During my senior year of high school I took a class called “Current World Issues.” We watched a lot of CNN. And the teacher tried to convince us to care about these news stories we researched and reported on each week. Unfortunately, in our teenage arrogance, we thought we knew all we needed to know about what was going on in the world. I remember one time specifically she told us she was considering bringing in a missionary doctor to tell us about the civil war going on in Sudan. Collectively, we sort of scoffed at her, telling her that, while this was her first year in Africa and so the situation in Sudan was new and traumatizing for her, many of us were raised hearing about Sudan, knowing people who were evacuated from Sudan, listening to the stories coming from Sudan. We knew about Sudan…we didn’t need a guest speaker to tell us about it. Some of us had lived through the genocide in Rwanda and the follow-up chaos in Zaire/Congo. Some of us could tell stories of the elections in Kenya that were surrounded by a bunch of violence. All of us acted like what she wanted to say was a “current world issue” was just part of our life. Admittedly, we were not very respectful to her, and probably made her first year as a missionary teacher in Kenya less than ideal.
Since we acted like we didn’t care about what was going on in East Africa, the CWI teacher invited us to come to class one day ready to share something that we did care about. I don’t remember if we organized this or whether we all were just collectively snotty, but I do remember at least a portion of the class really making a mockery of the assignment, and talking about how what we cared about were…socks…chap stick…our friends…
Fast forward a few years and I’m a fresh college graduate, living in downtown Minneapolis with an organization called Urban Homeworks. The mission of Urban Homeworks is to pair young adults with low-income families in the urban core of the city as a way of increasing awareness and sensitivity to the reality of poverty and injustice facing those living in urban centers. As an Urban Neighbor, I lived upstairs from a single mom with several kids…and barely got involved in their lives. I drove out of the neighborhood to work as a nanny for a kid with autism and at Panera Bread. At some point during that year I realized that I did not feel compassion for my neighbors or those in my neighborhood. I started getting involved in the church in my parents’ neighborhood, which served a significant number of ‘at-risk’ children and youth…and I realized I didn’t feel much compassion for them either. As I listened to the pastor of that congregation preach about God’s compassion for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger, I noticed in myself a distinct lack of compassion. My roommates and others around me were getting really passionate about caring for AIDS orphans, and I noticed that my heart didn’t grieve when I heard stories of orphans, victims of war, victims of poverty, etc. In fact, I realized that I didn’t feel much of anything.
I also began acknowledging that if I was going to call myself a follower of Jesus, this lack of compassion was going to have to change. To be a follower of Jesus surely meant to care about the suffering of other people. So how could I get myself to a point of caring? I decided to go back to Kenya and work in an orphanage. I figured as long as AIDS orphans were just statistics and images I saw on Compassion International commercials, I wasn’t going to care about them. And since I was pretty sure people are supposed to care about AIDS orphans, I knew I needed to go spend some time with some. So I went back to Kenya and worked in an orphanage in a part of the country I’d never really been, with an organization other than my parents’ organization.
I wanted to see if God was calling me to be a missionary, and I knew in order to do that I needed to experience Kenya as an adult and I needed to experience Kenya from the perspective of a mission organization that was not tied to my family history.
And sure enough, in the short amount of time I spent in Kenya, my heart changed. I enjoyed getting to know the kids in the children’s home where I worked. The first day I went to hang out with the kids and they discovered I knew Swahili. One girl came and sat down next to me and asked me if I could teach her how to knit. I said I could. She said she had been praying for someone to teach her how to knit. I met a kid named Kamau, who was HIV+ and whose health deteriorated in the 3 months I was there. But his spirit was so alive and he was so full of a passionate commitment to Jesus. I got to know Wamaitha, who couldn’t talk, was epileptic, and was severely cognitively challenged. When I first met her the teacher explained that she couldn’t learn anything. And yet I saw in Wamaitha a spark…a friendliness…a sense of humor. We would sit on a bench and she would hold my hand, and we would sing and laugh together. She would hold my hand as kids flocked around me braiding my hair and telling me stories. I got to know Agnes Wangari, who saw the kids in her class get letters from 2 or 3 sponsors in America but who didn’t get any letters herself. As we walked back to her dorm she slipped her hand into mine and said, “why don’t I have any sponsors?” I got to know these kids, and their stories started changing my heart.
Yes. As I spent those 3 months in Kenya I began caring about these children. I began caring about children who have something to say but nobody to listen. I began caring about children who are raised in a church that doesn’t have language or resources to help them talk about God in their own way. I began caring about children who are being cared for by adults who are using curriculum and resources that are not catered specifically for the children. And I began developing a vision for going back to the States and getting additional training so that one day I could return to Kenya, either temporarily or more permanently, and train and equip those who are caring for children to do so with skills and resources that would help them provide better care. Surprisingly, though, I also realized that the children and youth I was meeting at my church in Minneapolis needed just as much intentional care as these abandoned children in Kenya. And it was clear to me that, while I loved living in Kenya, I did not love being a missionary. It was clear to me that I could make a difference by working in the States and changing the perspective and perception of American Christians about how to provide care for orphans and abandoned children in Africa.
So I came back to the States, went to seminary, and immersed myself in church talk. But my intention was never to work in a congregation. My intention was always to work with kids outside of Sunday morning…or not work with kids at all as a job, but just be a really good Sunday School teacher. But, that’s not how things worked out. And here I am, working in a congregation with kids almost exclusively on Sunday morning.
But once you’ve been to Africa, Africa gets in your blood and it’s hard not to think about going back. So when I was in Minneapolis I found myself working for a non-profit that raised awareness about hunger, and telling people stories about orphans and orphanages in Africa. I found myself working as a youth director at an Ethiopian charistmatic congregation and teaching Sunday School at a Swahili Lutheran congregation. I found myself learning about the child soldiers in Uganda and about the women who got together to protest the civil war in Liberia.
So when my friend Kristen, who’s living in South Sudan, sent an email to supporters saying they’re looking for preschool teachers, I found myself unable NOT to respond. I have a job that is good at a church that respects me. I am finally getting my head around financial responsibility and gradually generating financial stability. I have a good reputation in my synod and am becoming known as a public speaker. And yet, I feel like I have to go and see if I can help. Not forever…but for now.
It’s not lost on me that I am now going to South Sudan, the country that is still working through the conflict that has been decades in the making and that my high school CWI teacher tried to convince us was something we needed to care about. It’s also not lost on me that I find myself actually caring about things now. My CWI teacher would be proud.