My Dad and Step-Mom, Sue, moved to Maua, Kenya about a year and a half ago. They have been traveling there each summer for years. From that very first year, they were in love with the people, the hospital they visited, and the whole experience. When they first returned- they were a bit shellshock for a long while but were already planning the next trip for the following year where they would lead a team of volunteers. They continued leading the team for a long while until they were asked to be there year-around helping with the volunteers at the hospital.

From that first year, I have had an awareness about the abundant needs in Maua and throughout Kenya.  A much greater awareness than I had ever had before. Sure, I had taken the class on Africa back in college. I can’t tell you what I learned in the class as I could not understand a word the Professor said. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but I literally could not understand him. I would come home after his lectures and tell Tim- “I want to learn! I want to know! But I don’t know what he said!”. The Professor did yell. A lot. He’d say, “You understand?”. And of course I didn’t. But I wrote a lot of notes simply because I didn’t want him to yell at me.

I do remember him showing us the African map and teaching us that most of the resources that Africa produces, and there are many resources, are exported. Most countries in Africa are extremely poor and yet they produce great riches. But it’s all owned and exported by others. I have definitely learned more about Kenya from Dad and Sue than I did about the entire continent in that class.

Both Dad and Sue are very good at storytelling. They can weave stories about life and needs in Kenya into tales that are full of vivid images and memorable people. Each time they came home they’d have us all in tears within minutes of looking at pictures of their work and the people they met. Dad especially has always been able to make me cry due to his excellent story telling. He always told both extremely sad and funny stories in order to balance it all out or to keep us conflicted. No matter, he’d either have me laughing or crying from his stories most of the time.

None of their family or friends were truly surprised when they announced they’d been asked to live in Maua for two years (then three…they promise only three and a half). It seemed logical, even though the timing for everyone else wasn’t the best. No one wants their comfort to be a half a world away. But, how could anyone ask them not to go? When that’s where their hearts had been for so long? Not me.

I can admit it- I cried like a baby when they left each time- both when they’d only be gone three weeks and then when they left to live there. No matter how much preparation of the heart a person can muster to prepare for someone’s absence- it is simply not enough. I think forgetting that they were so far away became a bit easier. And letting go of their comfort got a bit easier as each of their children sought that comfort elsewhere, if at all. Luckily, in this day and age, technology makes it easier to email or call (though a call to Kenya? About $5 a minute!) So, we’ve been able to keep in touch between reaching out to each other and their visits to the States.

But now…it’s Tim’s and my turn to visit Maua. We leave in the fall to see what Dad and Sue love so dearly. We plan to do projects at the hospital and for families and children in the community. Most of all, we hope to simply experience what they experience and be in the place they now call home.

It will be intriguing to compare what our imaginations have built up over the years and what the reality of Maua will be for us. I’m lucky Tim will be there with me and that Dad and Sue will walk with us on the journey. I will also finally be able to report to my sisters whether or not Dad is driving in Nairobi which he has promised he will never do but we all know that most probably he’s driving everywhere he can possibly drive.

I’m hoping to blog while we are there and to blog on the adventures we will have over the two and a half weeks we will be visiting. And unlike Dad and Sue, we fully expect to come back to Oregon and stay put for a long while. But you never know…