Mwalimu Hotel: Lost and Found

KEUMBU, Kenya -- "This is John," said Abel Onchari, introducing me to his congregation at New Life Restoration Centre. "He was lost in America, but now he's found."

Abel almost certainly had me confused with Bob Willems. Bob, Jan Schilling and Sandy Hayostek had not been lost, but they had missed their connecting flight in Detroit and had to spend the night in Amsterdam before making the final leg of their flight to Kenya.

I would be, I imagine, a terrible long-term missionary to a place like Keumbu. I am too devoted to Internet access, to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," to indoor plumbing, to the Route 44 limeade with green apple flavoring at Sonic. If God ever calls me, I hope I will have the courage and devotion to go, but I haven't heard that particular call at this particular time.

John I. Carney, left, preaches at a worship service in Keumbu, Kenya, during his mission trip last month. James, a member of New Life Restoration Center, translated. [Click to enlarge]

Even so, there is a sense in which I feel lost in America and found in Africa. I think what I'm attracted to is not necessarily Africa itself but the sense of purpose you get from a short-term mission experience. I have been fortunate to enjoy such experiences through Mountain T.O.P., a domestic United Methodist-affiliated missions group which I serve as a board member, and through LEAMIS International Ministries, the non-denominational group through which I take my foreign trips. Both groups believe in developing a safe and supportive atmosphere in which volunteers can work in what I call intense Christian community.

It's a transient phenomenon, of course, a "mountain top" experience in the short-term sense of that phrase. If I and my LEAMIS teammates had stayed in Keumbu for a few more weeks, no doubt we'd have started to get on each other's nerves. I would have fallen off my best Christian behavior and into my old bad attitudes.

One member of our team actually did decide to stay for a while longer. Megan Segrist, 24, was on the trip with her mother Margaret. Having the freedom that comes with being in your 20s, Megan decided she wanted to explore Kenya a little further. Paul and Grace Mbithi, with whom LEAMIS works in Nairobi, were more than happy to take Megan in for a few weeks, and she was able to change her airline tickets on the fly. Those of us who know Paul and Grace reassured Margaret that Megan would be well taken care of.

As for me, I came back to the states and jumped right back into everyday life. It was an incredible experience, but now I look back on it and second-guess myself. Do I go on these trips for the right reasons -- to do good -- or do I go on them because of the warm fuzzies, the sometimes-misleading feeling of having done good? I'd like to think I do them for the right reasons, but it's important to keep a check on myself.

There's been a lot of hand-wringing over short-term missions over the past year or two. Kurt Ver Beek, a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., published a study last year questioning the value of such mission trips and especially the common assumption that they change the lives and attitudes of participants once they return home. Ver Beek makes some good points, although I'd like to think that some of the things LEAMIS does run counter to the trends of which Ver Beek is critical. LEAMIS' program, as I understand it, is designed to encourage interaction and partnership, as opposed to "mission trip tourists" doing construction work which could be done better and more cheaply by the locals.

Megan Segrist, a member of the LEAMIS mission team, decided to stay a little while longer in Kenya and was able to change her travel plans. She's seen here outside the Mwalimu Hotel holding Charity Weama, the daughter of one of the Nairobi-based team members, as the team waited for its bus one morning. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge]

That was particularly true of this year's trip, with the partnership between Nairobi and U.S. team members, living and training together at the Mwalimu Hotel in Kisii Town as we worked side-by-side to help the people of Keumbu.

But have my mission trip experiences changed the way I live my life back here in the states? I'd like to think so, but I have to admit it's in the form of baby steps. No, I haven't sold my worldly possessions and sent the money to Kenya. But I do try to think about waste and stewardship in ways I wouldn't have five years ago. I do appreciate what I have here in the U.S. in a different way than I did five years ago. I think my attitude towards people from other cultures in general is shaped, however subtly, by what I've seen of the differences between America and Kenya (or Nicaragua).

We Americans sometimes talk and act as if we are God's special favorites. But I have seen God at work, powerfully, in other lands and cultures. God's blessing is not measured by gross national product or by the number of parking spaces outside your megachurch.

I hope and pray that I learn something from each trip in which I'm privileged to participate. I don't want to overstate it, but perhaps I'm a little bit less lost in America than I was when I started.