been the center of the village. There we were
taken inside the home of an elderly woman, Lucy, who was bed
ridden in her old age. The room was dark and dusty and
smelled of the earth that formed the walls of her home.
There was a small window at the rear of this ten-foot by
twenty-foot home where the faces of children who had been
following us peered in. There was a puppy on the floor and
the woman’s daughter and grandchild stood silently in the
background. With Thomas, Father Fabian, two Irish medical
students and another catechist, the room was filled beyond
capacity.
Father Fabian introduced
us to the woman who strained to see us with her aging eyes.
It was beautiful to hear her voice pronounce our names as
each of us were introduced. We listened as she spoke with
Father Fabian in her native tongue, and laughing along with
them, not knowing what we were laughing at. She kept saying
something to Father Fabian and stretching her hands out to
touch us. Diana stepped forward and took her hand, a small
gesture for which she was thanked, “Asante san”. The woman
continued to speak and Fabian finally interpreted her words
to us. She was apologizing to us for not having any tea to
offer. She did not have the few pennies it would take to buy
tea and was sorry she had nothing for us. My God, how could
this be! There we are in the middle of a slum where people
live on in a year what most of us make here in a week. There
we stood with thousands of dollars of digital imaging gear,
our high-tech travel clothes, and shoes that probably cost
more than her home and she was sorry she had no tea to
offer.
I will tell you this
much. If God ever reached down and ripped my greedy heart
from my chest, it was at this moment. I have never been more
humbled in my life. In that moment, I thought about a lot of
my life. I thought about all the time and money and material
goods I have wasted on nothing for nothing good. I thought
of how my life could never be the same again. I believe this
was one of many moments in Kenya that God would show me
truths I did not want to see. I went there blind to the
truth about my responsibility as a Christian and Christ was
prying open my eyes to the reality I never wanted to
believe. My greatest regret about that moment was not
setting down the camera and taking that woman’s hand in mine
in prayer. The truth is that I was afraid of what I was
seeing, the truth.
We left her home shortly
after Father Fabian offered her a blessing and lifted her up
in prayer. I lay in bed that same night and prayed for that
woman wishing I had prayed with her that day. What was I so
afraid of? I still do not really know. We had prayed for
this ministry to take shape. We had prayed to be led to
places to use our talents in a way that glorified God and
brought relief to those in need. We had prayed that our
first major mission to Africa would go well. All of these
things indeed took place and still I was afraid. Not of
dying or injury or some African illness we might bring home,
instead, I was afraid of what I would be asked to do with
the truths we were being shown.
We continued walking
about the village and taking in the sights. Eventually, were
led inside a gate and back into a cluster of homes that
could not be seen from the street. There was a group of
three small children playing in between the houses and we
stopped for a moment to take their pictures. They were happy
little kids and seemed to be quite curious about who we were
and what it was we were pointing at them. I wonder how many
children, or adults for that matter, have seen a video
camera before.
We entered the house of
an elderly woman; not nearly as old as the woman we had met
in the previous home. The house was nearly pitch black. The
only light in the house was coming from an open wood fire
burning nicely on the dirt floor. The air was filled with an
acrid smoke and light rays coming through the cracks in the
walls were shining through the smoke like laser beams. It
was hard to breath and even harder to see. It was so dark in
fact, the video camera was barely able to detect an image.
As is usual in this country, we greeted each other warmly
and carried on small talk with the help of our interpreters.
We left the home and
headed further into the maze of narrow streets to the
furthest point in the village. By now, twilight was settling
in and I wondered if we would make it back before it became
dark. As we headed down the road, now walking quite some
distance from our group, we caught the attention of three
men who began shouting at us and motioning us to stop where
we were. I was oblivious to their shouting and kept walking
towards them. Finally, Father Fabian rounded the corner
behind us and when the men recognized that we were with him,
they began laughing and motioning towards us in welcome.
The leader of this small
group was a retired Brigadier General of the Kenyan Army. I
am sorry to say I cannot recall his name. He was a
small-framed man but had an intensity about him that was
captivating. I wondered what he had seen and experienced in
his life as a general in a Third World army. He explained to
Father Fabian that he had seen us coming and had no
intention of letting us pass. I do not blame him. Far to
many people have come to this place to exploit these people
and their lives. He was as gracious as everyone we met
there. We were invited to walk with him to his home at the
furthest point back in the village.
We walked down a long,
tree-lined pathway to his home. Along the way, his wife, a
very gentle and kind looking woman, joined us. As the trees
gave way to the first view of his house, we were taken back
at the modern construction and western appearance of his
home. He was very proud of this place explaining that he had
paid cash for the building materials and constructed the
home on his own. This was certainly the great exception to
life there. It was explained to us that borrowing money for
a home in Embulbul is a very bad idea. Miss one payment or
make it late and your home and everything in it will be
taken from you by the lenders.
We were invited inside
to rest and have tea. The home was beautiful and filled with
pictures of their children and Christian art. While we
waited for tea to be served, we were introduced to their
daughter who was probably in her twenties and their two
grandsons. We visited for quite awhile and enjoyed tea and
cookies with our new friends. That is the way in Embulbul.
Meet someone, talk for a bit and you become friends. No one
remains a stranger there very long. We must have talked for
over an hour. The general’s stories of his time in the U.S.
and abroad as well as his stories from his service days were
fascinating.
We had lost track of
time and had failed to realize that night had fallen in
around us. For a moment, I became fearful that we would have
to walk the long distance across the furthest two points of
this place in complete darkness. The fear passed quickly as
I began to absorb the sounds and movements of the night in
Embulbul. I thought for a moment about the depth of the
privilege we had been graced with, to be there in that place
at that moment. There are no streetlights in Embulbul and
electricity is a rare commodity. I let the camera roll at my
side knowing I would not pick up any images in this
darkness. I did however want to capture the sounds that were
so foreign to my ears. We were truly in another world.
Every so often, we would
pass one of the small shops in the village. There were hair
styling shops, food vendors and shops I could not identify.
The small lamps at the fronts of these places, probably
solar powered, produced an ethereal glow that was distorted
by the dust being kicked up by peoples feet. Other than our
time in Turkana, I am sure we have never been so far from
the familiarity of our home. We eventually arrived back at
the mission and I felt a little let down that our trek
through the village had ended. As we passed through the
large metal gate that separates the mission from the
village, I felt as if I had just stepped through a time
portal from the surreal to what had become a bit more
familiar to us. I was confident we would not tour it again
on this trip due to the heavy filming schedule that awaited
us in the morning.
We all sat down for dinner and enjoyed a very nice visit.
Some of the medical students had been playing soccer with
the kids that day and it was neat to hear them share about
their trouncing at the hands of the local soccer experts.
Diana and I decided to call home and check in with our
family at this point. We had been unable to make contact
with them since our arrival in Kenya. Knowing how they
worried about us going to Kenya, we felt like we needed to
try to get through. Suffice it to say, telecommunications in
Kenya are at best dicey.
We were unable to reach
either of our parents on the phone, which was a bit odd. One
of them is usually home. We finally called Sister Judith
Ann, a nun at our parish, to check in with her and ask her
to relay our adventures to our folks. Now before we had left
home, Diana’s father was having some health problems and was
getting ready to go in for some tests the day after we left
home. Her father had not been well for some time and had a
history of heart trouble. Finally, after much encouragement
to see his doctor, he scheduled an appointment. I think it
is probably more accurate to say that Diana and her sister
held the proverbial gun to his head until he agreed.
