Random Thoughts as I Prepare to Depart

I am sure there will be projects and activities that will develop once I return to Kenya but (apart from those projects) there are also some goals that I have for myself as I prepare to return in a week. I have tried to take some time to think about what I am doing, why I am going, etc.

I want to be more organized and systematic in doing projects. I want to incorporate an educational component in everything I propose to do. For example, even wiring for solar power can be a learning experience for the locals and neighbors.

I want to find a way to include the students back at IHM, my old school, when doing projects. I may be naive but I feel that they must have a sense of others in developing nations or their education will be incomplete and hollow. I think we all fail to see our privileged status. Rachel bought me a video cam! There is a possibility that I can either load some video on a CD and send home or upload to YouTube or something if I can get to a good computer hookup. If somehow the kids at IHM can meet the kids at the Village, even via video, I believe it will change how they think about their lives and their place in the world. I was going round and round wondering if I should spend the money for the camera. Rachel, on Fathers' Day, sure helped! Thanks!

This is what I am pondering lately . . . . I don't think that Kenya is necessarily a place which I was lead to by God. I hope this makes sense but I believe that I could have stayed in Cincinnati, moved to the southwest, stayed as principal - whatever - and still be following the Lord. It is not the destination. I think God works wherever you choose to plant yourself. The whole thing of "God told me to go to Africa" doesn't make sense to me. You go to a place and God is there. Where God is sought, God appears. I don't think I could have made a wrong destination decision. It doesn't matter, as long as you are looking to find God in them all. Maybe the same went for Moses and the Israelites. If they were led to the promise land by God, God did a lousy job of leading or maybe they were lousy followers. And Moses never even made it. What they learned was that God is faithful. "You will be my people and I will be your God." Trust Him, day by day - whether in the land of Egypt, Kenya, Albuquerque or Burlington! Let God be God. Kenya works best for me because it frees me from the stuff that kept God at a distance. Some might find God in other ways but in the midst of poverty and simplicity - I can see God easier.

Since coming back to the states I have had the weird experience of having good people say "Well you know, there are poor people in our own country." I felt bad, defensive, disloyal, and even unpatriotic. The folks telling me this had an "America First" mentality and live in a world that "takes care of our own first". But there are no borders when it comes to God and God's children. Where I am headed - there are millions of orphaned kids stumbling around trying to be adults and head households, find food and water for their siblings. They are dying of AIDS, TB, Cholera, malnutrition, neglect - millions of them. Masai women, an hour from the country's capital city, are selling their bodies to truckers for food and milk for their children. They have no good water, no latrines, no prenatal or health care. My "problems" shrink in embarrassment. We have no idea of what "a tough life" means.

"Being home for a couple months, what differences do you notice?"
People are bigger, rounder, fatter - especially the kids - sorry to say.

People seem to complain more here in the states - about meaningless crap.

No one walks anywhere. We ride.

The earth is more green here in Ohio.

Celebrity life is ridiculously opulent - embarrassing.

The longer I stay here, the deeper I long to return to Kenya, the village, the kids.

I called George in Kenya and caught him walking in from the farm. "Oh Ed, everyone awaits your return. We are so excited. Oh Ed, I am counting the days." Me too George. Me too.