Have you ever poured hours of time and energy into a person or group, but then questioned whether your efforts made a discernable difference? Did you leave an indelible mark on another’s life, or simply get lost going through the motions?
These questions lingered inside my head after completing a mission trip to Kenya and Uganda in October 2008. I traveled halfway around the world for almost two weeks, but returned wondering if all that time and miles were for naught.
The African missionary seed got planted one Sunday morning in church. The message focused on Peter being the only disciple who ever dared to walk on water. He saw Jesus walking on the lake, mustered his courage, got out of his boat, and went to him. Peter didn’t make it too far, but he still walked on water, if only for a step or two before his faith began to falter.
Fortunately, Jesus rescued him before he dipped under the waves. Toward the end of that service my wife leaned over and whispered in my ear. She said that I needed to “get out of the boat” and go to Africa on this mission trip. I think she wanted me to make a move toward God and allow myself to be saved.
Our neighbor, Mike, was a professional missionary and leading this trip. Later that same Sunday afternoon, he mowed his grass, headphones buried in his ears, while he pondered how to influence my next-door neighbor to partake in the Kenya/Uganda journey. Deep in prayer, out of the corner of his eye he caught my wife marching across the cul-de-sac on a beeline to him.
Mike said she had her “big girl walk on” and thought for sure he was in trouble.
He slowly removed his earbuds, waiting for a tongue lashing for some unwitting infraction. My wife looked him dead in the eye and said, “you need to ask Joe to go on the mission trip.” No sooner than the words rolled off her lips, she turned around and went back to our house. Dumbfounded, Mike decided he’d been praying for the wrong guy and adopted her advice.
Mike took me under his wing, logistically and otherwise. I received anti-malarial medications and necessary immunizations from the local health department. Mike also insisted that I pen letters seeking support and donations. I balked at this, explaining that I had enough money. He smiled and told me that wasn’t the point, because God already knew I had the money.
I was lost, so Mike elaborated.
By sharing my plans I allowed those who received the letters to make a choice. He said that people want to be part of something bigger than themselves, but not everybody will travel overseas. By giving their prayers, kind words, and/or money, they invest themselves in the cause. I reluctantly agreed and wrote letters to my closest friends and family.
The whole time we prepared, I questioned whether this trip was a right fit for me.
“You’re the last person that I thought would go on a mission trip,” was the typical response I heard when people learned of my involvement.
Not exactly encouraging words, but honest I suppose.
The entire mission group was deeply rooted in their faith. One lived overseas with his family and whole-heartedly dedicated life to missionary work while serving in an inhospitable social environment. Some led churches or worked full time ministries in their respective communities. I was relatively new to my faith and a total novice to missionary work.
I clearly represented the weak spiritual link in the chain.
We departed Denver on a redeye to London, followed by a daylong layover, and another redeye to Nairobi. After roughly 36 hours of travel I saw the Kenyan sunrise peak through my airplane’s lowered window visor. We gathered luggage and loaded onto chartered buses. As we drove, I saw a man standing on a street corner holding a machete. Kenyans walked by him without giving him a second glance.
Apparently brandishing a large, sharp-edged weapon on a sidewalk during rush hour was normal Nairobi behavior.
Traffic lights were virtually non-existent and the streets were jammed with automobiles, motorcycles, scooters, bikes, wooden carts, and livestock. Diesel fumes clouded the air, accompanied by the unmistakable scent of kerosene. It was pure chaos mixed with sleep deprivation.
While in Kenya, we divided our time between running Christian sport camps and visits to the Mathare slum. Organizing Swahili-speaking orphans to perform sport related activities proved trying. However the true challenge occurred in the slums. I’ve been in some bad neighborhoods in the U.S., but nothing here compares to the abject poverty of Mathare.
Half a million people are crammed into about half a square mile of tin shanties, dysentery, polluted water, AIDS, and scattered refuse. It’s really indescribable. I’ve never seen so many people packed together in such an unsanitary state.
Despite the horrific living conditions, the children that overpopulate Mathare smile continuously. I
t’s like they don’t know any other kind of living, so they assume there’s no reason not to be happy. Many school-aged kids lucky enough to be inside a classroom, donned in British-style plaid uniforms, rushed out to greet us, repeatedly chanting, “hello, how are you?”
