Why yes Ben Gibbard, I am a Tourist

I hesitate. Hesitate to speak til I’ve found the correct words. Hesitate to form an opinion til I’ve investigated all sides. Hesitate to post a blog entry til I’ve thoroughly resolved the issue of which I’ll post. Hesitate to act til I’m positively sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt, of the absolute rightness of my actions.

I’ve hesitated to write anything about Kenya before now because I want the words I type to be a perfect representation of the faultless life truths that I’ve discovered here. I want to pen a flawless essay, incontrovertible in its entirety that may forever be recalled upon and held up as timeless and absolute and true.

To put it another way, I can’t handle being wrong.

The biggest battle I’ve faced during my time here is uncertainty. Why am I here? Were my intentions in coming here good or selfish? What am I supposed to be doing? How can I be expected to make a difference when I can’t be assured that my actions won’t result in far more harm than good? This last one is my greatest obstacle. I’ve seen and heard of the rippling effects sent forth from the well-meaning that crash into their intended target of receipt and leave dissolution and disillusion in their wake.

For example, some of the girls here wanted to have their toenails painted. I leapt at the opportunity to act in a way that was certain to not be wrong – this was an answer to a direct request, how could this not be the right thing to do?

Well. About midway through giving a few of the girls a pretty crappy pedicure (let’s be honest, I’m not the arm of cosmetology in the body of Christ), I saw some of the girls who had been waiting eagerly get pulled out of line and turned away. I found out that these girls were the newcomers to the orphanage and hadn’t yet been given the correct uniform closed toed shoes because they didn’t yet have sponsors so there wasn’t yet money to buy them shoes and so they had to wear cheap flip flops to school and any girl seen by their teacher with painted nails gets caned. So, while the girls who already had got more, those without were denied and alienated yet again. And I was the cause of the crestfallen faces that looked back at me as those new girls were escorted out of the way to make room for everyone else.

“…sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemption
Would you agree?”

With my every action loaded with such potential consequences, how can I be expected to move? Paralysis has become my solace.

Long story made a little shorter, this morning I realized how cowardly and arrogant my fear of failure really is. When Jesus fed the 5000, he didn’t ask for the disciples to tell him all the reasons why the crowd was too big to feed, though that’s what they gave him. All he wanted was an attempt at reaching a solution; there’s no way that little boy believed his meager offering of 5 loaves and 2 fish would feed the whole multitude, but it’s what he had to offer, so he gave it all. And Jesus met him there, blessed it, and took care of the rest.

If I continue to let my fear dictate how I live, I’ll be reduced to nothing more than the scarecrows of TS Eliot’s “Hollow Men”. Cowardly and motionless of their own accord, swayed only by the wind, they arrive listlessly at the end of life muttering a broken Lord’s prayer: For Thine is the Kingdom…For Thine is…For Life is…For Thine is the…

How depressing is that?! I refuse to live my life that way. Sure I need to take my actions seriously, but God never intended for us to bring about his Kingdom by ourselves. He never expected/asked for perfection. He only asked that we’d be willing to offer the little we have. He knows our imperfection all too well and is ok with it. Now I just need to be ok with it too.

Ok I could probably wrap this up better, but the day is moving on and I can’t sit here a minute longer. There’s life to be lived, mistakes to be made and glimpses of His face to be seen all along the way.

Ready? Break!

“When there's a doubt within your mind
Because you're thinking all the time
And framing rights into wrongs
Just move along, move along”

Starting Point

Eventually I'm gonna need to get my blog back on to process all that is Kenya. But for now, I'll ease back in by including a blurb I wrote recently for the Kenya Relief newsletter:

Today I heard the numbing statistic that there are a million orphans in Kenya, with 80,000 located in the areas around Migori. Normally, numbers as vast as these fail to do more than overwhelm me, and they rarely register with me on a personal level. Today was different. Today, the message that thousands and thousands of children around Migori are orphans reached my ears as I stood in the front yard of such a child (see picture). I wish I could describe to you what that was like in a way that made it real to you; as real as seeing this sweet boy made this atrocious statistic real to me. I can no longer hide behind the indifference of large anonymous numbers: for me now, that devastating statistic has a face. A face that's 4 years old, and innocent, and only wants to be held.

Standing across the yard from this child as he leaned in his dirt laden shirt against his pitiful house - a house so fragile his neighbors were fearful of its collapse with each heavy rainfall - I couldn't help but ask: "Jesus, where are you?"

As the decision was finalized that this boy would not be left behind, that he would not be left an orphan, but that he would be leaving with us, adopted into the loving arms of the Kenya Relief family, I heard an answer. Where is Jesus? He's calling me to care for the least of these. Inviting me to be a physical representation of his love for his precious children, especially those in need. Asking and allowing us to be his body: his hands, his feet.

So, in the midst of allowing something so overwhelming to give way to apathy, Jesus offers us the chance to not surrender in despair, but instead to work alongside him in the coming of his Kingdom. May we begin this journey with just one person today.