A little about my trip to Kenya

I have FINALLY gotten my act at least somewhat together and have begun to think about, process, write and consider my time in Africa. Life caught up with me right after returning almost a month ago. Here is the quick snapshot of my time there – actually, it’s the rough draft of the letter that I’m sending those who generously supported me on this wild adventure. More – including PICTURES – will come in the very near future.

About four and a half years ago, I was trying to decide whether or not I should continue sending portfolios out to newspapers all over the country in pursuit of editor and designer positions or start looking into youth ministry opportunities. I found myself telling one friend that a ministry position wouldn’t be a “real job” because it was too much fun. She reminded me that when we are doing what God created us to do, we experience joy, and unlike any ol’ job, it doesn’t always feel like work.

About halfway through our time in Kenya, one of the guys on the middle school ministry team commented that this was the hardest he had ever worked on a mission trip. I looked up, surprised, thinking that we hadn’t been working at all. My mind went instantly to the conversation years ago, where I realized the beauty of doing what God made me to do.

The trip to Kenya was an opportunity to allow God to use me in a unique role to serve those who have dedicated their lives to serving others. Rarely does one have the incredible privilege to go on a mission trip in the exact field about which they are most passionate. For some strange, unexplainable reason, I love hanging out with middle schoolers, mentoring them and teaching them about what a real, authentic relationship with Jesus looks like on a daily basis.

Some of the students with which we worked go to a Christian boarding school nestled on a mountain side so full of lush, green plants and stone buildings that being there felt like being in a fairy tale. It over looked the Rift Valley and Mt. Longonot – a dormant volcano. Others are out in the field with the families, the only English-speakers within hours, barely having electricity and running water – that must be boiled to be safe, drinkable water – and are home schooled. And a few came from Nairobi where they attend an American school or are also home schooled.

No matter from where they came, they all came because their parents had dedicated their families to a time of serving the people of Kenya – as pilots, doctors, church planters, teachers, administrators and educators, to name a few – more roles than I ever thought possible.

Most of the students remembered the day that they were told that all they knew in life would radically change because their family was going to move to Africa. Others were born at the missionary hospital in this should-be foreign land and call it home. They were Americans, technically, but it had been months or years since they were in the United States. They weren’t Kenyans – skin color and accent quickly gave that away. They were different. They were third-culture kids.

Few had ever been to summer camp, and even those who had knew that they would never go again. So we brought them camp. Our role, as a team, was to run a middle school program – camp – for about 55 middle school missionary students whose parents were participating in African Inland Missions’ Kenyan conference at the Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe, Kenya.

My small group that week was 8th grade girls. It was an interesting bunch – the popular girls from school and the outsiders. Forming relationships with them was awesome, but unfortunately, like with the thousands of other students I’ve worked with all over the country, at the end of camp, I leave. Life goes on, and even though a great relationship was developed, there’s always the possibility that I’ll never see students again. It’s hard. seems like something permanent is in place, and than – wham! – it’s gone.

With that in mind and having said all too many hard good-byes, God blessed me to experience building relationships in a new way. I saw all these 8th-grade girls, who barely spoke to each other the first day, truly interact and get to know each other. The most amazing, to me, was seeing the “popular” girls and those who were “outsiders” form actual friendships and make plans to continue hanging out once conference was over. Two of the most opposite were vacation separately with their families over the holidays, and they sent me a picture together – they decided to make an effort to hang out after getting to know each other at conference.

Our time in Kenya was incredible – before the conference in Kijabe, during and after. Some highlights included dancing and playing with some kids at an orphanage in Nairobi, chasing a Ostrich in a game park, eating crocodile, meeting some Nakuru runners, spending time with Kenyan families and building relationships with the other six people on my team and the Kellers, a family from my church in Boulder that is based in Kenya.

It truly was something I will never forget! Being used by God to serve those who spend their lives serving others in such a unique way with the gifts and passions He’s given me is something beyond my anything I could have imagined and no words could express how incredible it was to see this once thought to be inconceivable dream become a reality.

Maybe I'll go back one day...

It's different

Going from the Equator in Africa to 10-degree weather, snow and Christmas lights in Colorado was weird. I even missed Thanksgiving.

Can’t tell you the last time I was at the mall, and this is the first time since Christmas 2001 that I’m not losing my mind from hearing the Charlie Brown Christmas tape over and over and over again and again and again … and then a few more times … as a Starbucks barista.

I’ve missed church all but one Sunday this Advent, and I’ll confess, being the morning after returning from Kenya, I was zoning during the candle lighting, sermon and Christmas songs.

All the Christmas parties to which I was invited were while I was gone, and this was the first year in a while there was no caroling, parades of lights or other holiday events. All my holiday shopping was done at the Masai Markets in Nairobi and lacked the line of children waiting to sit on Santa’s lap and an over-crowded parking lot.

Christmas is next week, and it sure doesn’t feel like it. The holiday filled with madness, cookie parties, sometimes tacky lights and annoying songs has been stripped down to anticipating time with my family and Chicago friends and celebrating Jesus’ birth.

It’s different.

And different is good.

Now she's dancing

It’s hard to imagine my 87-year-old grandma dancing, my 87-year-old grandma who took 8 minutes to go up and down 12 stairs since she broke her hip about a month ago.

She raised two girls, lived in the same house for the past 55 years, survived breast cancer – twice – and watched her husband die three years ago.

She met my grandpa on a blind date almost 70 years ago. He was supposed to be set up with her friend, but my grandma, Arlie Antright, caught his attention. They were engaged but got married on a whim after finding out that my grandpa would have to move across the country for work. She didn’t want to be left behind. They arranged everything, went to the courthouse with family and a few close friends and had a lunch at a nice hotel in the area. It was on a Tuesday, and they moved to California, for only a couple of years, the next day. The two things my grandma forgot were a wedding cake and a photographer, so there are no pictures of the event.

My grandpa was an avid University of Michigan fan – playing hockey there in the ‘30s with his identical twin and only missing a few football games the 60-something years following, except for his years in WWII. My grandma never loved football, but after my grandpa died almost three years ago, she started watching the games regularly because she said that, “Grandpa would be cheering up in Heaven.” OK, theologically a little off, but it was sweet.

And now she’s dancing.

“We will dance on the streets that are golden
The glorious bride and the great Son of man
From every tongue and tribe and nation
Will join in the song of the lamb”

Or so the chorus of one song tells us.

It’s hard to imagine my 87-year-old grandma dancing, but it’s a good reminder for what we were all made.

She Laughed Today

I called to tell her that I had been in Kenya for two weeks. My mom and aunt thought it would be best not to give her reason to worry, so we all agreed just not to mention that I would be going to Africa.

This morning, though, as my aunt handed her the phone, she told her that I had gone to an exotic place and that I wanted to tell her all about it.

"Hi Grandma!"

She asked about the exotic place.

"Grandma, it was awesome! I saw lions and zebras and giraffes and ate camel and crocodile and --"

"O that's enough!! You went to Africa, didn't you?!"

And she laughed. It was the first time I heard her laugh in quite a while. I told her that I bought her Christmas present in Kenya before the short conversation came to its usual end.

"I love you, Grandma."
"I love you, too, sweetheart."

It was the last time I'd hear that laugh. She died a few hours later - after one of her best days ever, according to my aunt who had been with her for most of it.