We were able to get
through to Sister Judith Ann and it became quickly apparent
that something was very wrong. She asked if we had talked to
anyone from the family. I could see in Diana’s expression
that her heart had just fallen through the floor. We were
told that the day after we left, Diana’s father had some
cardiac testing that showed he had experienced another heart
attack. The next day he had open-heart surgery to repair the
bulk of his arteries. No one had called us to tell us, and
at first, we were a bit miffed. When we had thought more
about it, we realized their decision was a good one. We had
been in the middle of the desert while this was occurring
and there would have been nothing to do but stew over
something we could not change. All that could be done was
being done. People were praying for her father and for us.
What else could you do?
Things worked out fine
in the end. Her father did well and was actually at the
airport to greet us when we returned to our home in Peoria.
We finished talking with Sister and went back inside to tell
everyone what had happened. We talked for a while and
retired for the evening. I do not think I remembered my head
hitting the pillow the next morning. At this point, Diana
and I were both exhausted. We had already done so much work
with the filming and still had the longest days awaiting us.
We began the day Sunday morning joining the congregation at
both morning Masses. The music and the feel of Mass in
Embulbul were entirely different than what we had
experienced in Turkana. This is not to say that they were
not a wonderfully spiritual experience. The church there is
large and constructed in a manner that reflects the design
of a Maasai home. I found it particularly interesting to see
the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus statuary reflective of the
Maasai culture. Mary was adorned in traditional Maasai
dress. Both Mary and Jesus were completed with dark brown
skin. It was refreshing to see that the churches we visited
throughout Kenya are decorated in a way that is both
culturally relevant and uplifting.
Both Masses were packed
to the rafters. The youth choir that sang at the first Mass
and the adult choir of the second Mass were so alive in
their music and singing. We were blessed to capture much of
the music on digital tape. At each of the Masses the entire
congregation welcomed us. I recall being offered a blessing
by all in attendance at both Masses. The traditions of these
churches move in a way that allows no one to remain a
stranger.
I was taken back to see
the offering of food at the end of both Masses for the AIDS
relief group, The Good Samaritans, and for families in the
parish that needed to be fed. This reminded me of Mark
12:41-44 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the
offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money
into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large
amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small
copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his
disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this
poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the
others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of
her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on."
Again, it is the way
there in Embulbul. They have a sense of community that is
uncommon in the world I know. By our standards, people in
the village are living on little or nothing. Yet, what they
have they will share with their brothers and sisters in
need. This sense of community and giving transcends even the
religious differences between Christians and Muslims. There
are people from many tribes living here as well. At times,
outside of Embulbul, many of them would be warring with each
other. That is not the case in the village. I wonder what
they know that we do not. I wonder about the decisions and
choices they have made in their lives that have freed them
from such petty strife. I wonder sometimes if perhaps it is
too late for us to know.
Sometimes I hear things wrong. Diana says I am not a good
listener. Sometimes she says I am deaf. I think it is more
that I just have a lot of business going on in my head most
days. Probably though, I need to be a better listener.
Father Fabian had invited us to meet with the church council
after Mass. We were very excited to be asked to attend their
meeting and get to know more of the leadership in the area.
I was pretty sure I got the directions right to the room
where the meeting was to take place. In actuality, I could
not have gotten them more wrong.
We opened the door to
what we thought was the conference room where the council
met. The room was filled with two dozen or so college aged
men and women. We gave no thought to the age of the group
and they acted as if they had been expecting us. We would
later find that the council had been waiting to see us and
that in fact we had attended the meeting of the youth group.
Although we were sorry
and a bit embarrassed to have kept the council waiting, our
meeting with the group was a powerful experience. It has
been said that if the world is going to change it is our
youth who will change it. The intensity on the faces and in
the persona of these young people was amazing. They were
quick to ask many questions about what was going on in
America and what our youth thought about the world. We asked
them about their plans for the future and the struggles they
were facing. None of them really talked much about problems.
Most of their talk was about action and the need to reform
the system at large. We talked for more than an hour. I
considered filming this encounter but knew that if I were
viewing this through the lens, I would miss the entire
experience of interacting with them.
We returned to the main facility of the mission and had
lunch. We decided it would be interesting to visit the SMA
Formation House, where young men live as part of their
training to become SMA priests. We arrived and entered the
facility through a large gate just off of the road. The
grounds were rich with English gardens and a sense of peace
that was uncommon in this area. Father Ed was staying there
at the time and greeted us as we entered the house.
From the moment we
entered the building, a sense of history and tradition swept
over us like a spiritual wave. It was quiet inside as most
of the young men who live there were gone for the seasonal
break. We were introduced to Father John Dunn, an Irish
priest who is in charge of this place. Father John gave us a
detailed tour of the house and explained in great detail how
things worked there. If I were to try and sum it all up in a
single word, it would be community.
The walls of the house
are covered with the history of this place and the SMA. From
the dining room to the inner corridors, the wealth of Christ
centeredness was apparent. At the end of a rather long and
dim hallway stood a massive, hand carved wooden door. As we
approached it, I got the feeling that we were about to enter
a place that time and history had spared from the changing
of the world. I was right. Father John opened the door
giving way to the chapel of the formation house. It was
quite literally, breath taking.
My description of the
chapel is weak at best. The stillness, peace and serenity in
the room was so overwhelming to my senses it was difficult
to take it all in. It was as if we were standing at the
center of some spiritual refuge from the world outside the
walls of the house. It was delicate in its calm and yet,
there was a stoic sense of the history of the place that did
not require an explanation. You could feel the changes that
occurred in the lives of the seminarians in that room. The
Spirit was strong, almost tangible.
I stood quietly at the
rear of the room and tried my best to breathe in the essence
of where we were standing. I thought about the hundreds of
young men who came here to become priests. I thought about
the spiritual struggles that have surely been brought to an
overcome in the chapel through the years it has stood. I
thought about the prayers that have been lifted up in this
space. Some would say it was just another chapel. But
knowing about where these men come from, what they have left
behind, and what they now face as priests in the SMA, my
mind became quiet as I stood on Holy ground.
In the center of the
room was a massive alter carved from a giant, indigenous
tree. It seemed to grow out of the floor and defy gravity as
it spread to the left and right. The artwork and the
adornments I was taking in were African by design yet
universally devotional in their nature. I attempted to take
a few shots in this place but quickly set my camera aside.
Sometimes, what the spirit sees the eye cannot record. It
would be impossible to record what the chapel represented. I
thank God that I was able to spend a few moments inside its
walls and have a tiny piece of it stamped onto the fabric of
my heart.
We finally came to a
central community room down the hall from the chapel. We sat
and talked with Father Dunn about the history of the place
and the work that was going on there. He gifted us with a
book that had just come out in celebration of the upcoming
one hundred fifty year anniversary of the SMA. We were also
given a copy of a worship CD that was recorded by some of
the young seminarians who attended there.
We left the Formation
House and were joined by Father Ted who is an American
priest serving in the worst slums of the region. We were all
going to go to downtown Nairobi to a tourist area where
Europeans and Americans stay while on safari. Imagine the
silliness of it all. To come to Africa for safari and sleep
in a five star hotel in a resort made to look and feel like
the West. It was actually much worse than that.
