I was sitting at a table after church, enjoying a post-sermon meal, and having fun watching the pastors son devour a chocolate chip cookie. I asked him if it was good and he said "yeah".
"How good? Like, on a scale from 1 to 10, ten being the best ever, how good?"
He had dark smudges lining the corners of his mouth. He looked up, cocked his head to the side and said "8".
"8? What would make it a 10?" I asked.
I thought he was going to say they needed to be softer, or warm, or accompanied with milk. I was sure he would, in some form, want to improve upon the cookie itself.
But without stopping to give my question a second thought he put down his dessert, looked me straight in the eye, smiled dark-teeth and all, and said "if my mom made 'em."
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Midwife chronicles
A friend sent me a link to this documentary which follows the story of a midwife in Mozambique. I watched it and welled up with passion. I love midwifery. I love the strength of the women (and men) who are called in to this profession. If we could measure wisdom in years, I often think midwives may run eternal. I sometimes wonder if being given this journey is one of the best things that has, and will ever happen to me? And I look forward to all that I have to learn...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/birth-of-a-surgeon/introduction/747/
Another clip of video journalism that is much shorter than the story above, but just as powerful and full of heart is a 7-minute story about an American midwife in Malawi. It is a very sobering glimpse into the realities of childbirth in Subsaharan Africa but a video I have watched again and again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTESGZz_Ro
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/birth-of-a-surgeon/introduction/747/
Another clip of video journalism that is much shorter than the story above, but just as powerful and full of heart is a 7-minute story about an American midwife in Malawi. It is a very sobering glimpse into the realities of childbirth in Subsaharan Africa but a video I have watched again and again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTESGZz_Ro
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
I am listing 1 place below which offers a program to sponsor a child and provide him/her with an education.
Homeless Children International is an organization I worked with in 2003, where I visited, taught, and played a lot of soccer in a Kenyan elementary school. Originally HCI-Kenya began because of 1 man who decided to reach out to the street children of Nairobi. Most of these children were addicts living in slums, and he helped them through recovery and sent them to school. I remember walking to the marketplace with an 8-year old student and she asked me if I smoked cigarettes or sniffed glue. I said no. She said, "That's good. I quit all that when I was 5."
Due to the volatile nature of recovery the man who started HCI decided to build a place far away from the city, from temptation, from gangs, from distraction. He chose the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is here where I fell in love with Africa.
Although the website is out of date and a little bit shoddy the program is alive and well and continues to grow in very creative directions. It is too bad they do not document this via the world wide web (However I do receive letters that keep me updated). There are many kids who pray daily to be sponsored (believe me I've heard the prayers!) so if you are interested, here you go...
www.homelesskids.org
Homeless Children International is an organization I worked with in 2003, where I visited, taught, and played a lot of soccer in a Kenyan elementary school. Originally HCI-Kenya began because of 1 man who decided to reach out to the street children of Nairobi. Most of these children were addicts living in slums, and he helped them through recovery and sent them to school. I remember walking to the marketplace with an 8-year old student and she asked me if I smoked cigarettes or sniffed glue. I said no. She said, "That's good. I quit all that when I was 5."
Due to the volatile nature of recovery the man who started HCI decided to build a place far away from the city, from temptation, from gangs, from distraction. He chose the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It is here where I fell in love with Africa.
Although the website is out of date and a little bit shoddy the program is alive and well and continues to grow in very creative directions. It is too bad they do not document this via the world wide web (However I do receive letters that keep me updated). There are many kids who pray daily to be sponsored (believe me I've heard the prayers!) so if you are interested, here you go...
www.homelesskids.org
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Some thoughts on our Nieces and Nephews
I was outside of the birth clinic one evening, walking in slow circles on the lawn, drinking water and thinking in the pitch black. There weren't any laboring women inside and my room was stale with the days heat. I was staving off bedtime, when I would have to go and plop down on my old foam mattress and force a premature sleep. Nighttime in the village is severe in its presence, and somehow always happens too early and continues forever.
I walked behind the clinic, to a clearing where the moon hangs high and spills light onto the surrounding fields. It is a beautiful spot, a semi-hidden nook where a solitary evening can stay that way, where sweet echoes of 'this is my life' dance through my heart and spread a smile across my face.
But this particular evening I noticed my friend David was there, sitting with his back against the wall and his neck at a 90 degree angle, looking up at the stars. I went and sat next to him.
