i hate living in a world where we don't trust each other. or maybe i just hate living in a world where no-one trusts me.
i also hate living in a world where kids spend 4 hours a day in front of the television and where 16% of children are obese.
and in this world i'm expected to give out small packages of sugar and fat to said children.
what?
i want to give out homemade candy apples or granola squares or fudge, but no-one trusts me.
the irony is that we all put our unwavering trust in nestle or hershey or lays.
does anyone else remember nestle syndrome? does anyone else think these peddlers of ADHD should get a kick in the pants?
probably not. but we gave them our own kick in the pants this year anyway and made a step towards fostering well-deserved trust. the kids and i made our famous carob fudge, made parcels out of re-used materials, and delivered it to our friends on our street.
so take that, halloween.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
hold on to your bootstraps.
a year ago i was preparing for the journey to kenya and a year ago this blog was just an idea.
from where i sit now, i realize that i can't make the blog live forever because the trip was a finite event. but i also realize that there are so many more things in this world that 'the people' and i are reacting to and so it's time to recreate this thing. while i still plan to write about kenya and what's going on there, i want to make this a place where i can react to anything i feel like reacting to.
hold on to your bootstraps.....who knows what will follow!
from where i sit now, i realize that i can't make the blog live forever because the trip was a finite event. but i also realize that there are so many more things in this world that 'the people' and i are reacting to and so it's time to recreate this thing. while i still plan to write about kenya and what's going on there, i want to make this a place where i can react to anything i feel like reacting to.
hold on to your bootstraps.....who knows what will follow!
Monday, September 21, 2009
an article written about us...
The Greatest Field Trip Ever
By Jessica Pratezina
I bumped into the blog of a sister parishioner at Little Trinity and was immediately struck by gripping photographs of her two small Canadian children frolicking in Kenya. They ate sugar cane by the roadside, hung out with chickens and cattle, and played with kids their age on the other side of the world. Looking at those photos, I knew I needed to connect with Kathryn Gray, their mother, and find out what made her decide to take her children, by herself, to Africa for three weeks.
Gray, 34, sits on a Toronto park bench and tells me her story between admonishing her five-year-old daughter Anna to keep her shoes on and her three-year-old son Joseph not to throw sand.
"Street-involved people in urban centers in North America have always been my gig."
Kat had been working with marginalized people for the last ten years in one form or another. But this changed with her decision to home school her two small children.
"As a home-schooling parent you're looking for opportunities to expose your children to the world. My approach to home schooling is to let the kids explore and experience the world.
"Being a mother opens your eyes to children and mothers all over the world, so that's probably where it started. I began to think about the state other women raise their families in all over the world. I began to be interested in Africa because, as a continent, it seems to be riddled with almost every social ill. I began reading about development. I like to understand problems and look for good solutions.”
Gray is not happy just doling out money to aid organizations, though she has done that.
“I started reading up on economics and looking at comprehensive solutions for Third World countries and I started to get excited about it, which is funny because economics is not at all my bag. I spent a year and a half reading and talking about social justice and hammering out ideas. And I just felt like it was time for me to put my hand to something. I'd been retired for two years and I felt it was time to do something."
The opportunity to do something came when friends who operate a small, non-profit organization which focuses on supporting orphans and vulnerable children called ReACT Kenya, asked her if she would like to go to Kenya with them for three weeks. Kat said, "Yes, but I want to bring my children."
In an age where we don't let our kids cross the street alone, this woman was carting her children off to the other side of the world.
"Needing to bring the children is hard for me to explain but since having the children, my experience with people living in poverty has been enriched.”
Gray has people living in her neighbourhood whom she used to know when she was Assistant Director at the Salvation Army Gateway. They now stop to talk to her about her children.
“I'm able to connect with women living in Regent Park because we have children the same age. I knew that if I took them to Kenya that my experience would be enriched. I would see things through their eyes and be able to connect with people faster because I have children."
When children are small, even a trip to the grocery store can require a lot of preparation. But Kat wanted to stay laid-back.
"My approach to the whole trip was to not prepare them a lot. If something became difficult we would deal with it. I think sometimes we want to caution our children too much and we actually make them anxious. But if you let them just roll, for the most part they roll.”
The only thing Gray really spent a lot of time preparing them for was the two-day plane trip. But beyond that she didn't tell them a lot.
“I didn't want them to have preconceived notions or stigmas. I didn't want them to notice that they were different from everyone.”
Gray and her children stayed with Daniel Lipparelli, the founder of the non-profit organization Transformed International. He owns a compound that had space available and was able to give the three of them a bedroom, a tree-house and a see-saw. Each child took a book, one stuffed animal and colouring pencils. The kids had a blast.
"That's all they had for three weeks and they were in heaven."
But as enchanting and as exciting as Kenya was, with its immense flatness, bustling urban centres and rides on a boda-boda (bicycle taxi) there was still the heartbreak of a country that is struggling to stabilize its economy, politics and society. Only now, four months later, has Anna started talking about Kenya on a deeper level. She's starting to ask questions about the slums. The other day Anna asked “Why don't we build them houses?”