As we drove to the resort area, we passed terrible and
continual poverty. Suddenly, as if it appeared out of thin
air, we arrived in a small section of Nairobi near the
government buildings and world embassies. It was the only
place we would see in Kenya that looked a bit like home. As
we entered the drive to the resort, we were “cleared” by the
security men at the gate. I don’t think we were cleared for
security, I think we were cleared for being non-poor and
from the West.
I was grateful to have
been taken to this place to get a bit of ice cream and see
more of the capital city. I was mostly grateful to be shown
the truest reality of disparateness that exists throughout
this region. There is no gray area about it here. You either
have what you want or you do not have what any of God’s
children needs. In this place, there is no in between.
The resort was massive
and filled with shops of every kind. Everything was spotless
and the air was filled with people laughing and talking.
People were drinking fancy drinks and eating expensive food
while listening to popular music being broadcast throughout
the place. At the center of the resort was a large, man made
waterfall that reached some thirty feet to the ceiling. The
walkways and corridors were filled with lush plants and
modern art. It was awful.
I am not grand standing
in writing this. Seeing all of it reminded me of the
gluttonous excesses of my life and the poor stewardship of
the gifts our Father has given me. To see it here however,
in contrast to the reality of how two thirds of the world
truly lives, was shaming and depressing. What made it worse
was the knowledge that none of the local people benefit
anything from the existence of such places here in Kenya.
Anything of any material value belongs to the government,
who does little or nothing for its people, or by some
foreign group who cares nothing for the poverty in this
place. These are harsh comments I know, but we saw nothing
in our time in Kenya that could argue against this
understanding.
I must ask myself again
and again. How do the rich do it here? I know it happens in
America as well but I have never seen anything like this. I
wonder what the wealthy think as they drive their Mercedes
to these places, or rather, are driven by someone else, as
they pass people begging for food and walking the roadsides
in search of something to live on for the day. As the
opening words of this writing state, this is a scandal of
the Christian world that must cease to exist.
Driving home from the
resort to the mission, my mind raced about what we were
seeing and experiencing in this place. I struggled with
wondering what God was trying to show me, to teach me. I
knew all of this existed in the world but I had never tasted
it before. Having been filled with its starkness, what to do
about it now? We dropped Father Ted off at the home of his
order and waited for someone to open the gates that secured
the facility. Again we were told of the attacks on the
religious that happen frequently in the region. There is
little safety in the darkness of Nairobi.
We returned to the
mission and Diana headed directly to bed. She had become
quite car sick on the ride. I stayed up a bit and stood in
the center of the inner courtyard looking up at the stars
and thinking about our experiences of the day. My mind took
me back to the desert of Turkana and I found myself longing
to hear the singing of the children under the stars. I
wondered if they had eaten today. I was tired and my spirit
ached from the weight of this trip. Since our arrival, the
reality of third world poverty had been building inside of
me. We had filmed so much at this point and seen things I
would not point a camera at. I struggled with trying to
memorize every detail of life here and felt guilty during
the moments I wish I had never seen it. I believe God shows
us things sometimes that we do not want to see. We live to
see the risen Christ on Easter morning. Africa was teaching
us to see Him on the cross.
We awoke the following
morning and made our way to the kitchen for some breakfast.
It was an easier morning than we had enjoyed since we
arrived in Kenya. We actually had time to lounge a bit in
the living room and relax before running out the door to
film. It was Monday and we were scheduled to meet with
Bishop Cornelius Schilder of the Ngong Diocese. I think we
both had a lot of preconceived ideas about what this meeting
would be like. We had only seen the Bishop of our local
diocese at home from a distance. I never really understood
it. To meet the Bishop at home would be unusual for most
Catholics. I suppose it is a hierarchical thing. In the
Ngong Diocese, quite the opposite was true.
We made the short trip
to the Bishop’s office and pulled into the rough drive that
led to the office doors. We were a bit early and waited just
a short time in the reception area just outside his office.
We were eventually called into his office where we would
meet one of the most interesting men I have ever met. We
were each greeted warmly in turn and asked to make ourselves
comfortable in the office.
It was an interesting
room full of Maasai art and culture. He explained to us that
he had come from Holland decades ago and had succeeded in
reaching out to the Maasai of the area only after he adapted
himself to their culture. He went on to tell us that one of
the more interesting ways by which he came to be accepted
here was by buying and raising his own cattle and then,
helping the Maasai to upgrade their own herds. To the Maasai,
cattle are everything. Ask a Maasai man how things are going
and he will first report on the condition of his cattle,
next his children, and finally mention his wife.
We talked for a bit
about the work we were doing in the country and he seemed to
be pleased with the notion of it. At one point in the
conversation, he arose from his chair, walked to a shelf and
retrieved a beaded cross that had been given to him by the
Maasai. He walked over to Diana and handed her the necklace
as a gift. I don’t think he knew how special that gesture
was to Diana. She was truly moved by its beauty and by the
generosity of a man we had only just met. We were scheduled
to have lunch with the sisters of the mission later that day
and Father Fabian invited the Bishop to join us. I really
wanted to interview the Bishop for our documentary and we
agreed that this could occur once lunch had been finished.
We departed the Bishops
home and headed to downtown Nairobi to convert some currency
and visit a Catholic bookstore. We really wanted to return
home with some religious articles from Kenya that reflected
the culture and spirituality of the people. We made the
drive to downtown Nairobi and were able to take in the
sites, this time, in the light of day. We spent quite some
time in the bookstore looking at the myriad of African
crosses, statuary, books and artwork. It was difficult to
decide what to buy. Everything in the store had a story
behind it. It was another chance to see the African vision
of Christ and Christianity.
We decided to walk from
the bookstore to the bank downtown where we would take care
of our business. It was quite a walk but well worth the
effort. The streets of downtown Nairobi were alive in a way
that exceeds even Michigan Avenue in Chicago during the
Christmas season. The only difference in Nairobi is that the
most of the people on the street there are looking for work
and waiting for calls for interviews or callbacks. We were a
bit nervous making this walk as we were carrying a large
amount of cash and travelers checks in our pockets. We
arrived at the bank without a problem and waited inside the
lobby while Father Fabian went to the back to arrange for a
private transfer of funds.
We were shown to the
rear of the bank where the offices are. I am guessing this
was a part of the bank few people will see. A very friendly
East Indian man who works closely with the fundraising
efforts of Father Fabian and his mission greeted us. He
expressed a bit of concern about accepting our travelers
checks and our U.S. currency. He explained to us that there
had been an overwhelming amount of counterfeit U.S. currency
that was produced in Nigeria somewhere around the year 2000.
Typically, no bank in Kenya would accept U.S. bills printed
in or around this time. Because of his trust in Father
Fabian, our currency was exchanged.
I should mention this
now if you are considering traveling to Kenya. Traveler’s
Checks are no good in the vast majority of places. Credit
cards are of even less utility. It’s either cash or forget
it. Even cash has its problems. This may be different in the
tourist resorts and such, but in the street with the people,
come prepared with cash and have it exchanged to Kenyan
Shillings if you want to avoid problems.
We made our way out of
the bank and back onto the street. It was a fascinating walk
and a new and intimate look into the lives of the people
there. The streets were literally overflowing with traffic
and people. The downtown area of Nairobi is very
international and the mixing of people in that part of the
culture was a joy to soak in. It was another of those rare
moments in Africa where we felt as if we were back in the
U.S. A few miles outside of the banking district and you
were quickly reminded of exactly where you were.
