Missionaries, Glorious Missionaries

Once upon a time there was a girl named Helen who failed miserably at keeping up with her blog. So she decided one day to write 4 blog posts, put them all up at once, and pretend that she had simply forgotten to put the link up on Facebook for 3 of the posts. And she did. And it was devilishly clever and no one ever suspected she really hadn’t written a blog post in 3 months. The end.

Whew, now that I’ve sneakily diverted you all, allow me to tell you about missionaries. They’re pretty much the biggest heroes ever.

I have a confession to make. I used to think missionaries were lame. I know, horrible, horrible, vile, nasty, awful, person. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself and formally apologize to every missionary ever. You are all wonderful marvelous, brave, tough, brilliant, dear, sacrificing people and I don’t deserve to be in your club.

 So yeah, missionaries. I would like to present you all with just a little of the really tough stuff missionaries do all the time. But I would like to do this without making you think I’m some kind of saint. I’m here for one year people, the rest of the forward unit is here longer. I am a wuss. I complain about this stuff all the time. I would never choose this for myself like other missionaries ever have. Ok, so do not apply this to me but apply it to all the other missionaries who you run into.

Why Missionaries are the Bosssest Bosses this side of the nut house:

1.       They live in another country. Ok, so traveling the world is romanticized a great deal these days and indeed it is cool. But living in a country and traveling around a country are two astronomically different things. When you LIVE in a different country from the one you are raised in, you have to get visas and driver’s license, and work permits, and buy a car, and move stuff, and make connections, and learn languages, and all sorts of other crazy stuff.

2.       The culture is different. This means you have to work with things that seem absolutely nuts to you that are normal in the new country. And you have to deal with people thinking you’re nuts for doing normal things. You have to be conscious of what the nationals will be expecting and try to provide it. You have to figure out how to host company and buy things and greet people and go to church.

3.       Sometimes you get a lot more attention then you wanted. Nationals stare at you, take sneaky pictures of you, mess with your hair, laugh at your weirdness, etc. Sometimes it makes you feel famous, sometimes it makes you overwhelmed, sometimes you don’t notice it.

4.       Missionaries are far away from home. They miss stuff. They watch their kids have different lives than they had. Weddings, Reunions, Christmases, Family emergencies, friend emergencies….it’s rough to try to keep up with all the people back home without feeling so isolated. It’s sad to not be able to be there for people you love and have to send apologies again. Skype, email, phones, Facebook, all these things have made it easier to stay in touch with people but it’s still hard to be the one who isn’t there.

5.       Your children have a convoluted sense of home. They don’t fully belong in any one place. You have to drop them off at college and then go back to your field. It’s rough!

6.       Transition and change are always present. You finally adjust to your field and then it’s time for furlough. Sometimes you change fields, countries, or agencies. Then you have to re learn everything. And when you finally retire, you lose a great deal of identity by finally having a “normal” life.

7.       Most people don’t really understand. Like me, when I thought missionaries were weird people with old clothes and crazy pictures. You have so many skills most people won’t ever see. You know so much about a place few others do. Very, very, very, few people understand why you would miss a third world country when you are living in the US. It’s hard to not be understood.

So I would like to encourage all you missionaries. You guys are warriors. You are my heroes. You are worthy of respect. Thank you for doing the hard thing to improve lives, save souls, and obey Jesus. You are the farthest thing from lame. You are amazing, strong, inspiring people. I am honored to know you.

And to all you people who aren’t missionaries. Be encouraging. Try to understand. Love on your missionaries. Hug them. Tell them you respect them. Because they are awe inspiring and they do so many hard things that no one will ever know about.

End rant J
Love you guys!
<3
Helen

A Wee Thoughtlet or Two

Americans are busy. We do many things, we plan many things, we talk about how many things we do. It is completely normal and even encouraged.

I’m not busy. I wake up, and drink coffee, and do my school, and sometimes go wander around the hospital, and write stuff. Woo hoo. We go to church on Sunday for several hours, and sometimes to the grocery store an hour away and occasionally to a missionary meeting or something in a different part of Kenya. It’s really different from when I used to go to KEYS 2 days a week, the community college 4 days a week, youth group, venture crew, soccer, church, bible study, hangouts with friends. I used to drive somewhere every day. Usually several somewheres.

So, Helen not being busy and Helen being an introvert means Helen delves into her deepest soul and starts sorting herself out. I think it’s something every person should do! Most people, I have noticed, have a hard time talking about themselves, or even knowing who they are. This coming from someone who collects pieces of other people to add to myself. I’ve learned why I can read a book in an hour but procrastinate on writing an essay. I know why war movies or discussions about soldiers, combat, etc. make me so tense. I’ve decided that I’m a half-nerd. All these things I’ve learned because I’ve had time to get to know myself. It’s awesome!

