Mission to Kenya: New ways to use resources

The temporary church structure, made from branches and plastic tarp, was still in the process of having its tin roof attached when we arrived on Wednesday, July 29. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Order this photo]

Church members scrambled to find a last-minute site, and that came in the form of property owned by one of the church members.

When the team, led by LEAMIS co-founder Gail Drake and me, arrived in Jairos on June 29, we found two hastily-built structures, built of tree branches and black plastic tarp. A corrugated tin roof was still in the process of being attached to the larger of the two structures when we pulled up.

We served peanut butter sandwiches to the children at Malaba one day as a special treat. (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Order this photo]

There's some humor in this. LEAMIS, an interdenominational group with which I've been taking foreign mission trips since 2003, and which I now serve as a board member, shies away from construction-oriented mission trips in favor of cottage industry training, water purification and leadership training.

LEAMIS' philosophy is to provide resources to help the people in our partner churches and communities improve their own situations. Sending a mission team halfway around the world is a very inefficent way to give someone a new building.

But yet here we were, in a situation where my first impression was, "these people need a church building."

Team effort

The plastic tarp sheds served their purpose just fine during our three-day stay in Malaba. We conducted workshops including soap-making, candle-making, health and nutrition, arts and crafts, bio-fuel briquettes, and braiding and knitting using plastic grocery bags as raw material.

We installed a water purification system at the church and also taught SODIS, a system for sanitizing already-clear water by placing it in bright sunlight in particular types of plastic bottles. Our students included not only Malaba residents but some pastors and church members from Uganda, just across the border.

We also held children's activities and participated in worship services at the church.

When I say "we," of course, I am speaking of the team. This was the largest team ever on a LEAMIS-organized mission trip. The American contingent consisted of 18 of us, including me and Gail.

We began the trip with three days of ministry in the Kibera slums just outside Nairobi, and then we took along 10 people from the Nairobi church to partner with us in presenting the program in Malaba.

Passing it on

William, a Kenyan who translated Kim Lachler's soap-making workshop into Swahili in Nairobi, was pretty much teaching the class himself by the third day in Malaba. Kim and I found this both amusing and rewarding. After all, that's the idea behind these workshops; they're meant to be passed on, so that the impact can be multiplied.

Although Gail participated to some extent in the health and nutrition workshop, we'd decided early on that I wouldn't lead any of the workshops, so that I could be a "floater," putting out fires and providing help and support where needed. This also allowed me to document the workshops with photos and video.

In Malaba, and during our three days of ministry in the Kibera slums of Nairobi earlier in the trip, there really weren't many fires to put out.

My job as team leader was busy in other ways, and I'd certainly put a lot of work into planning and organization in advance of the trip, but during the day I sometimes felt like a fifth wheel, like I was letting Gail or my teammates down. They assured me later that I hadn't been.

The schedule allowed me to pop in and out of workshops and see what was going on in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I'd been busy with my own workshop.

Workshops

In the bio-fuel briquette class, Wayne Lenhart led his students through building a sawhorse-sized wooden device which is used to put pressure on a press made from a PVC pipe with tiny holes drilled in it.

A slurry is prepared from available scrap materials -- sawdust, charcoal dust, leaves and scrap paper, the latter of which helps bind the mix together. The slurry is poured into the pipe and then, with the help of the big wooden press, squeezed into a donut-like cylinder about the size of a large can of tomatoes.

The cylinder is allowed to dry completely and then can be burned as an inexpensive household fuel.

The arts and crafts and braiding workshops were also popular.

The idea of crocheting and braiding plastic grocery bags was first suggested to me by Jane Prince-Nengu from the church I attend here in Shelbyville.

Jane, a one-time resident of Africa, had seen it in other places and knew that plastic grocery bags were as much a plague in Africa as anywhere else -- more so, in fact, because Third World nations generally have little waste disposal infrastructure. One of the million little habits a traveler must break is the assumption that there will be a wastepaper basket in easy reach all the time.

But I digress. I passed the plastic grocery bag suggestion on to LEAMIS several years ago, and they've been using it ever since. It's one of LEAMIS' biggest success stories in terms of documented followup. The plastic bags can be used to create attractive handbags, mats and rugs which give no suggestion of their raw material. Gail sells them sometimes at her gift shop and café in Monteagle.

TUESDAY: No prostitutes, please!