Ruth is finally resting and Im taking just a few minutes to think... I know what else is new for me to be doing! :-) I was looking out the door of our humble apartment here in Nairobi, listening to the children playing and just... well just looking and observing. I was captured by the thought of how strange this world is and can be at times. Here I am looking at people doing the best they can in a VERY challenging environment and yet in a matter of three days, I will look out of a new door into a world where there will be more things and gadgets in one big drawer than most people in rural Kenya will ever have in their entire life. It is a strange world we live in... full of interesting paradoxes and of so much known yet mostly unknown. I was also thinking about my latest attempt to see if I can muster enough support to pay the school fees for 17 children who desperately wish to go to school in their own attempt to change their lives and future. And yes we are still stuck around 13% funded so far. For them, each time I have said I would try but there would be no guarantees, you have all come through. So you can imagine what they actually felt when I told them and the womens group that I did not have a good feeling this time, that there comes a time when one asks too much or goes to the well once too often.... that they may have to face the reality of their children not going to school this next year as we work to find a way to get them to school the following year. Ive always known that this time would be tough and potentially not doable. There are simply so many people everywhere, even in the most richest developed countries who are in desperate need of help. How much does one help a group of women far away when there are so many needs still unmet at home. There comes a time I think when people say I have done enough. And I get that, I really do. I feel that way here sometimes. Yet I have also learned that the way we have been taught to think about helping people is that we see where the need is, we gather donations, training and resources, send it along with support on the ground if possible; and then we expect that the problem will be fixed or much improved. I have learned that it doesnt work that way. We just hoped it would. I am learning to truly change an injustice such as poverty, particularly as it deals with women and children throughout the world, it takes time and a consistent effort and watchfulness. It is kind of like when we raise our children, we just cant give them some money, some special training and then go away and expect them to understand and succeed. The same holds here as there has been generations of mindsets created on how life is, God, and the realities of how the world works for others but not them. It is a mindset that their experience and learning has created for them just as our experiences and learnings have created for us. For long term success in helping people conquer their own poverty, it takes time to change generations of mindset making in order create and feed new mindsets, new experiences and new learnings for creating new realities and thinking as to what can and cannot be done. I simply takes time and a guiding but not controlling hand. Such as it is with these courageous women who have started to believe they just might be able to get themselves out of poverty over the next few years. They are starting to believe yet there is still much growth and feeding of these new ideas and ways of thinking to generate as it is all too easy for them, or for any of us, to fall back to our old ways of thinking. Learning HOW to think differently about who we are, what we can truly do, having true faith that if we do what we know we should do that we will be the better for it; are all so very difficult to do when everything around you tells you that you are a nobody, have nothing to offer and are only good for cooking, having children and not worthy of being listened to. BUT THEY ARE LEARNING... slowly but surely each day, week and month. But change is not sustainable if we only treat what we see. For it is the very foundations of the poverty that also needs to be address for any project to sustain itself and thus succeed. It is not enough that the women learn. Their children must learn all of this too and their husbands or significant others must learn that life does not have to be the way they have experienced it. Then all those around them must learn... and finally to begin doing by action what they have always before wished deep down they would have done. And it takes time. I know I have asked a lot from all of you. Heck probably the only real time some of you hear from me is when I need something. I know... I know. And I am still asking for I know all that has been done has only given them a chance to succeed but without a few more timely bursts of help from those wishing them well, their chances will be significantly reduced as there are so many around them who do not want them to succeed. For if they succeed, then others will follow and those who have been in control for so long will find they cannot control people by keeping them both poor and dependent upon their good graces and pitifully small hand outs. They will find people succeeding without their help and with that will come a stronger sense of empowerment that will resonate outward from the ground up. Everything will begin to change.... everything. So you see there is much at stake even in just a small project as 11 women trying to create a zero-based grazing facility to take them, their families, and communities out of poverty forever. So if you can hang in there and see what you may have deep down hidden a sock somewhere to send in support; the gratefulness will go on for generations and the difference you always wanted to make in the world will begin to grow, then run, then fly and finally expand outward like you have only dreamed about. Please help if you can by going to this link and donating what you can: gofundme/dkadqg Ruth and I will be eternally grateful for your kindness and compassion. Just some thoughts this day...
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:36:13 +0000
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