Day 30

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Breakfast

I sat with Deborah Wilson, the nutritionist that I met last night. She talked to me about nutrition gardens and gave me some excellent recommendations of groups that do this kind of work. She told about the Unicef program she had just completed. Through a mixture of teaching and gardening she has had significant success in building indigenous programs that show results in getting children healthier. One of the issues she raised which I had never considered was the importance of a child having their own plate so that a parent could monitor if they were actually eating a balance of foods. In places where the family eats out of a shared bowl, this is complicated, but important. So many tiny details that need to be dealt with, lots of warnings of failed programs that were too complicated, too obtuse, and not natural to the environment. Totally convinced that we are on the right path.
Clean water + clean hands + a slightly improved diet = exponential impact for life and health.

Walk to Dickson’s
I set out, after reading for a few minutes, to get to Dickson’s office which is about a 25 minute walk. I noticed how apprehensive I was. I kept probing in my heart trying to figure out what was producing the feeling. I thought I was over the culture shock stuff, but felt it all over me again--like a rouge wave that suddenly rises up and strikes an unsuspecting swimmer.

I live by routine and not by faith. This is my conclusion. Once I had a routine here, I was able to manage the feelings, but all day today I’ve been thinking it was the last of the known. The next two weeks are really unscripted. I think the massive uncertainty, the pressure of what I want to accomplish began to creep, then flood back into my soul.

I look back on the last 30 days and sometimes it seems the minute hand on my watch was frozen in place, at other times I looked up and a day was lost. I wish I had accomplished more. I’m completely stuck on the Christmas program, I have the right amount of Nouwen cards, but I’ve got to get them to fall into the right order, our mission team is in the final days of preparation for Ethiopia, but there still contacts and supplies I need to find in Addis. Its like I am trying to juggle all these balls and suddenly I realized they were all falling at the same time.

I’ve spent a lot of time being quiet. Mostly my real life is spent talking, communicating, calling, visiting, and teaching. Here I have been free to listen, think, reflect, ponder, dwell, formulate, daydream, and ruminate. Sometimes that has been great, other times it is really hard. I am privileged to have been allowed this time by my church and mostly by my family. They have born the brunt of my being absent.

Buckner Kenya
Dickson came and collected me and we headed to the Baptist Children’s Center. It is on the opposite side of town and took a while to get through traffic and then over terrible roads to arrive. Since visiting last year they have built two new buildings. One is in the final days of completion and when occupied it will leave the BCC just two classrooms short of their master plan. They are very proud and the children that have been sharing the church building will now have classrooms.

I got to see the new electrical system. They have run by generator until this year. Through a gift by the Red Dot 100X fund they now have electrical power through the whole compound. I took pictures of the pole and the junction box. Dickson was so excited that the children now have electricity, and not just for a few hours each evening.

We stopped into several classrooms and kids were busy studying, but like kids everywhere welcomed the distraction of a guest in their room.

We also looked at the nutrition garden that they have and the drip irrigation they use to grow food for the children. I took pictures to take to Ethiopia and share with Getahun and our team.

Hamburgers
Dickson stopped at a hamburger place for us to have lunch. They have a Thursday special buy one get one free. I was ordering, so I ordered two burgers and one set of chips (French fries). Then the price. It was as if I was paying for two burgers. I remind him of the special. He said, “Yes, we have that special today.” Then I wanted to know why it was so much. He said I orderd two hambrugers. Yes, one is free. “No,” if you want only two hamburgers then order one hamburger and you will get two hamburgers. Fine I said and ordered one hamburger and got two. It was not a great burger, but the chips were really good.

Flora
I came back and started working on the Nouwen file. After and hour I started feeling sleepy so I began the process of packing. I really got anxious. It seems like my stuff has grown. I’m not sure how I got all this junk in these two bags. I did as much as I could and then went back to work on Nouwen. After a break for dinner I came back and finished phase two of the Nouwen project. I now have a calendar of everyday, I have the holidays on the calendar, the day of the week connected to the date, and I have the entire text of the four Gospels split into 365 readings and each days section is printed in the appropriate day. Phase three should take about 5 full days. I will retype all of my Nouwen quotes and link them into 7 categories and then assign all the “Day Quotes” to a specific day. . . Phase four is to write two or three thought questions for each day. Phase five is to connect every day to a photograph. Phase six will be to produce 365 separate pages that have all these pieces of information attractively organized on a page that can then be reproduced in a book form. In 2009 my church families will have opportunity to get the book or get a page delivered by email each day.