David had recently been hired at the clinic, overseeing administrative details and taking care of the villagers National Health Insurance paperwork. I asked him about his work, how he liked his new job. He said he loved it, he was thankful that he was able to work for Foundation Human Nature and continue aiding in the process of allowing the clinic to flourish. He was glad to be learning.
I was happy to see him there because the previous year when I had met him he was living in a very tiny village about 3 miles away from the clinic working on his family's farm and volunteering at the clinic on his days off. Sophie (the Swiss volunteer doctor) noticed his capabilities and recommended him for the position. By the time I returned he was in it.
Earning a paid position in a village is difficult but David is the type of person who seems to travel through life holding on to the tail of 1 giant miracle. The miracle has dragged him through different times all of which have proved to be a stepping stone for his next chapter.
He told me about his past, how he was educated in the next village over, in one of the wall-less, pencil-less, chair-less classrooms. Somehow, in an environment which squelched most children's ability to learn, he excelled, and he LOVED school. By the time he had made it to Secondary School (high school) his family could no longer afford to keep him enrolled, so he occasionally returned home to work in the farm and save up his pennies.
One of his uncles living in the city agreed to pay the $10 school fees and he returned. David was given a position as a precinct which also helped to alleviate some of the other costs that came up. He explained the work as "yelling and controlling hundreds of boys during mealtime in the cafeteria. But it allowed me to stay in school, so I did it."
"I can't imagine you yelling." I said, laughing. He is a soft-spoken, genteel.
"I can yell, I can make people fear me, really. If I make my face like this and say 'Hey! One serving only! Enough rice for you!'. Do you see?"
He still was not threatening but I agreed.
The longer we talked the more it began to dawn on me. I had taken my entire educational life for granted. Every school, every class, all my teachers. My books, my assignments, my choices in subjects. My learning aids, my group study, my resources. The opportunity to study abroad.
I had never ONCE thought that I was privileged to have received any of it.
I love school there is no question about that. But as an American I felt I was entitled to all of it and it sat in my hands like a fistful of sand. It was ordinary and therefore under appreciated. Many times it bordered closer to a duty than anything else.
David cradled his like a precious emerald, fending off any attempts life made at stealing it away.
He opened my eyes to this invisible gift.
The more he spoke the more I could feel my insides cringe. As if every story of every attempt he made to pursue one grade higher, every cent he pocketed from selling maize, every torn paperback textbook he wore down to the last page was held up in comparison to what I had been given.
Placed in context, in a village-setting where not much had changed since David was a child, his testimony saddened me. The fact that something as commonplace (in some parts of the US) as graduating high school was considered a MIRACLE here? Is this disparity not detestable?
And what about the other children who held just as much promise but did not have a rich Uncle. What about the other children, who thirsted for knowledge; who could be little chemists, or teachers, or lawyers, or engineers but who will never be taught to read.
Poverty is a disservice to mankind, keeping people trapped in a dimension they are born to rise above.
I would like to state here that I do not believe in a hierarchy of callings, for example that a doctor is more important or has an existence which is more valid than a farmer. Both require different forms of intelligence and both jobs play a vital role in society. However, I do not believe each individual who is born and raised in an agrarian society is optimizing their specific potential; and therefore wouldn't it be incredible if they could afford to develop in to their natural skills and abilities? Or better yet, their passions?
Which brings me around to the bigger issue here and a question I have often reflected upon... Is discovering "who you are meant to be" or "living out your purpose" a luxury sought after only by those who have the time and the means? Or is it a God-given right?
If perhaps it is a God-given right, is it my duty- your duty- our duty- to reach out and lift up and become the rich Uncle?
I walked behind the clinic, to a clearing where the moon hangs high and spills light onto the surrounding fields. It is a beautiful spot, a semi-hidden nook where a solitary evening can stay that way, where sweet echoes of 'this is my life' dance through my heart and spread a smile across my face.
But this particular evening I noticed my friend David was there, sitting with his back against the wall and his neck at a 90 degree angle, looking up at the stars. I went and sat next to him.
David had recently been hired at the clinic, overseeing administrative details and taking care of the villagers National Health Insurance paperwork. I asked him about his work, how he liked his new job. He said he loved it, he was thankful that he was able to work for Foundation Human Nature and continue aiding in the process of allowing the clinic to flourish. He was glad to be learning.
I was happy to see him there because the previous year when I had met him he was living in a very tiny village about 3 miles away from the clinic working on his family's farm and volunteering at the clinic on his days off. Sophie (the Swiss volunteer doctor) noticed his capabilities and recommended him for the position. By the time I returned he was in it.