Of course, being with my family pretty much all the time and not much interaction with other American teenagers has been weird. So when we went to a retreat/meeting for WGM (December Retreat is called Turi) I was kinda nervous. There were going to be 3 other teens at Turi. (Introvert Helen gets uneasy) They all grew up together and go to the same boarding school. ( Helen starts dreading Turi). I was supposed to be social and teenagerlike (Uh oh, what if I don’t know how to teenager any more?) So after Helen works herself up into a completely ridiculous state she realizes, psh, I’m Helen. I know myself. And as long as I stay myself I don’t need to be worried about whether the other kids will like me or not.

Turns out we had a great time and Abby, David, and Joel are awesome. So yeah. People, know who you are. It makes most everything so much more fun. Plus, if you’re friends with yourself, you’ll always have someone to talk to!

Right, so that’s what I learned this week.

Have a good one everyone!
<3
Helen 

In Which Chaos is Defined

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you, a move across Kenya.

Allow me to add some backstage comments. The overview of the trip was supposed to go like this. Truck arrives at 8 a.m. on Monday. We load and head to stop one: Kericho where WGM stored some furniture for us. After we loaded Kericho stuff we would drive about 4 hours to Nakuru. Some WGM directors live there and offered us their house for the night. They have “the fastest internet in Kenya,” which I was going to utilize for a skype interview with Wheaton College that night. Then Tuesday we were going to load up some stuff from Nakuru and the grocery store and finish the drive to Chogoria. Sounds like a solid plan right?

Early on Monday the 21^st of October we arose and finished packing up our stuff. The moving truck was going to arrive at 8 so we had to be ready. We carried all our boxes and luggage down to the Tenwek carport and piled it up. And waited. And wondered where the truck was. And checked our watches. Daddy called someone and found out the truck had left Nairobi at 8 so they would be 4 hours late. I decided to go back to the apartment and finish a college application. Homeschoolers: they tend to do normal stuff in a weird way. 

Then, 4 hours later, the truck hadn’t come. More calls. Apparently they got stuck in ugly traffic. Finally, at 1ish the truck rolled in and we frantically loaded stuff. We went to Kericho and collected all that nonsense, and debated about whether we should try to make it to Nakuru before dark. I was stressing out because I was going to either have to do my phone interview in the car or reschedule it altogether. You all know my family. You know what kind of shenanigans Daddy or James would pull in the middle of the interview. Plus the roads here aren’t exactly smooth so jolting around while trying to sound intelligent and stable and generally worthwhile isn’t ideal.  I rescheduled in the interest of sanity.

We did make it to Nakuru before dark, however, and snagged dinner at a restaurant. Nairobi Java House is essentially the Kenyan Starbucks therefore making it one of the more popular places for Ex-pats to eat. So to Java House we went. Mom shopped for mattresses while we waited for our food. We take multi-tasking to a whole other stratosphere.

Ok, confessions, Tenwek has crummy internet. So for several weeks we were holding the wrong size cable into the laptops to get 2 bars. That does things to people. (whine, whine, whine) So being in Nakuru with amazing internet…….I was up late Monday night.

Tuesday crashed upon us like a crowd surfing fat man. Happily the parents had compassion on the weary children and allowed us to stay at the house while they did another shopping run. Hallelujah.

Finally we hit the final road for Chogoria. It’s a lovely drive, all tea fields, rice fields, mountains, and overloaded motorcycles. We even found a good bathroom stop that has pretty fantastic little pastry things.

We landed in Chogoria around 6. The truck was once again nowhere to be seen. But Dr. Ikunda (The other doctor at the hospital who showed us around last time we came) appeared, unlocked the house and helped us unload the stuff out of our car. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant nearby and talked. We were all rather exhausted. Driving here is essentially composed of playing chicken with semis who are IN YOUR LANE PASSING THE BUS WHO’S GOING TOO SLOW. Thus, one emerges from the car with shot nerves. 

The truck arrived at 8:30 and we unloaded. The two drivers helped and one of the gate guards. We didn’t have the energy to direct it too much so all the stuff was heaped everywhere. We dug out the mattresses, found some sheets and crashed.

Wednesday-Saturday were consumed with assembling beds, sorting furniture, getting the house organized, clean, and hiding the shipping trunks out of sight.

-----I realize this post is all of 3 months late and I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself. Terribly sorry to all who were dying of suspense wondering exactly how our move went. More about the hospital and daily life in Chogoria to come later.-----