Recap Video

Just wanted to post the wonderful recap video that Matthew put together for worship last Sunday. So many highlights of our time in Kenya in just 2:56 minutes!


Kenya Sunday Morning Countdown 8-18-2013 from Matthew Wright on Vimeo.

Final Thoughts

As this trip draws to a close, I offer some reflections from 30,000 feet:

One of the important developments in missions work over the past 20-30 years has been a shift in focus and strategy. The older model largely consisted of white foreigners descending upon an impoverished third-world country and dispensing aid of some sort to the needy and incapable locals (at least, that's how the mission workers saw them).  The newer, much-improved emphasis is on coming alongside denizens of a region and empowering them to be change agents. The mission workers are striving, whenever possible, to step out of the spotlight and to avoid doing the heavy lifting themselves, instead offering whatever resources they have to facilitate strong, capable, vigorous local leadership.  We Western (and usually white) visitors ought to be leery of our own tendency to indulge in the heady jolt of pride at having the deprived masses sing our praises and tell us what awesome saviors we are. 

I'm really grateful for this change in focus; it's a critically important one. So, the question is, how did our team do?

From my limited perspective, I feel pretty good about our team's accomplishments, though I can't help but see some lingering presence of the old ways. Our medical team brought a tremendous amount of direct relief to communities who lack regular quality healthcare. On the one hand, much of the relief was temporary: de-worming medicine and antibiotics will last only a few months at best.  On the other hand, I'm excited by the ways in which lasting impact occurred. First, at every step, we were joined by members of Mavuno church.  They came in large numbers to the remote camps. Mavuno is like the Chapel Hill Bible Church in that many of its members have advanced degrees and training and are therefore in a position to offer much to impact the local slums and impoverished surrounding communities. What's most important is that they are Africans and are thus promoting the idea of Africans being the primary change agents in solving Africa's problems. Furthermore, they don't have to travel 9,000 miles at great expense to offer aid. Sustainable relationships can easily grow.  

How could this observation affect our own commitment to local mission work? There is need both across the globe and at our own doorstep. The value of seeing firsthand how effective the folks at Beacon are using fewer resources than we would expect cannot be overstated. We should not simply save up this good mojo for use again in a year when the next Kenya team is preparing to go.  Just like Beacon clinic director Mike Oloo does after every remote medical camp, we need to actively seek a sustainable project or goal informed by what we have learned here. 

Our support of Beacon of Hope is another highly sustainable model. Beacon is in the drivers seat; we are coming alongside an already highly capable institute of excellence. We do have a lot to offer, though. Our health care providers have been blessed to come from an area that provides some of the best medical training in the world, and they spent much of their time teaching and training the medical staff, who gulped down the material with eagerness and zeal.  Beacon plans to found a nursing school on site soon, and the possibility of our playing a significant role is a dizzying one and would fit right in with the new model.

I'll offer a couple of quick personal thoughts about our work with the school. We left Beacon Academy with a lot of long-term assistance.  Laura McPherson, our team leader and a special education teacher, brought with the team a lot of material to help the academy develop concrete ways to tailor their instruction to meet the wildly varied needs of their students. As we read with different kids over the weeks, we saw first-hand how "all-over-the-place" their skills were.  A number of our team members also signed up to sponsor specific kids at the Academy, and we were also able to visit and get to know kids who are already sponsored by Bible Church families. That, in my estimation, is a lot of good fruit. 

My personal experience at the Academy was mixed. I can hardly express the joy I found in getting to know the kids - Sharon, Elijah, Michelle, and Safari, to name a few.  Likewise, they were overjoyed to have us and treated us like celebrities for the week.  It's the celebrity treatment that made me feel a little weird. How much of a bad dynamic is that?  Why all the adoration?  Is it just because visitors came who delighted in these kids and whose sole mission was to hang out with them?  Or are there still remnants of the old "white savior" dynamic that linger?  Are we promoting that pattern by showing up, or am I reading too much into what should just be savored as a beautifully warm interaction with people from across the world?

These questions genuinely vex me, and I honestly don't have any clear answers yet. I do sense that a critically vital component of particularly successful mission trips is humility and a commitment to observing and listening. That's how Beacon of Hope started; Jane Wathome, answering the clear call from Jesus to care for the poor and underprivileged, went to them and listened, and then listened some more. The resulting ministry was a response to what she heard.  What a powerful example for us all. 