We returned to the
mission and had a fabulous, Italian lunch with the sisters
of the mission. They were enchanting. I really cannot think
of a better word. They were so friendly, open and welcoming
that there wasn’t a minute in their company where we didn’t
feel like family. It was such a gift. The Bishop joined us
for lunch and filled our time with stories of the Maasai,
his home in Holland, and the work that is going on in
Embulbul. I have rarely met a more engaging and interesting
man.
Following lunch, the Bishop
and I headed to an upstairs room for his video interview. By
this time, I had interviewed many people in Kenya. Having
had time to get to know this man a bit should have left me a
lot more comfortable with the interview than I was. I
fumbled with setting up the equipment and checking the audio
and angles. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, we
were ready to begin. I tried to ask the Bishop open-ended
questions that would allow him to speak at length and to
really express his thoughts about the situation in Africa,
specifically Kenya.
The last question I
asked him went something like this. “Diana and I have
noticed that, in spite of all the poverty in this country,
people seem to be very happy. It seems that by Western
standards they have nothing. How can this be (joy) with all
the suffering that takes place here?” I was ready. I was
ready to hear a man of moral authority, a man who had lived
among the Maasai and other Kenyans for decades, lash out at
the system. I was sure he was going to lay it on the line
and call a spade a spade. His reply floored me and left me
feeling as if I had missed the entire point of being here.
In a very large way I had.
His response would not
only change the way I viewed Africa, but my own life and
faith as well. He leaned into the camera looking me squarely
in the eye and said, “Yes, very strongly so. And I think
that is one of the reasons why it so attractive to live here
in Africa. The joy of the people is something very appealing
and makes you really not just wonder but also…it makes it
kind of infectious if you like. And I think it is, I don’t
know, when I look at home, I am from Holland myself. There
it looks as if the people have developed too one sidedly, in
terms of that we see everything in terms of economy. What
does it bring us, money wise? While here the people have
much less money but a much more open mind and much more a
sense of values, which for us, I don’t know if they ever
existed or otherwise have disappeared. I would call our life
at home, say, in what we call the developed world (long
pause as if to refer to the western world as developed was
an oxymoron) I have a big question mark there. I see our
life as very one sided in the sense of material wealth,
money, etc. Here life is very much wider, they have very
many values which have nothing to do with hospitality but
which gives joy to people. And so, I think the church is
part and parcel with that. I’ve got a funny idea, that maybe
today, we understand the Gospels and the Good News a bit
better than in times passed by. In that, even when I was
small I always experienced religion as a duty, not as
something to be enjoyed. And I think there was a very strong
influence there of the Reformist like Luther and the
Calvinist especially, their joy in life was very suspect.
So, you are brought up that way. But here we have never had
these things. The only difference is we have here in
churches, the Pentecostals etc, but not these truly
protestant churches with, what I call, often, a bit
pessimistic way of looking at life. And so, my hope is also
that, the church is so very much alive here and we have such
beautiful liturgical celebrations and I think, and my hope
and my prayer is that this will continue. Sometimes my
people at home say, “Oh you just wait a few years until they
become better off economically and then they will stop going
to church”. I don’t believe that because the people grow up
here with a church and an idea of religion that is joyful
and attractive. And so, even when you are rich it will still
be joyful and attractive. I think we shed that church which
was negative and pessimistic, and maybe rightly so. Now the
problem is to discover this new church, which I think we
have in Africa.
Then I made the mistake
of referring to this or any other place as “Third World” in
the sense that I lived in a place superior to this because
of our wealth. I went on to speak about what I believed
these people needed so much more of, in light of all that we
have in the West. We have what everyone “needs” and they
have nothing was the ignorance of my thinking. He went on to
say, “I think my response to that would be an invitation to
the people to learn as much as possible about Africa, and
preferably, if possible at all, come to Africa and see it
and taste it. Because I feel, you know we talk about Africa
lacking so many things. And, which is true when you talk
about clean water and good roads, and electricity etc. etc.
But as I said, there is so much more, that you need to see
and to taste that it is there. And you experience it in the
joy of the people. And I am extremely reluctant to call
Africa poor. Africa is only poor in money. But money is only
a small part of the reality, the richness of a human being.
And so to reduce that to money is impoverishment! And so, I
would really like to invite people, come to Africa, and meet
the people and taste something of the richness of Africa.
Money, yes, there is a lack of many things, but those are
not the only things in life. There are things that are much
more important than money which maybe we (the West) don’t
have any more but they are here and you enjoy it when you
are present here”.
He was telling me in the
kindest words he could muster that my thinking was wrong. I
was not filming poverty. I was filming joy. I still struggle
with the images of starving children and people on the brink
of death from totally curable diseases. But my thinking was
based on the thought that this life is the goal, the end and
the means. What they possess we have lost. Their religion is
not a thing; rather, it is the center. What we believe as
the cure for all, money, will not bring an ounce of inner
joy and peace to anyone. It is a spiritual act of balancing
I may struggle with for the rest of my life.
When the interview had
finished, we packed up the gear and went to meet with the
Good Samaritan Group at the central building of church
office. It was this meeting that gave birth to the title of
the film, “A Miracle At Embulbul”. HIV and AIDS are perhaps
the greatest evil on this continent. To date, over twenty
four million of God’s children, His creation, live with
HIV/AIDS in Sub Saharan Africa. That is the total number of
every human being living in the top ten U.S. cities
combined. With a new rate of infection estimated to be
somewhere around three million people a year…you do the
math. I almost hate bringing this point up to people as the
illusion of responsibility is so distorted. “Why don’t they
just quit having babies? Why are they all so promiscuous?
Why don’t they just do something about it?” May God in
Heaven forgive our ignorance. There are no simple answers,
and certainly, I have none. But I will tell you that the
problem is not the people. The problem is, as it almost
always is, avoidable and curable. The culprit is poverty. I
will say no more. If I am wrong, let me be forgiven.
We saw a glimpse of what
may finally be the solution to this insanity while visiting
Embulbul: His children reaching out to His children. Women
and men of the village formed the Good Samaritan Group two
years ago. In Embulbul, as it is throughout much of Africa,
AIDS is poorly understood by the people and therefore,
contracting it can mean a life of literal isolation and
abuse. Before the Good Samaritans came into existence,
people suffering from HIV and AIDS were isolated and
persecuted in the village. Families would throw the sick
from their homes. People died in shame and loneliness.
There were and are local
people in the village who do not believe anyone should live
this way. With the help of Father Fabian and Christian
leaders in the community, the group was formed. We were
blessed to interview one of the leaders of this group, Joyce
Kimani. Although Joyce is not infected, she is no stranger
to suffering in her life. Her suffering however is not what
Joyce would want me to write about. Joyce lives and breathes
the love of Christ in her life and through her works. To
meet Joyce and to spend a few moments with her is to be in
the presence of Christ living in the community of His
Kingdom.
I think Joyce was a bit
nervous about being interviewed. Although she is outspoken
in Embulbul as to the needs and the answers to the problem
of AIDS, she is not one to speak much about herself. She is
not living to glorify Joyce. She is living to glorify God.