Earning a paid position in a village is difficult but David is the type of person who seems to travel through life holding on to the tail of 1 giant miracle. The miracle has dragged him through different times all of which have proved to be a stepping stone for his next chapter.
He told me about his past, how he was educated in the next village over, in one of the wall-less, pencil-less, chair-less classrooms. Somehow, in an environment which squelched most children's ability to learn, he excelled, and he LOVED school. By the time he had made it to Secondary School (high school) his family could no longer afford to keep him enrolled, so he occasionally returned home to work in the farm and save up his pennies.
One of his uncles living in the city agreed to pay the $10 school fees and he returned. David was given a position as a precinct which also helped to alleviate some of the other costs that came up. He explained the work as "yelling and controlling hundreds of boys during mealtime in the cafeteria. But it allowed me to stay in school, so I did it."
"I can't imagine you yelling." I said, laughing. He is a soft-spoken, genteel.
"I can yell, I can make people fear me, really. If I make my face like this and say 'Hey! One serving only! Enough rice for you!'. Do you see?"
He still was not threatening but I agreed.
The longer we talked the more it began to dawn on me. I had taken my entire educational life for granted. Every school, every class, all my teachers. My books, my assignments, my choices in subjects. My learning aids, my group study, my resources. The opportunity to study abroad.
I had never ONCE thought that I was privileged to have received any of it.
I love school there is no question about that. But as an American I felt I was entitled to all of it and it sat in my hands like a fistful of sand. It was ordinary and therefore under appreciated. Many times it bordered closer to a duty than anything else.
David cradled his like a precious emerald, fending off any attempts life made at stealing it away.
He opened my eyes to this invisible gift.
The more he spoke the more I could feel my insides cringe. As if every story of every attempt he made to pursue one grade higher, every cent he pocketed from selling maize, every torn paperback textbook he wore down to the last page was held up in comparison to what I had been given.
Placed in context, in a village-setting where not much had changed since David was a child, his testimony saddened me. The fact that something as commonplace (in some parts of the US) as graduating high school was considered a MIRACLE here? Is this disparity not detestable?
And what about the other children who held just as much promise but did not have a rich Uncle. What about the other children, who thirsted for knowledge; who could be little chemists, or teachers, or lawyers, or engineers but who will never be taught to read.
Poverty is a disservice to mankind, keeping people trapped in a dimension they are born to rise above.
I would like to state here that I do not believe in a hierarchy of callings, for example that a doctor is more important or has an existence which is more valid than a farmer. Both require different forms of intelligence and both jobs play a vital role in society. However, I do not believe each individual who is born and raised in an agrarian society is optimizing their specific potential; and therefore wouldn't it be incredible if they could afford to develop in to their natural skills and abilities? Or better yet, their passions?
Which brings me around to the bigger issue here and a question I have often reflected upon... Is discovering "who you are meant to be" or "living out your purpose" a luxury sought after only by those who have the time and the means? Or is it a God-given right?
If perhaps it is a God-given right, is it my duty- your duty- our duty- to reach out and lift up and become the rich Uncle?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
To see your neighbor
I often seek to know, but will never fully understand, the lives of my clients before they boarded their plane with a ticket in hand that said "San Diego".
And that is why I love home visits. I learn so much. When I walked in to the tiny 3 bedroom apartment I bottled up my opinion that this boisterous Congolese family of 10 was going to need a bigger space. I sat on their couch and sank deep in to the cushion. Their 3 year-old daughter was in the middle of what was soon to be a 15 minute headstand. But all the other children were busy running around at high speeds, bouncing in to the walls. Their father walked over to me with a huge smile and beat his fist up against the wall.
"I like this." He said, with a proud look on his face.
"The wall?"
"Yes! The wall! My children have never had one before. We have been feeling the breeze for all of their life." Then he peered around the room and lowered himself in to a recliner, contemplating this new blessed life.
And that is why I love home visits. I learn so much. When I walked in to the tiny 3 bedroom apartment I bottled up my opinion that this boisterous Congolese family of 10 was going to need a bigger space. I sat on their couch and sank deep in to the cushion. Their 3 year-old daughter was in the middle of what was soon to be a 15 minute headstand. But all the other children were busy running around at high speeds, bouncing in to the walls. Their father walked over to me with a huge smile and beat his fist up against the wall.
"I like this." He said, with a proud look on his face.
"The wall?"
"Yes! The wall! My children have never had one before. We have been feeling the breeze for all of their life." Then he peered around the room and lowered himself in to a recliner, contemplating this new blessed life.
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