afraid

i am afraid.

for almost two years i haven't even been able to say the word 'africa' without weeping. my family and closest friends have all witnessed tears or impassioned diatribes about the plight of the two-thirds world. i've been so excited to go....excited to be back in the developing world again where life is slower and where stupid things don't matter and where there are mangoes abounding. now as i'm faced with it, i wonder what will happen as those ignorant diatribes i delivered actually come to life.

(i'm also going away from my husband for 3 weeks. it seemed a fine idea when we made the decision, but now it seems ludicrous. what tricks will my mind play on me when i am in culture shock and without the one grounding force in my life?)

my children aren't used to seeing me cry (only when i read them the chronicles of narnia). i am afraid they are going to witness their usually stalwart mother as a big bawling mess.

and yet, am i really afraid of all that? afraid that this fire burning in me might spread? afraid that people around me might see my real humanity? .......

the reality of christmas

every year, christmas is such a busy time that i have to fight to find times of contemplation.
usually i find a book or a song or a quotation that i latch on to and spend all of advent mulling over. i was sitting in church at the beginning of advent listening to some woman wailing out a song that massacred matthew 11:28-30 and wondering why church people have to make my Story sound like it’s being told on the shopping channel or in a B movie. i had to get up and leave because i seriously wanted to hit somebody so i went to the church library, cracked open a book, and here is what i found and have been chewing on since:

Take Christmas, for instance: a season of nostalgia, of carols and candles and firelight and
happy children. But that misses the point completely. Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad old place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked, where children are murdered, where civilized countries make a lot of money by selling weapons to uncivilized ones so they can blow each other apart. Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don’t light a candle in a room that’s already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that’s so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are. The light shines in the darkness, says St. John, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Christmas, then, is not a dream, a moment of escapism. Christmas is the reality, which
shows up the rest of ‘reality’.

- N.T. Wright from For All God’s Worth

(and for a brilliant rendition of matthew 11:28-30, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuUkPz7sZw)

the world at our doorstep

michael christensen, who founded ReACT kenya with his wife, manon, tells the story of looking at his parents’ wedding photos one day. he asked his dad why so much of the family was missing and mr. christensen explained that at that time, a trip from europe to north america was something impossible for most people, even for a family wedding.

this is the first generation affluent enough to write world travel into their 5-year plan. this is the first group of young adults to sit around at christmas parties swapping tales of seoul and paris and rio. this is the first generation to sit in front of machines and watch world events unfolding live.

michael goes on to say that with such opportunity comes such great responsibility. he believes that the weight is greater on the heads of this generation and the generations to come to do something about what is wrong with the world.

so, he decided to do something. he and manon hung out in kenya for six months trying to figure
out a way to make a change. and in four days i’m off to see that change in action.

initial reaction

i’ve worked with people who are ‘disadvantaged’ for 10 years. downtown eastside vancouver, chicago, belfast, toronto. all those years i made a sad and concerned face anytime anyone talked about the third world, but truthfully i just ignored it all because i didn’t feel there was really anything to be done. i’m not rich (by western standards), i’m not a health practitioner or a foreign policy-maker, and i don’t know anything about agriculture. so i stuck with what i knew…being nice to people. i believe that the root of disadvantage in the west is dislocation from healthy community, so i did my bit by advocating for and being nice to people for 10 years.

i’m tired of being nice.

tens of thousands of people are dying every day while i smile and talk about how people are broken and need relationships.

so i embarked on a journey to learn about what’s actually wrong with the world and after a year
of reading and talking i was ready to put my hand to something. and then the phone call,
“kathryn, would you ever be interested in going to kenya with us?”

yes, i would. i would like to go somewhere where i can be as nice as i want, but at the end of the day knowing that i’ve done a whole lot more than just that.

check out: www.reactkenya.com