We began the interview with Joyce speaking about how the
group had started from nothing and how they still continue
to struggle today in financing their work. She spoke of how
the group worked to educate the villagers on this disease
and how people finally came to accept those who were
infected.
Joyce and Father Fabian
and others in the group decided that if they were going to
make this group grow they would have to get creative in
financing it. With the inclusion of ninety plus orphans of
AIDS in the village to the list of those they help,
financing is a major obstacle. It was decided that the group
would begin taking the talents and gifts that God had given
them and put them to work in raising funds.
The men and women of the group began making African beaded
jewelry and sweaters. We watched as the group was making the
jewelry that would be sold wherever they could. It was quite
amazing to watch the nimbleness of their fingers moving the
beads so quickly as to become a blur to the eye. The room
was lined with men and women who knitted sweaters while some
made beads. They have been quite successful in keeping their
work alive through the use of their art. They struggle
constantly to grow their ministry but they continue. Joyce
would have it no other way.
Their work is providing
food for the sick as well as for the children orphaned by
AIDS. They are providing access to healthcare where there
was none. They provide money for transportation to the
clinics where some of the people are able to get AIDS
medicines that are hard to come by in this area. They visit
and minister to those who are too sick to come out of their
homes.
All of these things are
important and are surely the fruit of works blessed by God.
Something much more important has happened than all of this
combined. A community of love and hope was built where there
was only desperation, loneliness and hurt. Imagine it if you
will. This was not the work of a major government or aid
organization. This work did not require tremendous sums of
money and layers of administration. A few people, common and
ordinary people, living in the worst of situations looked
around and said, “I will not stand idly by while His
children suffer as I watch”.
We visited the group a
couple of times and cherish the moments we were in the
presence of them all. I recall thinking about them on the
plane ride back to the States and wondering how they do what
they do. It was a few months later when we began work on the
documentary, “A Miracle at Embulbul” that I sat and watched
our interview with Joyce. At the end of the interview I had
asked Joyce how she keeps things going and where she thinks
the group will grow. She became passionate and said, “I tell
them always we must pray, we must pray together, we must
keep praying, we must always pray and believe so that God
will do miracles in our lives”.
I watched that clip a dozen times in a row to hear her say
that one thing. She never answered my question about where
the group was heading but the title for that documentary was
born. I don’t think she knows where the group is heading.
She does not need to. She believes in something she cannot
see but has seen the power of prayer unfold around her in
the Graces of God, and so she marches on in His name. I
wonder what it would be like to have that kind of faith. God
bless you Joyce Kimani.
Since we had arrived in Kenya we had been told about a
restaurant in Nairobi called Carnival. That is what I
thought it was called. Father Fabian and Father Ed were
excited to treat us to dinner at this place on this, our
final evening in Africa. We were told that we would be
eating many kinds of different meats and that this was a
place we had to see. Father Ted and several of the
catechists and seminarians of the church were joining us. I
was excited to be going, having been told that we would eat
camel here. Throughout our trip in the desert this had
become a running joke every time we would see one of these
mangy characters wandering in the sand.
When we pulled into the
restaurants lot it became apparent that we had mistaken the
name of the place. It was not Carnival. It was Carnivore.
Let the good times begin! We went inside and were seated. On
the way to the table we passed an enormous grill surrounded
by chefs cooking giant skewers of meat. The nature of this
place had been explained on the ride to the restaurant.
Basically, every table is given a little flag that sits on a
stand in the center of the table. Once the meal begins,
skewers of varied meats will be brought to your table until
the last person standing takes down the flag, or in this
case, the last person left sitting and chewing.
They brought it all.
There was ostrich, pork, beef, chicken and crocodile. The
meat was coming as fast as we could clear plates and for the
most part it was very good. There was only one problem; we
had yet to see camel. Finally it came! At this point I had
consumed more meat than is reasonably moral or medically
advisable. But this was camel, the veritable holy grail of
desert meats. The waiter asked if I cared for any and with a
look that said, “why ask such a silly question”, chunks of
camel were laid on my plate. All eyes were on me at this
point. We had talked about eating camel for days. Finally,
the moment had arrived.
I do believe the room
grew quiet at this point and the faint sound of harps
playing could be heard in the distance. With the skill of a
surgeon gone mad I cut into the camel and let it settle
gently onto my tongue. I was in my own world, a culinary
nirvana. It was then that the elusive taste of camel made
itself known to me: motor oil. Oh my gosh, I had just filled
my mouth with motor oil!
I had failed to notice
when the camel came around that Father Fabian and Father Ed
neglected to take any. In fact, I believe every African
brother at the table passed on the camel. Diana had joined
in on the fun and so had Father Ted, the American priest. We
were alone in this business of camel consumption. As I
chewed the first and only piece of camel I would put into my
mouth, my thoughts fled back to our drives through the
deserts where we saw many of these creatures roaming free. I
remember laughing and giggling as we all made humorous
remarks about the disproportionately small heads of camels.
I remember thinking, wow, that is one ugly animal. It was at
this point of remembering our joking at the expense of
camels that I realized; it was the camel that laughed last.
It was a glorious
evening of fellowship. We all sat and reminisced on the
events of the past two weeks of filming. Spirits were high
and I felt as if we were eating with family we had known
forever. I walked outside to smoke a cigarette and was
overcome with sadness, suddenly realizing we would be
leaving this place the following evening. I was not ready to
leave. I wanted to stay there forever. We had seen so much,
and yet we had not scratched the surface of the countless
stories there. I lost all sight of our mission statement in
that moment. There had to be more than just making
documentaries. Everywhere we looked there was work to be
done and I was certain in that moment that we were called to
stay and work. God had given us such a gift in blessing us
with our ministry and I was ready to cast it aside and do
the work I could see. It’s tough being a baby Christian
sometimes.
The sorrow of the
evening was not quite over yet. Father Ed was leaving early
in the morning for Lodwar in the north and it was time to
say goodbye. I hated this moment. We had been in the desert
with him for many days. We had spent three days driving
across Kenya through the Rift Valley, bandit infested back
roads, and the African Escarpment. It was Father Ed that
first drew us to this place; the place where we would take
our fledgling steps in our ministry. I was saying goodbye to
a brother and a friend in Christ who had changed my life and
my Christian walk. I looked at Diana as we stood there in
the dark lot of the restaurant and tears had filled her
eyes. I knew she was feeling as I was. In missions work in
Africa there are no guarantees that your goodbye will not be
the last goodbye you will say to someone in this life. I was
sick in my heart with sadness.
I remember a sudden and
strange awareness at that moment. Father Ed was wearing
native African clothing from his homeland of Nigeria. He had
been wearing it all evening but it had not registered with
me. As odd as it sounds, it was in that moment that it first
struck me; he is African and we are not. He belonged not
only in that place but also to this place. We were merely
visitors in a land that would always be strange to us. God’s
gift in delivering us to Kenya was not one of permanence. It
was a gift of epiphany. Where we were blind to the poverty
and needless suffering of this world, a brand of truth had
been seared upon our souls. The drive home would be quiet
and heavy with remembering.
We returned to the
mission that evening and began the unpleasant task of
packing for the trip home. We had a full day ahead of us and
there would be no time to pack if we were going to get
everything filmed. We sorted through, what had become a
chaotic mountain of equipment and dirty clothes, and set
aside everything we were going to be leaving behind. We left
anything that could be used by the mission and packed what
needed to return with us. I lay in bed that night and
wondered if we would ever return. Had we done what we were
sent to do? Were we missing the point of our work? The train
of thoughts was endless on a track going nowhere but
destinations of fear and doubt.