Made it to Dallas

One more leg - the 3pm flight to RDU

We made it to Dubai, baby!

Just a few short hours until we're back in the states. (20 hours to be precise.)

The Tradition Continues

In 2011, Katherine and I (Walker) travelled to Kenya on a similar mission.  We brought with us our then 5-year old daughter, Savannah.  While we were here, she lost her first tooth.  The Kenyan tooth fairy (is it the same one, or are different regions under local fairy jurisdiction?) brought Savannah some shillings. 

Last night, our son Isaiah joined the club!  Local hero Charles, a Kenyan waiter, did the honors, removing Isaiah's first tooth here below the equator. His technique was flawless and impressive. Hopefully, the Kenyan fairy will be paying a visit tonight. 

                                           Moments after the violence

           Charles and Isaiah, men of the hour

If we ever have a third child, the pressure is on...

Things are looking hopeful travel-wise

The word by Friday afternoon is that Emirates flights are running as normal. We don't know exactly how that looks on the ground, so we'll be shooting to arrive at the airport super-early for our flight tomorrow, which is scheduled to fly out at 4:30. 

Among others, thanks to Michael Gaffigan for posting updates via the prayer email and to Megan Long for heading up operations stateside.

It's more than academic

Kristina Podesta's take on her time at Beacon of Hope:

When I began my masters program in intercultural conflict management, my friends told me that academic study would threaten to eclipse my engagement in real lives and real situations. I didn't believe them.  Now, 2 semesters in to my masters, I understand what they meant. Serving at Beacon of Hope in Kenya has, thankfully, countered this drift, reconnected me with things of the heart and put my academic pursuits, so valuable in their own right, in their proper perspective. 

My realignment began as soon as we arrived. Mike Oloo, the director of the Beacon of Hope medical clinic, gave us a comprehensive tour of the facilities on our first day.  He stressed the themes of sustainability, longevity, and holistic care.  The directors of each branch of the ministry at Beacon of Hope were instructed to ask how to make their sector self-supporting, how it can feed into other areas, and how it can provide needed services.  Furthermore, the branches seek to coordinate with each other. For example, the clinic tests for HIV; when patients test HIV positive and lack income, a vocational school is ready to train a woman looking  for a way out. When childcare is a problem, the Academy is available.  If treatment compliance is a barrier, counselors and social workers systematically make house calls.  Beacon is caring for men and women in a holistic manner.  

How do they accomplish and fund all this? Excellence, by the grace of God. The academy keeps high standards to attract paying students in order to open up spots for those who can't pay. The students of the vocational school produce great work in their weaving and sewing studios to sell. The catering school sells yummy lunches to volunteers, and a teaching garden both provides fresh produce and a space to teach healthy eating.  Every day in morning devotions, staff praise the Lord with loud voices of song, and they hear valuable and important spiritual teaching.

I need to explain all this because I am just so pleasantly suprised by this ministry.

My "social sciences" type masters program doesn't teach about NGO's like this. Cynicism runs high; many feel that NGO's seem to do more harm than good, and deep-set societal problems abound endlessly. I started to doubt that any change can be made, and cultural relativism had me wondering if I even knew what helping meant. My wide eyed idealism was drowning in hopeless analysis and fears of making a wrong move. I know some Chapel Hillians (and Durhamites too) know this feeling.

Then there are those children - those joyful, loud, playful children. They aren't case studies, they aren't sad commercial ads, and they are definitely not fragile bundles or cultural ideals. People complicate everything.

Don't get me wrong: what I learned was important and has taught me to be more thoughtful, reflective and compassionate. It's given me skills to help me analyze and see the complexities of problems, but only those kids could have encouraged me like they did. Their laughter reminds me that people are people and that a smile or a laugh is universal. This wonderful ministry, started by one woman just following the Lord, reminded this cynical academic that God is great enough and wise enough to overcome any problem I can find.

The smallest things do matter. Prayers are powerful.  Change, thanks to a great God, can happen. We as a team trust and love this ministry.  We can learn so much from them. I'm weary (thanks to aforementioned studies) to endorse anything, but this Kenyan-born, Kenyan-run ministry has so impressed us. I, in my re-found idealism, am therefore praying boldly that every child at the school will be sponsored by the start of next year.This would allow them to open up more spots for more children. God is using Beacon, and it is awesome to see.