"T.I.A" Attitude Adjustment Required

We haven't even left for Africa and the difficulty of international travel is rearing its ugly head. Booking airfare as a group means your individual rights are gone...no way to upgrade using your mileage (or favors from your big sister), seat assignments, on-line check in. Besides the airlines and hotel issues add the medical records, proof of birth, shots, currency exchange (here or there?), luggage weight allowances, language, weather, etc.

There is a saying in Africa to remind visitors of what it will be like...TIA-This is Africa! Things will go wrong, expect unexpected hassles, hurdles and understand that schedules and deadlines may have no meaning. I guess that is the excuse used to justify the unorganized, inefficient, and slow services we will experience. I am ready, having traveled around the world for most of my life. But I wonder about my companions...some of whom have never left the beauty and civility of the Pacific Northwest. We seasoned travelers will just have to care for them. "Roll with the punches", "Go with the flow", and "don't have any expectations" will have to be my mantra to counter TIA circumstances. Perhaps I will learn to be more patient upon my return.

I have been anticipating this trip for 2 years now, but am full of fear. Not the typical fear of disease, hunger, heat, mosquitos, danger or death; but I am afraid of what I will feel, see, smell, hear and taste while over there. Mostly my fear is focused on seeing the great need and not wanting to do anything about it. Apathy will be my greatest temptation. I am afraid to pray for faith because that would require action...action I may not be prepared to follow through with. That is too funny...I know my prayers would be answered, and I may not want them to be! But I am going with an open heart, hoping I have the strength and courage to do what is asked of me to do.

Many of you have been asking what our group from NW Church will be doing while we are over there. We have group responsibilities as well as individual assignments. Our group of 11 adults will be leading some teaching, preaching, singing, and ministry classes on Sundays, and will get down to the business of educating and caring for orphans of AIDS the rest of the time. We will be representing an arm of Christian Relief Fund out of Dallas. Our church supports the school by paying the rent, paying the teachers and keeping the buildings going, while CRF feeds, clothes, and cares for the children...about 380 of them at the Ring Road Orphanage and School. Besides Ring Road, we also have a group of children we support in Kitale at the Lakeside Orphanage. We have a fairly diverse group going...teachers, business people, skilled artisans, and me.

While I will help with some teaching, I will also be doing some leg work for CRF. We built an AIDS clinic on site at the request of the US Government who had set aside money for African AIDS grants for abstinence programs. We built the clinic to their specifications but did not get a grant...so we have an unfunded brand new clinic with no doctors, nurses, or counselors. By chance (or was it something else?) an AIDS doctor and missionary came across unsponsored orphans while looking for more sites to build and staff clinics. We know orphans, they know clinics...we may do a little horse-trading while over there. My role will be to see if something creative can end up in a win-win situation. I need to check out new sites for orphan support by evaluating the ministry leaders, the families and churches that will provide the services, and the orphans themselves. I will "process" them by getting their life stories, their picture and data for the CRF database. As with any of these charitable requests, we need to make sure the orphans' needs come first before any political or religious agenda. Pray for my discernment as I will be making recommendations that truly are life and death decisions.

I want to also see if there are opportunities to make the works there more self-sufficient and less reliant on cash donations from abroad. I have been asked to look at micro finance opportunities and I will look for other cottage industry type options like light assembly and manufacturing, or even warehousing. We shall see.

Keep us in your prayers. I think this post will be the last one for a while. I will keep a log and use that to add blog posts and photos upon my return.

Chow!