We awoke early on
Tuesday morning, the last day of the mission. We had a busy
filming schedule to attend to and we were both exhausted
physically and emotionally. The sky was gray and dreary and
the air was a bit cool that morning. We started the day with
a short drive to the outstation Nkaimunruya. We drove down a
long and terribly rough dirt track through tall trees and
brush to the entrance of the school, a nursery and
kindergarten complex, for the youngest of the children in
the area. We pulled through the gate and parked near the
front of the school building.
Before entering the classrooms, we were shown around the
grounds. At the far end of the facility was a lean-to type
of structure where the meals were prepared. There was a
large, black caldron full of a dark red porridge that had
been prepared for the children’s daily meal. We were told
that for most of the children, this was the only food they
would eat this day.
The main component of
the porridge is millet. Millet has been used for thousands
of years throughout the world to make flour and other cereal
type foods. In the U.S., it is used primarily as birdseed. I
found a definition for this grain online that reads like
this. “Millet sprays are often recommended as healthy treats
to finicky pet birds, as they are easily eaten and (in the
case of destruction-prone hookbills) easily broken”.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet) Get the point? I would
invite you to look at a four or five year old child in your
family, perhaps a grandchild or the child of a friend, and
ask yourself if you could take comfort in knowing he or she
is going to be fed a meal made of birdseed once a day.
We walked across the
rocky ground back to the school house and entered through
its only door. At the very instant we entered the room, the
sea of little faces erupted into a chaos of giggling and
screaming for joy. The sound was breathtaking! I imagine it
is a rare day indeed that white faces make their way into
this place to visit. There was such life in this place it
could not be contained. The commotion lasted a few minutes
until the teachers and Father Fabian were able to calm the
children down.
Father Fabian introduced us but I don’t think many, if any
of the children, understood who we were or what the cameras
and video gear lashed to our bodies were all about. They
stared at us intently with their shining little faces and I
knew without a doubt we were seeing Christ in every face
before us. The photographs Diana captured there would become
some of our favorites. Father Fabian led them in counting to
thirty and saying their abc’s. The children were told that
we were going to visit the village where they lived and that
we would return later. Again, they erupted in laughter and
screaming for joy.
We left the grounds
through the gate and headed back down the long walk to the
village. On the outskirts of the village was a large stone
quarry. It was a massive operation that covered many acres
of ground. The walls of the quarry were sheer and at its
entrance, the men working below looked tiny in comparison.
Men from the area who are physically capable of doing the
work go there to make less than one U.S. dollar per day. And
that bit of money will only be made once the stones an
individual has quarried have been sold. For the most part,
stones from the quarry are sold to contractors in Nairobi to
build homes for the wealthy.
The work is backbreaking
and extremely dangerous. Shortly before our trip to this
region, a man was crushed to death by a falling slab of
stone. Not a problem for the quarry bosses, there are many
men waiting to take his place. All of the work there is done
entirely by hand. Watching them work was reminiscent of old
film footage from the prison labor camps once common in the
U.S. Men must rent their tools from the quarry bosses. These
tools include pick axes, long steel poles, and large hammer
for breaking and shaping stone. Along the rim of the quarry
stood a few men with very long steel poles tamping deep
holes through the stone. We were told that a man will stand
in place while he strikes at the stone for many hours until
a hole is bored deep enough to insert dynamite. Once enough
holes are bored, the face of the quarry is blasted away.
This leaves tremendous slabs of stone that the men working
below will begin shaping into building stones.
At one edge of the
quarry, a man had set up a blacksmithing station to reshape
and sharpen the tools the men were using. We filmed there a
moment and no one appeared to be happy that we were pointing
our cameras at them. This quarry was the only place we
visited where our filming appeared to be rather unwelcome. I
do not blame them; we were merely voyeurs into their
suffering as far as they could tell.
A cart pulled by a donkey was coming up behind us carrying
supplies into the camp. The cart was followed by a very
large truck that was returning to the quarry to pick up
another load of stone. The place was depressing and the
story of these men and their work and life here needs to be
told. As we stood and watched, one word kept jumping to the
forefront of my mind: slavery. Perhaps it is not slavery to
man but slavery to poverty.
We continued down the
path past the quarry and came to the entrance of the village
proper. I believe the poverty was a bit worse in this area
than it was in Embulbul. Maybe it was not. Perhaps we had
just been beaten down with everything we had seen at this
point. The village rests in a hilly area and the pathways
through the homes were pocked with deep holes and trenches
that had been eroded in the soil by rain. Large stones from
the quarry held down the corrugated roofs of the homes. At
the front of the village were some market stalls. Most of
them were empty and appeared to have been that way for some
time. I wondered how anyone would have money to buy anything
and where items to sell would come from. There were a couple
of stands selling produce and the people there seemed to be
a bit uncomfortable with our presence. It was once again
explained to us that people had been here before and done
nothing but exploit these people.
We continued our walk
down the twisting and eroded paths of the village. We were
invited into several homes of families who are active in the
church. The homes were tiny on the inside; perhaps eight by
twelve feet. The floors were bare earth and the walls were
made of stones, mud and sticks. The poverty here was
unimaginable to us. It was worse than anything we had seen
on our journey thus far.
We came upon a young
girl and her toddler sister standing next to their mother in
the doorway of their home. Father Fabian asked why the girl
was not in school. After some conversation in Swahili it was
determined that she was not in school because her mother
cold not afford the uniform and the desk that must be
provided by the family. Father Fabian expressed his grave
concern that if the mother did not get this child into
school quickly she would end up pregnant staying in this
area. She could not have been any older than twelve. He
instructed the men that were accompanying us on the walk to
bring her to the school and give her a uniform and a school
desk.
There is something horribly wrong with this picture. In
fact, there are so many things wrong about this little girls
situation that no amount of writing could depict it all.
What is even more disturbing about her situation is that it
is in no way unique or uncommon. It is a level of poverty I
can only call savage; savage in that it can all be ended
quickly if the haves of he world end their season of greed
and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. It defies reason
and understanding that so many nations stand on the title of
Christian while spending billions upon billions on making
war and relative pennies on ending the needless suffering of
God’s children. It defies logic and reason and all moral
teachings of the major world religions. Although those who
gain from this perverted disparity of wealth may explain it
away in this age, there will be no explaining it in the age
to come.
Time was running short
and we still had so much left to film. We were scheduled to
film at the elementary school and Father Fabian wanted us to
be there in time to film the feeding program that goes on
there. Before we could leave for this location, we needed to
return to the nursery school to pick up our van and say
goodbye to the kids. We returned to the nursery school to
find the children running and playing in the schoolyard. As
soon as they caught sight of us walking through the gate, we
were mobbed by dozens of smiling little faces. They were
chanting something in unison we could not understand. Father
Fabian would later tell us they were saying, “They have
returned, they have returned”. Perhaps they had believed we
would not come back to say goodbye to them.
I got my video camera
right down to their faces and let the lens become filled
with the joy of their smiles and laughter. I let myself go
and let the crowd of children surround me. Diana was doing
the same. Being in the midst of them, in this sea of tiny
hands and faces with all their laughter and shouting was
what I imagine heaven might be. It was overwhelming. It took
much of what I had left inside of me at this point to not
burst into tears. I had seen their homes and the streets
they will walk on. I had been witness to the hardship and
suffering that awaited each of them outside the walls of
this schoolyard. It just didn’t make sense to me.
