A team of 12 from Germantown United Methodist Church will go on the 3rd multi-purpose mission trip to Maua and Meru Kenya from July 9 through July 25, 2009. We will fly on six airplanes over 16,000 miles, ride vans for hundreds of miles, and walk at least two miles every day over the course of our 16 day journey. We will visit and work with Methodist churches, a hospital, a bio-intensive training farm, numerous hospital staff, social workers and missionaries; but most importantly, the beautiful people of Kenya.
One of our missions is to provide financial, physical and spiritual resources to the Maua Methodist Hospital (MMH) in Maua, Kenya. The hospital is a beacon of hope for this little village six hours north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. There are 50,000 people crowded into this small town, and the hospital provides care for over 600,000 people from 40 miles in two directions from the village.
Upon arrival in Maua we will physically deliver medical supplies valued over $ 30,000 from our checked baggage. Donated and purchased medical supplies play a vital role in MMH’s ability to help the people of Kenya. Items that we take for granted in our world are blessings for MMH, and every item truly makes a difference.
At the hospital, we will work on a variety of projects from light to heavy construction, sewing projects and painting, etc. Our primary focus this year will be on staff housing which is important when the hospital is recruiting highly qualified personnel.
Also, the construction projects are vital from a funding standpoint. The hospital receives funding from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), and rebates are essential to the financial health of the hospital. Last year, Maua Methodist Hospital won the NNAK Lievens Lankman Award for the Best Nursing Care and Cleanest mission or private hospital in the country. That had MMH competing against Nairobi Hospital and Aga Khan Hospital, both large, private hospitals in Nairobi with all services provided and priced much like the US. Last year our team funded and constructed a covered drying shed which was instrumental in getting the award.
Secondly, MMH started an AIDS Orphan Program in 2001 which became vital to the community due to the large and growing number of orphans and the hospital’s desire to share hope, faith, food, education and the love of God. In the Maua area of Kenya most orphans live with their grandmothers. A grandmother's security rests with her sons who, with their own families, will feed, clothe and care for her in her old age. However, when AIDS kills sons and daughters in law, grandmothers are left with orphaned grandchildren to care for and no means of support. They have no land, no food and no resources for education.
Through an existing “Partners in Mission” program, we will build a single family home for a guardian, or grandmother, and up to 5 children. Each home, plus latrine, costs approximately $2,300 and is being built on land owned by the guardian, who frequently is the grandmother. Keeping the AIDS orphans in a familiar setting allows the children to experience village life and gives hope to the widowed grandmothers in charge of their care. The basic plan builds the homes using locally appropriate construction material and incorporates a floor plan consistent with the culture of the area.
Mid-week we will have the pleasure of hosting Vacation Bible School for as many as 250 children. VBS is truly one of the highlights of the week. We will hear the excitement building as the children race down the dusty roads to join us in the courtyard at the nursing school at the MMH compound. The official languages of Kenya are Swahili and English; however, most of the children still speak Kimeru and very little English, so our goal is to keep it as simple as possible! Our theme this year is “This little light of mine.” We will divide the children into small groups, play games, have story-time, and make simple crafts. We are also planning to perform a skit and a puppet show for the children. Our overall goal is to simply share and celebrate the love of God in a fun and creative way.
Next, we will work with the staff and beneficiaries of a program called “Giving Hope.” Giving Hope is an empowering program that targets orphans and vulnerable children from birth to age 22 who are living in child-headed households, with elderly caregivers, with Good Samaritans and with parents who are HIV positive.
The Giving Hope Project is about community building, empowering lives, and God-sized dreams. The core focus of Giving Hope is to empower orphans and child-headed families to become self sufficient in 2-3 years so they will not require lifelong assistance from outside relief programs. This program brings them back into both their local communities and into the loving, nurturing body of Christ. While they learn and grow in the Giving Hope program, an annual investment of about $300 per family for 2-3 years yields life-giving change for generations to come.
The vision for ZOE was planted in the heart of Greg Jenks by a 15 year-old girl from his church who had traveled to Africa to work with orphans left in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. With the support of the North Carolina United Methodist Conference, he launched ZOE Ministry from his home in North Carolina, and today thousands of people have helped meet the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya and three other African countries.
Orphans in the program are asked to draw a picture to represent their suffering, fears, hopes and dreams. Through art, they are able to verbalize what is often too difficult to share in words. In addition to the responses being posted inside the Giving Hope office, the children and teens are also asked to post their “dreams” in a prominent place inside their homes to help them process and plan for the future.
The sketches of the suffering are troubling images of the stark reality that the innocence of childhood is lost when children lose their parents. We see great maturity in the responses of “what makes you happy.” “Sharing, having a good family, no fighting, no chewing (drug-use), working, going to school, loving one another.” The dreams are across the board with grand art to describe what they will be – pilots, shopkeepers, tailors, doctors, teachers, farmers; all with a common theme of how they would achieve the dream – hard work and education!
The team will have the opportunity to teach a “life skill” to the children and teens in this program. The teens that participate will be selected and voted upon by their peers, and in turn, they will return to their groups and teach countless others. It is a true domino effect!
The scripture for Giving Hope is Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord; plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future.”
Finally, we will travel to the Methodist Bio-Intensive Training Centre in Meru, Kenya. The Center's mission is to reduce and reverse the devastating effects of poverty by increasing family food production and income, through education and training. This organic farm provides programs that help train local farmers who have very little land. Here, farmers learn how to maximize production in order to better feed their families. The program teaches ecologically sound agricultural practices and livestock management under zero grazing.
Our team will provide financial and physical assistance for construction, painting, gardening or other projects on the farm; however, we are most excited that we will sponsor, transport and host 18 teens from the Giving Hope program to be trained in farming skills! As with the “life-skill” training in Maua, the teens will be selected by their peers to attend the training and learn, and will return to their villages to teach.
The farm is run by Methodist Missionary, John Mwalimu. The training he provides is critical, especially now, since there has been famine in Kenya this year. The role John plays is to empower the resource-poor farmer in producing more nutritious food from less land, and doing so with less external input. John’s work is making a huge difference!
We will complete our journey with a day and a half de-brief and safari at Samburu National Game Park. Debriefing is used to decrease the negative effects of being out of one's comfort zone as well as helping the team incorporate long-term positive changes in attitude and even lifestyle. We will discuss the purpose of our work, encourage one another by asking questions about our experiences, and address any unresolved issues that have resulted from the work. The de-brief is important because it will help us see how the short-term mission fits into our life-long discipleship journey.
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" -- Philippians 1:6
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