“I was so stumped because that is such a complex question. And there is no real answer. This would happen to me when I was working at the shelter. People would ask me 'What is the solution to homelessness?' And I couldn't answer them.”
In the end, Anna decided she wanted to send money to Daniel Lipparelli, the man they had been staying with in Kenya.
“I hope that these experiences will foster in them a thirst for justice and a motivation to do something about injustice. But I also hope that they learn how complex these problems are and that just shipping some money off to Kenya isn't always the best thing. But for us sitting here in the West, it's the easiest. I'm not saying people shouldn't send money, but I am saying that we can't just send money."
But being an adult with a firmer grasp on the larger world and the principles at work in the suffering she saw around had a different effect on Gray.
"There were difficult things. I tucked it all away and all these months later I'm still processing. The good thing was that the children didn't see anything really difficult. I went on a tour of the slums and didn't take the children. Most of the difficult things were hearing people's stories.
"I'll admit that at times I don't always know what God wants of us. What I know is that God's heart is for justice. You can't ignore that. Christians love to compartmentalize and say 'we need to save souls.' And I kind of shrug my shoulders and say that if someone doesn't have enough to eat, no place to live and can't live safely... that's not okay. I try to look at everything holistically.”
It took the young mother a long time to realize that Christianity is something that's meant to be lived out in community with other people and it's more holistic than just one’s 'soul.'
“God has called me to seek justice. Realistically, I'm just a stay-at-home mom who's trying to figure out how to be involved in my community and my world while I raise the children God gave me. Figuring this out with the kids is an ongoing process. And it does slow me down. When I was in Kenya I couldn't be just 'go, go, go' and be meeting people and exploring as much as I wanted to. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.”
By Jessica Pratezina
I bumped into the blog of a sister parishioner at Little Trinity and was immediately struck by gripping photographs of her two small Canadian children frolicking in Kenya. They ate sugar cane by the roadside, hung out with chickens and cattle, and played with kids their age on the other side of the world. Looking at those photos, I knew I needed to connect with Kathryn Gray, their mother, and find out what made her decide to take her children, by herself, to Africa for three weeks.
Gray, 34, sits on a Toronto park bench and tells me her story between admonishing her five-year-old daughter Anna to keep her shoes on and her three-year-old son Joseph not to throw sand.
"Street-involved people in urban centers in North America have always been my gig."
Kat had been working with marginalized people for the last ten years in one form or another. But this changed with her decision to home school her two small children.
"As a home-schooling parent you're looking for opportunities to expose your children to the world. My approach to home schooling is to let the kids explore and experience the world.
"Being a mother opens your eyes to children and mothers all over the world, so that's probably where it started. I began to think about the state other women raise their families in all over the world. I began to be interested in Africa because, as a continent, it seems to be riddled with almost every social ill. I began reading about development. I like to understand problems and look for good solutions.”
Gray is not happy just doling out money to aid organizations, though she has done that.
“I started reading up on economics and looking at comprehensive solutions for Third World countries and I started to get excited about it, which is funny because economics is not at all my bag. I spent a year and a half reading and talking about social justice and hammering out ideas. And I just felt like it was time for me to put my hand to something. I'd been retired for two years and I felt it was time to do something."
The opportunity to do something came when friends who operate a small, non-profit organization which focuses on supporting orphans and vulnerable children called ReACT Kenya, asked her if she would like to go to Kenya with them for three weeks. Kat said, "Yes, but I want to bring my children."
In an age where we don't let our kids cross the street alone, this woman was carting her children off to the other side of the world.
"Needing to bring the children is hard for me to explain but since having the children, my experience with people living in poverty has been enriched.”
Gray has people living in her neighbourhood whom she used to know when she was Assistant Director at the Salvation Army Gateway. They now stop to talk to her about her children.
“I'm able to connect with women living in Regent Park because we have children the same age. I knew that if I took them to Kenya that my experience would be enriched. I would see things through their eyes and be able to connect with people faster because I have children."
When children are small, even a trip to the grocery store can require a lot of preparation. But Kat wanted to stay laid-back.
"My approach to the whole trip was to not prepare them a lot. If something became difficult we would deal with it. I think sometimes we want to caution our children too much and we actually make them anxious. But if you let them just roll, for the most part they roll.”
The only thing Gray really spent a lot of time preparing them for was the two-day plane trip. But beyond that she didn't tell them a lot.
“I didn't want them to have preconceived notions or stigmas. I didn't want them to notice that they were different from everyone.”
Gray and her children stayed with Daniel Lipparelli, the founder of the non-profit organization Transformed International. He owns a compound that had space available and was able to give the three of them a bedroom, a tree-house and a see-saw. Each child took a book, one stuffed animal and colouring pencils. The kids had a blast.