Time was running very
late and we were already tardy for our next location at the
primary school. We were trying to break free from the kids
to make our way to the van when a miracle happened in my
life. I was beginning to break on the inside and found
myself not wanting to see anymore. Part of me just wanted to
cover my eyes and somehow wake up in my bed at home. I did
not want to see any more poverty or suffering or despair.
Just then, God spoke to me in a way that I have never
experienced before.
A little boy, perhaps
three or four, in a tattered green sweater and a snotty
little nose walked up beside me and took my hand as we
walked along. I pointed my lens at his small dark hand in
mine and let the video role as we walked along together. He
was chattering happily and smiling at me. And then it
happened. When I was sure I could see no more, the little
boy looked me straight in the eye and patted my hand several
times, the way a mother touches a child who is hurting. He
was so happy in spite of everything going on around him. He
wasn’t thinking about being poor or hungry. He was holding
the hand of a friend he had never met and for him, that was
enough for the moment.
I know today, not
believe but know, it was Christ speaking to me through the
hands and joy of this little boy. Again, I was missing the
whole point of being here. It wasn’t about everything around
us. It was about the people and their joy before us, around
us, and in every hand that took a hold of ours in greeting.
For as long as I live I will never forget that moment.
The teachers had to hold
the children back as our van pulled away. We arrived at the
primary school toward the end of the children being fed
their daily meal of beans and vegetables. As it was at the
nursery school, the air was filled with the sounds of
children laughing and playing and carrying on the way
children do when they are together. There was a hand washing
station near the line where food was being served and an
older boy was ensuring the younger children were washing up
well and forming an orderly line for the meal. The children
there learn early to be in charge of other children and take
on that responsibility with great care. Perhaps they excel
at caring for others because so many of them have been
orphaned which leaves children rearing children.
There were three women
serving large ladles full of the bean and vegetable mixture
from very large pots that were being heated over an open
wood fire. The children appeared to enjoy the food and were
gathering in smaller groups as they watched our every move.
I found six or seven children standing in the doorway of one
of the classrooms and spent a few moments exchanging silly
faces with them. It seems that no matter where you go, kids
like making silly faces.
The principle of the school, a very kind and direct woman,
took us on a tour of the classrooms where most of the
children were eating their lunches. I am quite certain that
the kids had no idea what to make of us, especially with the
equipment we were carrying. We were treated to songs from
the children in several of the classrooms. Their young
voices singing Christian songs in their native tongue was a
joyful noise I wish I could share with the world. We are in
fact now in the process of producing a CD of songs from this
region that we were able to lift from the digital video.
After visiting several
of the classrooms, we came upon the Special Education
classroom. There were five young children in this class. One
of the girls has Downs Syndrome and the other four had
various kinds of learning disabilities. The girls in this
class had been busy making crafts this day and were happy to
share them with us. I wondered then and I wonder now what
the fate of children with such difficulties would be in a
region like this were it not for the refuge of this place.
This classroom and its children was another good reason for
the titling of the documentary for Embulbul.
We finished seeing the remainder of the classrooms and took
a short stroll around the schoolyard. We watched as the
children played. Had it not been for the constant visual
reminders of the condition in this region, I could have
imagined that we were in any schoolyard in the U.S. There
really is no basic difference in the children there from
children anywhere. All that differentiates them are the
conditions they are subjected to that directly result from
the terrible imbalance in the distribution of wealth this
world is plagued with.
The day had moved into
afternoon and we were behind in our filming schedule to the
point some things would now have to be let go. We rushed
back to the main facility of the Brother Beausong Catholic
Education Center to film the secondary students in class,
interview the Headmaster, Brother Laurence Collins and
several of the older students as well as interview a leader
of the Charismatic Movement in Kenya, Mr. John Njoroge. We
still needed to return to the dispensary and film some
background shots as well as interview one of the clinic
nurses. We were at absolute exhaustion now and it had become
very difficult to think about any further filming. We had
less than four hours of good light left and ten hours of
filming to squeeze in. I quietly spoke a little prayer in my
heart and asked God to give us the strength to keep moving.
We headed to the
dispensary and got the background shots we needed. There had
been a large measles outbreak in the region and Lucy along
with several other nurses were busy giving vaccinations to
the young children of the village. One of the things that
struck us most about this vaccination setting were the young
children caring for the very small children there. I have no
idea where their mothers were and to be honest, I did not
ask. I had heard all that I could bear to at this point and
allowed myself to believe the mothers were all probably busy
working or taking care of other children.
A deep blue dye was
applied to the fingers, hands or arms of the children to
identify them as already having received their vaccination.
I asked why this was necessary and was told that some of the
villagers will return for multiple shots in a belief that
this will better protect their children.
I have already spoken on
the excellence of Diana’s photographic work and I will just
once more now. I was busy filming and found myself quite
distracted by the piercing cries of the children who were
being vaccinated. Diana, who works as a Registered Nurse in
a Neonatal ICU at the trauma center in our home city, was
accustomed to these sounds. Diana captured an image of a
beautiful infant; perhaps a year old or so, with these big
crocodile tears running down his cheeks. It would end up
being one of the top ten photos she would capture on the
trip.
We sat down with Lucy
Wangui Muriithi, an exceptionally gifted nurse at the
mission’s clinic. I got the feeling when I was speaking with
Lucy that she is a woman who does not tire easily and is
wholly committed to her work. She was comfortable with the
camera and gave us the sense that she had seen so much and
was willing to see and confront much more. Lucy spoke boldly
and with great precision on the work that was going on in
the clinic and the people they serve. She was a powerful
figure in this community and a joy to interview.
Time seemed to be
ticking much faster than before at this point and I felt the
pressure of our unrealistic schedule bearing down on me. I
was already cutting material to be filmed in my head but
still had three more segments to film. We headed to the
secondary school to film the young men and women in class
and get our interview with Brother Laurence.
The first of the
classrooms we entered was the science laboratory. It was
sparsely furnished with lab equipment and I believe the
floor may have been earthen. There were groups of three or
four students working intently with some beakers and glass
tubing. The students did not appear to be held back in their
efforts to learn in spite of the lack of material supplies.
Each of them was sharply dressed in gray sweaters and dark
pants. Each of them looked like a young professional. I
wondered for a moment if we were not filming some future
scientist who might create great things to further His
Kingdom.
We moved on to the next
classroom where a lecture was taking place. We were
introduced to the young people and began filming. Our
presence did not seem to be much of a distraction. The
teacher, Peter I believe, reminded me of some of my college
professors in his intensity and fervor for his work.
The school day begins
with the entirety of the pupils gathered in the schoolyard
neatly lined up and listening to the words of the
Headmaster. The flag is raised and respected. There are
prayers spoken and God is placed at the center of the day.
Every student has a job to do in keeping the school clean
and in good operating condition. In short, not a day goes by
with an absence of faith, respect, and mutual concern for
fellow pupil. It is not about money or the lack of it. In
Embulbul it is about having moral and rational priorities.
There is a unified community built around education in that
place that I have never seen before. No child left behind
means something there, I only wish it did here.
