Getting Around To It

I posted more pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jryskamp

I saw red. I really saw red at the periphery of my vision. I thought that was just an expression, but that is how mad I was. My adrenaline was pumping, and a few minutes later when I tried to recall specific details I couldn't. It was all mixed up in my head, like a car accident, you know "it all happened so fast."

What happened? Really not a big deal. A few months ago when I was in Nigeria, I marveled at how worked up Zakka got at the corrupt police officers. Now I understand. Two immigration officers stole $30 from me at the Ugandan border after I left Kenya. They said I had to buy a new Visa for them to let me back in the country, so I did, and when I checked my passport, they had just stamped my passport normally. So I went back to get a receipt and get their names, and they refused. I was starting to get loud with them, asking their co-workers for their names and demanding their superiors. Then they tried to take my passport back from me, at which point Jacob pulled me out, saying, "I think we should go." Ha!

It took me a while to cool off, but when I did I could laugh about it. One thing I've learned a lot about here is how to laugh at myself, you have to in order to stay sane. It was, however, still frustrating feeling powerless at the border crossing and knowing that this is the reason that Uganda and other countries stay poor, people with power abuse it and take advantage. But other than this hitch at the end, I had a really great trip to Kenya.

Why was I in Kenya? I went with a small team from Lango Diocese to observe the activities of CRWRC's partner in Western Kenya. It is part of organizational capacity building for the Diocese, so we learn about well-running programs in order to help our own groups back home. I think it was a very successful visit.

When I was in first grade we were given an assignment. "Draw what you'd like to be when you grow up boys and girls." While most of the other boys drew pictures of policemen, firefighters, and astronauts, that wasn't my style, even at that young age. What did I draw a picture of? A beekeeper. Yes, that's right, in first grade I wanted to be a beekeeper. Later on I think it became a forest ranger, but at that point in my young life I was pretty sure I wanted to keep bees and make honey. I'm not sure if I was watching a lot of PBS at this point or if it was the influence of my subscription to Ranger Rick magazine, but I remember my teacher said it was the first drawing of a beekeeper she had ever received!

So, my childhood ambition came one step closer to being completed this past week. Part of the tour of Kenya included a beekeeping group. I was really excited about it, and after seeing it I've spent a few days scheming on how I can make this childhood dream a reality. More importantly, however, this is seriously having an impact in Western Kenya. They use the money from the honey to support an Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program, and perhaps Lango could have a similar program eventually. I hope I can come back in 2 or 3 years and see a beekeeping and agro-forestry project here that works to fund the various Diocesan programs.

Other than that, my life recently has consisted of a lot of meetings and visits to the field. The Diocese is expanding its development program into 2 new parishes, and we've been meeting with them as they organize themselves into groups to receive oxen for plowing fields. In addition, we have had a lot of meetings about budgeting, about agriculture, about staffing, and how to integrate HIV/AIDS into the current programs. The biggest challenge has been around how to effectively carry out all the many programs we've had. I could use your prays around this, as there are sensitive topics and challenges that we are trying to work through between the community, the Diocese, and CRWRC. In addition, your continued prayers for continued peace in Uganda and the work of CRWRC here is always appreciated.

Its hard to believe that its been 3 weeks or more since I last updated this blog. I've been really busy since then, and it has been good. As I'm left with just 2 months here, I'm also aware that there is a lot of work to be done here yet. Fortunately there are plans under way to continue the work here. I'm helping to prepare plans for another intern, from Canada, to come to the Diocese after I've left, and MCC is sending two volunteers to the Diocese in July. This lets me hope that my time here could be in some way preparatory for the work that is yet to come.

There have been a few things I should mention. My puppy died before I had a chance to take over the caretaking from the mother. I had named it Calvin, because of how it was predestined for me, so now taking another one seems a little like betrayal, but we'll see. A strange local superstition, however, doesn't allow you to grieve for or bury dogs. It is unnatural, they believe, so you can't talk about it and you just throw the body in the latrine. So that is what we did, lest the neighbors begin saying, "you buried a dog? Then you're the reason for the lack of rain."

One more thing. Last Sunday I had been invited to preach at a church. I've made a lot of impromptu visits to churches, where they always ask me to address the congregation. Anyway, word got around about my "preaching" and I was invited to this church. I deferred from preaching, however, and said that I wouldn't be comfortable preaching at a church I knew nothing about. Instead, I proposed, perhaps I could meet with the leadership of the church and listen from them to hear about their needs and then we could pray for and encourage one another. I thought that this was a pretty classy way to bow out, so I didn't think too much about it when I received at my office a formal invitation to talk to the church leaders about leadership.

Unfortunately for me, this particular church was the head of an Archdeaconry, which had about 12 parishes and countless sub parishes. This means a lot of "church leaders." So what I had imagined as a group of 5-10 church leaders meeting and sharing together was not what the pastor of this Archdeaconry had in mind. To make things worse, when I got to the church, I realized that I had left my passport in Kampala and I was supposed to travel to Kenya the following day, so I was doing everything to speed things along so I could leave early for Kenya. Rushing a community, however, does not work. They go at their own pace no matter what, as I soon found out.

I attended the church service and after the service asked the pastor, "okay, where are the church leaders?" He told me that they weren't all there yet, and that in fact he was expecting almost 45 leaders from the various parishes. I had prepared something for a small group, but I had no idea how I was going to handle a group of 45! I scrambled to get something ready, and by the time I was ready, I counted 100 people in what became an audience, and more trickled in the whole time. It became apparent that they expected me to speak to them about their various roles in the church leadership: this is what a youth leader should do, this is what a mother's union leader should do, this is what a pastor's job is. I was probably the least qualified person in the room to talk about such a thing, so I changed the program.

I think it ended up okay. I talked a little bit about servant leadership, and had them listen to one another as they talked about successes they had had in their parishes. This moved naturally into discussing how one parish could learn from another and they began a dialogue about the way forward. So as impromptu as it was, I think it went okay. They invited me back to facilitate more dialogue about how to help one another out, but we will have to see about that. I had prayed a lot before going to that church, knowing I would be speaking to church leaders, and it is only by God's grace that a successful program was pulled out of a huge miss-communication. Things are certainly never dull here. So thanks for the prayers and the support, and please keep it up.

I'm still not sure what exactly the coming months have in store for me, most likely more field visits and meetings. I know that there are plans for a board training for the Diocese as CRWRC continues to work toward increasing the management capacities of its' partners. I'll do my best to keep this updated about it.