"That's all they had for three weeks and they were in heaven."
But as enchanting and as exciting as Kenya was, with its immense flatness, bustling urban centres and rides on a boda-boda (bicycle taxi) there was still the heartbreak of a country that is struggling to stabilize its economy, politics and society. Only now, four months later, has Anna started talking about Kenya on a deeper level. She's starting to ask questions about the slums. The other day Anna asked “Why don't we build them houses?”
“I was so stumped because that is such a complex question. And there is no real answer. This would happen to me when I was working at the shelter. People would ask me 'What is the solution to homelessness?' And I couldn't answer them.”
In the end, Anna decided she wanted to send money to Daniel Lipparelli, the man they had been staying with in Kenya.
“I hope that these experiences will foster in them a thirst for justice and a motivation to do something about injustice. But I also hope that they learn how complex these problems are and that just shipping some money off to Kenya isn't always the best thing. But for us sitting here in the West, it's the easiest. I'm not saying people shouldn't send money, but I am saying that we can't just send money."
But being an adult with a firmer grasp on the larger world and the principles at work in the suffering she saw around had a different effect on Gray.
"There were difficult things. I tucked it all away and all these months later I'm still processing. The good thing was that the children didn't see anything really difficult. I went on a tour of the slums and didn't take the children. Most of the difficult things were hearing people's stories.
"I'll admit that at times I don't always know what God wants of us. What I know is that God's heart is for justice. You can't ignore that. Christians love to compartmentalize and say 'we need to save souls.' And I kind of shrug my shoulders and say that if someone doesn't have enough to eat, no place to live and can't live safely... that's not okay. I try to look at everything holistically.”
It took the young mother a long time to realize that Christianity is something that's meant to be lived out in community with other people and it's more holistic than just one’s 'soul.'
“God has called me to seek justice. Realistically, I'm just a stay-at-home mom who's trying to figure out how to be involved in my community and my world while I raise the children God gave me. Figuring this out with the kids is an ongoing process. And it does slow me down. When I was in Kenya I couldn't be just 'go, go, go' and be meeting people and exploring as much as I wanted to. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.”
Sunday, May 31, 2009
bikes
our family loves bikes.
our family loves malawi. (we have 3 sponsored children there.)
and so to ride in the Bikes Without Borders ride yesterday to raise money for bikes for health care workers in malawi was perfect.
we raised enough money for one of the bicycle ambulances pictured above.
thank you thank you to all our sponsors!!!
may
it's been months since we left kenya.
i didn't really have reverse culture shock coming home. i live in a constant state of culture shock here. although, the everyday culture shock i live with became heightened. i've had a difficult time engaging in ordinary interactions with people. everyone else wants to talk about their week or their dog or their hair and i'm screaming inside because i want to talk about darfur or sri lanka or mogadishu. i've realized that perhaps i'm not the easiest person to have around because i'm always thinking and always questioning and rarely just 'hanging out'.
i've also kind of resented my own everyday life. being at home with kids means that the bulk of my day and mental energy is eaten up by cooking and cleaning and negotiating and the like. i love this stuff...truly i do...but i've wanted more.
and then something new started to happen a month ago. anna (5) started asking questions about things we had seen in kenya. she started asking about poverty in new ways that floored me. they were the same questions that adults ask me and i found i could be more honest with her and i found my answers moved her in a way that desensitized adults can never be moved. her and i together started to say, Hey...let's do something about all this! and then one day we walked down the street past a bike shop and saw a poster.....
i didn't really have reverse culture shock coming home. i live in a constant state of culture shock here. although, the everyday culture shock i live with became heightened. i've had a difficult time engaging in ordinary interactions with people. everyone else wants to talk about their week or their dog or their hair and i'm screaming inside because i want to talk about darfur or sri lanka or mogadishu. i've realized that perhaps i'm not the easiest person to have around because i'm always thinking and always questioning and rarely just 'hanging out'.
i've also kind of resented my own everyday life. being at home with kids means that the bulk of my day and mental energy is eaten up by cooking and cleaning and negotiating and the like. i love this stuff...truly i do...but i've wanted more.
and then something new started to happen a month ago. anna (5) started asking questions about things we had seen in kenya. she started asking about poverty in new ways that floored me. they were the same questions that adults ask me and i found i could be more honest with her and i found my answers moved her in a way that desensitized adults can never be moved. her and i together started to say, Hey...let's do something about all this! and then one day we walked down the street past a bike shop and saw a poster.....
Friday, February 6, 2009
pictures III
1. this is how we roll in kenya2. i can't even tell you how ridiculous the names of shops were. my favourites were a shop called Plan B Consulting and a church called Gospel Explosion
3. seriously, this is how much kenyan children eat in one sitting
(some of the pics i'm posting are worth double-clicking on to get a better look)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
pictures II
1. in the chicken coop
2. eating sugar cane at the roadside
3. anna with joseph, the boda driver
4. a snack before carting more water
5. village life
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