They quickly answered themselves with, “I am fine”. And nothing seemed to make them happier than taking their picture and then showing them the digital photograph on the camera’s screen. I’m certain I could have done this for hours without losing an ounce of enthusiasm and joy from these children.
Gideon was our guide through Mathare. Gideon refused the armed Kenyan police officers, which escorted our other groups. Aptly named, his physical appearance was not imposing. Nevertheless, he said we were safer with just him.
Gideon spent years walking Mathare and meeting parents who were dying from AIDS that were without extended family to take care of their children once they passed away. Gideon arranged for the subsequent care of these kids in the orphanage where he worked. The people of Mathare knew him and his mission well. He was almost untouchable within this Kenyan slum.
No one disturbed him or those that walked with him.
After five days we made our way west to Uganda. Although we stayed in a relatively nice hotel in Nairobi, our Ugandan adventure would require us to live inside the walled orphanage grounds. We woke every dawn to the crowing of roosters and the smell of smoke from cooking preparations. It felt like camping, but with fifteen men crammed into two rooms of bunk beds, one bathroom, one sink, and no mirror.
Some days we’d eat beans and rice. Other days, we eat rice and beans, just to mix it up. There was an occasional egg and we cooked a goat on our stay, but rice and beans were pretty much our staple, go to meal.
The orphanage held a faith rally outside of its walls on the last night. One of the fellow missionaries informed me that they expected an extremely large crowd of Christians and Muslims, alike. They did not anticipate any confrontations or violence, but it always felt like society could unravel in the blink of an eye in Africa.
He further emphasized that we stood the likelihood of engaging in spiritual warfare this evening. I told him if that was the case, I was going into battle unarmed. He laughed and said he’d back me up, if needed. Fortunately, my role for the evening was to keep a close eye on some of the female missionaries. Things went off without a hitch, and it was as lively of a church function I’d ever attended.
Our final destination was a hotel in Jinja, Uganda. As I walked into the lobby, I saw my reflection in a large mirror that hung on the wall. I was shocked at how I looked, especially after realizing this was the first time I’d seen myself in a week.
In the U.S., we catch our reflection constantly in mirrors, windows, etc. and take it for granted. In many parts of Africa, seeing your reflection was somewhat of a rarity. I immediately understood why the children loved getting photographed and seeing their picture.
Those kids probably seldom saw how they appeared to others.
After a day of downtime in Jinja and a fantastic hotel dinner that did not consist of rice and beans, we made our way back to the Entebbe airport that following morning. The distance was not great, but travel through these parts of Africa remained slow and tedious.
While bouncing along in my bus seat by myself and reflecting on the entire trip, I cried.
I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was out of happiness, sadness, relief, or a culmination of bottled up emotions. Nobody ever knew, and I never shared this with anyone until now. Perhaps I felt the pang of remorse at not making a difference in a place that cried out for so much more.
Upon returning, I shared my story several times with friends and family. I wrote thank you notes and follow up letters to all those that Mike insisted I contact in the beginning. I even spoke during one Sunday church service with a couple of other “missionaries.”
However, time rolled on, and I gradually fell back into the routines of work and family life. Pushed out by the here and now, Africa began to fade from my memory banks. I’d heard people say that mission work changed their lives, but I didn’t feel that I fell into this category.
About a year after returning from Africa, I met up with an old high school friend, Dean, who was in town on an extended work assignment. As we got caught up with the past, Dean shared that he volunteered as a Big Brother in Phoenix, AZ.
I was surprised.
Dean never expressed a desire to work with at-risk kids, nor had he ever done any volunteer work that I was aware of. I probed further and asked him what motivated him to do that. He told me that if I could travel halfway around the world to work with orphans in Africa, he could do something in his own backyard.
That comment hit me like a ton of bricks. I left Africa exactly like I’d found it, never feeling like I made a dent. Now it felt like some kind of epiphany. I’d been looking at the wrong continent, just as Mike looked at the wrong neighbor. My unexpected and personally unprecedented mission work morphed into something I never saw coming.
Funny thing is, when Dean told me about his service I almost said, “Wow, you’re the last guy that I thought would work with Big Brothers.”
Fortunately, I bit my hypocritical tongue. You can’t count out that “last” guy. They might just get out of the boat and make a difference to somebody they never expected to reach.