Day 7 Personal Reflections: How I Have Been Changed?

Deaconess Eunita Amidst One of Her Lutheran Communities

The deaconess ministry of the ELCK is exemplified by the amazing ministry of Dcs. Eunita here surrounded by HIV positive women in the Dago coummity. The community has turned out to raise a new home for a widow with four children. The joy of the Lord is their strength!

Deaconess Eunita Introduces A Girl to Present A Poem
This poem about the nature of HIV/AIDS, and others like it, are being taught to the smallest of children to educate from the earliest possible age of the nature of this disease.

Another Poem in Front of the Congregation Under the African Sky
Our sanctuary this day was magnificent! The beauty of the Southwestern Kenyan country is the only sanctuary appropriate for the joy of these people!

Back in Nairobi: Some Rest, Prayer and Conversation

What was once foreign seemed comforting and welcoming. When a week ago we walked into the ELCK Nairobi "Compound" things were new, different, and the security of the setting slightly unsettling. Upon returning, after all God has revealed and the seeming month's worth of experiences packed into a week, we felt relaxed, welcomed and home!

After hours of prayer and conversation, in which we sought the direction of the Lord and the direction of the people of the ELCK, we feel the Lord's leading to support Deaconess Ministry (in ways they tell us will be helpful) and the work of Pastor Momposhi among the Masai tribe (in ways he and the ELCK will define).

The ELCK will take the lead to make sure we're meeting their needs -- not our own. We're praying for long-term blessing, not quick fixes. We're wanting a partnership and global relationship -- because that's really what we already have in Christ.

The thoughts below are in answer to the question, "How has this experience changed you?" Thanks be to God for changed hearts and the passion become action in years to come. --Keg

Day 7 Reflections from Elizabeth

Having traveled all over western Kenya I saw the Holy Spirit at work among God’s people. I was trying very unsuccessfully to process the vast array of experiences while I had some down time on the Masai Mara. A common thread finally emerged – any support here must be sustainable and rooted in the community. I was privileged to witness the strong impact of Deaconess Eunita’s work. The care she provides delivers hope to the hopeless, life where once was only death and replaces the fear of HIV/AIDS with God’s Grace and Mercy. I had an opportunity to discuss the work and life of the deaconess in Kenya with Deaconess Lourna who currently lives at the guesthouse in Nairobi. The stories of these faithful women and their day-to-day personal struggles moved me to tears. It is overwhelming to me that the deaconesses here live in same poverty stricken circumstances of those they serve. I am so taken by their powerful spirit and personal sacrifices made everyday. Lourna explained to me that these servants receive no salary and yet share what little they have to serve the needy. It is the story of a struggle to serve five congregations, meet the challenges of the extremely rough remote roads without transportation, serve selflessly and at the end of the long day work to meet the needs of their own families. It has become clear that these women are the very heart and arms of Jesus in these Lutheran congregations. I feel compelled to find a way to empower these deaconesses to continue to serve and bring life and eternal life to those who are most desperately in need of both.

How am I different after this experience?

I was expecting the poverty, I was prepared for the desperate needs, I had an understanding of the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS and all of these challenges are truly evident in Kenya. But I also found hope and joy amongst the struggle. I know that it’ll take more than passion to affect any lasting changes. This can not become about me and making myself feel good about what I can do in the short term, it must be in empowering the suffering children of God to overcome their circumstances. So how am I changed? I have a new sense of how ridiculously blessed I truly am. It is shameful that I can have the petty complaints about minor inconveniences when people in Kenya must struggle for basic needs of water, shelter and food. I feel I have squandered resources that have been lavished upon me when all my needs are met & always have been. I have a new understanding of community and sacrifice for the sake of those around me. How many times have I not risked helping someone who was desperate for my attention or love? I have more questions and some pretty serious thinking to do. I am not sure how I could ever be who I was when faced with a woman named Jacqueline who charged me with the task of remembering her & the struggles of her people.

Day 7 Reflections from Kirk

Kenya, like other developing countries I suppose, is a land of paradox. The sublime and the absurd exist side by side. We drive through a countryside with the sun sparkling off tin-roofed dirt-floored single room huts that reflect the poverty in the rural areas, but there are also cell phone towers along with the ramshackle, and everyone is seemingly connected to pay-as-you-go Safaricom. (Children in Kissii were giving me email addresses and SMS numbers.) In Nairobi there are gleaming sky scrapers that would be at home any western city, but the largest slum in Africa is only a few kilometers away, where over a million people live amid unspeakable filth.

The inescapable fact in Kenya and throughout Africa is the grinding poverty. What is so paradoxical to me, again, is the very nature of the people here who have to endure the lack of every basic necessity that the developed world takes for granted. The Deaconesses and project leaders of the ELCK who guided us to Lutheran community projects in very remote areas are well educated, articulate, competent professionals who would be at home in any similar leadership role in America. Many of them every day go home to the same conditions as the people they serve, and in fact give away part of what little they have. The HIV/AIDS widows who have formed community groups have found a peace and joy that passes understanding and have taken control over their lives; they have praises on their lips for mercy and grace of our Savior.

Nothing prepares you for these sights, nothing can describe how I felt when Deaconess Eunita stood in front of 50 orphans and another 20 adults, all tragically affected by HIV/AIDS, and asked us to stand with them, to help in any way possible, not a hand-out but a hand-up. So as we wind down I don’t know what personal change that translates into just yet, but my heart was broken then, and many time again here. I can’t help but think of these wonderful people in their huts and the hurdles to daily existence they encounter. God has shown us many wonderful things here, and we can use this to prepare new ministry opportunities here at the ends of the earth.

Day 7 Reflections from Karl

How am I different after this experience?

Physically tired. The jet lag combined with Kenya travel, food, risks and challenges tires me out daily. Spiritually invigorated. Orphans and poverty I expected. Pure light and joy in the midst of it surprised me. Then I felt embarrassed by the surprise. Did I think Jesus was a U.S. citizen? A Lutheran? Sorry Lord, that’s my small faith – just made bigger (again). Impatient. When I think about the things that bother me, when I think about the things that bother us at St. John, I experience something akin to impatience. Ready. Like so many of our missionaries returning, I’m more eager than ever for the mission. Let’s do this thing. Time is running out. We’re not going to play church, we’re going to be the church. Loving. The relationships here between the least of these and those just beyond that experience move me to deep spiritual joy and move me to further cherish my own. I look forward to my reunion with Marilouise (I really miss her and should have brought her along), and with my family and friends in Christ.

In any hemisphere, or on any continent, relationships aren’t something – they’re everything – in Christ. That’s true here, back home and in eternity. It’s true everywhere all the time. I love that, and just learned it again!