Next we moved on to the
teachers study area in the rear of that section and settled
into Brother Laurence’s office for an interview. When I
first met Brother Laurence of the Christian Brothers Order,
he seemed somehow out of place. He possesses a distinction
about him that reminded me of times long past in my
experience. Brother Laurence has accepted the awesome
responsibility for the stewardship of these young minds and,
from all outward signs, he is carrying out this task with
great care and love.
Brother Laurence was, in
his words, keen to do this interview and help us fill in
some of the gaps about how this school started, where it is
going, and how the community will come together in achieving
their goals. It was interesting to hear his Australian
accent in a place where we had begun to grow accustomed to
voices of Kenya. As I listened to Brother Laurence speak, I
was moved to believe that God has placed the right man in
the right place at the right time.
The interview came to an
end about an hour later and we moved on to the center
courtyard of the mission to interview five young men and
woman from the secondary school. I must be honest in telling
you that at this point I was ready to pack our equipment
away and get a short nap before we headed to the airport for
our flight home. Fortunately, we had the sense to stay and
finish our work.
The young people took
their places sitting on the small lawn of the courtyard.
Brother Laurence offered the some encouragement to do well
and stood in the background watching as a father would watch
over his children taking on some new task. I really had
nothing prepared to ask the students, or if I did, it was
long lost to the exhaustion of the day. Each one took their
turn introducing themselves and talking about what they
enjoyed most about school. I had expected somehow that they
would pick a favorite activity or subject but the wisdom of
these young minds would tell us something much more.
Each one shared a very
precise and powerful statement about their enjoyment of
school and how they saw their education helping them to move
forward in life to a better future. They were all so serious
in their words and expressions that I first misinterpreted
it all as fear of the camera. I could not have been more
wrong. They were afraid of nothing. Each of them knew they
represented, not only the school, but their fellow
classmates and this was something to be taken seriously and
done with great care.
Each of these young men
and woman has a dream. They have dreams that push back the
struggles of their life, the kind of struggles that would
bring most grown men to their knees in despair. There is no
despair among them. Despair has given way to hope and faith
that can only come from having overcome the seemingly
impossible task of making it this far in school. Remember,
secondary school is not a right in Kenya. It is a privilege
that is earned through sacrifice, endless work, and a
dedication to making dreams a reality. I would like to say
that in some way or at some time I have worked for something
as hard as these young people have; I have not. We thanked
them profusely and began packing our gear.
Questions and doubt were
surging through me now. Will they all make it out of here?
Will they be able to endure till the end? How will any of
them find the money to go to college? If they do not, what
will become of them? Later that evening the questions ceased
as I remembered their strength and ability to endure. I
believe they will make it. I believe because they believe.
Finally, it was time to
pack it in. We had finished the work we set out to do. We
limped back to our room to pack our equipment. I remember
sitting on the end of my bed to catch my breath and calm my
mind from the run of the day. In one sense, I was glad the
work was finished. In the larger sense, I knew this meant we
were going home. I don’t think either of us was ready to
leave. I jokingly told Diana we could just call into work
for a month or so and live here in Embulbul a bit longer.
Had we stayed a week longer, I believe I would not have come
home. But these thoughts were nothing more than the
emotional tugging of my heart, not the calling of our Lord.
As I said before, we had been called to this place for a
moment to do what we do for Him. Staying there would have
defeated the entire purpose of coming. Still, my heart was
heavy with the very idea of leaving that place.
We carried our luggage
to the courtyard door and gathered in the dining room for
one final meal with friends. Father Fabian blessed the food
and offered a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving for the time
we had spent together. It is beautiful to hear him pray. It
seems that when he is offering prayers of blessing, he
always begins with, “Father, we thank you for the gift of
life”. It struck me as particularly strong in that place; to
be thankful for something that brings such suffering for so
many. Again, the suffering is not the point of focus in
Embulbul or any other place we visited in Kenya. The point
is being thankful in knowing well that God is with us in
every step we take whether it is a difficult path or not.
When dinner had
finished, we loaded our things into the back of a pickup
truck driven by a parish member. We would drive in a
separate vehicle. It is not safe to travel at night there
for anyone. It is always best to travel in groups in case of
trouble at the hands of carjackers and bandits.
As we approached the
airport, we encountered the first of three military and
police checkpoints. I was not sure what they were checking
for. I really didn’t want to know. We arrived at the airport
and unloaded our things onto a cart to take inside. No one
is allowed in the building without a ticket or a passport so
goodbyes to Father Fabian would happen there at the curb. It
was to be our last difficult goodbye to make. Once we passed
through the doors of the terminal there would be no coming
back out. We exchanged strong hugs and words of thanks and
blessings. My thoughts were already racing on planning our
return.
Finally, we entered the
airport. Once inside we would pass through three more
security checks before being allowed to approach the check
in desk. Two hours and two security checks later we were
ushered into a large glass room to await boarding. Moments
later we walked down the longs steps to the tarmac and up
the metal steps into the plane. Our mission was complete.
Part of me was elated that no harm had come to any of us.
Part of me felt broken that we were leaving Africa. We were
there such a short time but had been changed forever. Life
would, nor could it, ever be the same again. We took our
seats and I silently prayed, thanking God for keeping us
safe on our journey. Thirty-six hours later, we would be
home and the work of producing the documentaries would
begin.
To Love
One Another
John 13:34-35, “A new
commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even
as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this
all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have
love for one another." What else can be said?
We came to Africa to film the miracles that are taking place
in some of the most poverty stricken areas in the world. Our
mission was to create a couple of documentaries that our
friends in the SMA could use to raise much needed funds to
continue their work in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ
and bringing aid to the people of these places. So much more
happened in our lives in doing this work.
By His Grace, God gifted us with seeing and experiencing
love in ways we never knew existed. From the dust and
disease of poverty arose the love of Christ. We were
welcomed and loved by people we had never met. We entered
their strange and beautiful world and were embraced as
family. Of all the blessings Diana and I have received in
our life together, never have we been more deeply touched by
the Love of Christ and the Power of the Holy Spirit.
It is so easy in this
world today to become jaded and lose our faith. We see the
images of places like the Congo and Darfur and find
ourselves despairing over what we see, but there is so much
hope today. Christians from around the world are taking the
great commission of the church in reaching out to those in
need and spreading the Good News, the Good News that
transcends the evil and corruption of this world. God is
alive and leading us to walk forward in His name.
We are planning on
returning to Africa sometime soon. We will not be filming,
that work is done. Instead, we are going to sit quietly
among our brothers and sisters who taught us so much about
what it is to have courage in the face of death, to remain
faithful when everything around screams there is no God, and
to love in the face of tragedy. I don’t know why things are
the way they are in Africa. It is not mine to point the
finger of blame or make sense of any of it. It is mine to
believe that the Will of God will be done and to know that
in this life, so many things will remain a mystery.
Let me place these
burdens upon your heart. When you can give, give. Where
there is need, offer help and support. When you see your
brother or sister in pain, give comfort and shelter from the
storm. Take all the treasure, time and talent God has
granted you and share them with those who have less. Reach
out to a child in need. Take the hand of your elder and
listen. Love a stranger. Feed a neighbor. Pray. Hope. Love.
May the Peace and Love of our Savior Jesus Christ be with
you always. May our Lord stamp eternity upon your eyes. May
the power of the Holy Spirit lead you forward to something
beautiful for Him. Amen.
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