5 million words

They say a picture is worth a million words so here are 5 millions words about what I have been up to lately.

Anyone want to buy a chicken?

I am now an official poultry farmer. The past few weeks I have learned more than I ever thought I would know about raising and caring for chickens. Let me explain...
The school I am teaching at is a private school. Some of the students at the school come from a local orphanage. Mama Betty is the director of the school and has a heart of gold. She can never turn away a student, even if they don't have money for school fees. They also feed the kids everyday a meal of beans and maize. Too often they are running out of money to cover all the expenses, including teacher's salaries sometimes. I have decided to continue the project of a teacher that was here in December and help them start a chicken coup where they can keep chickens that will lay eggs to both provide food for the students and will generate money they can use to cover some of their fees. We have been researching poultry projects and even visited the farm of a woman that works for the ministry of agriculture! We have the coop all paid for through a scholarship that I received, but now we are trying to raise money to buy the chicks. Each chick costs about $1.40 and we are hoping to buy between 100 and 200 chicks within the next two weeks.

This is where you come in. I am wondering if any of you would be interested in purchasing a chick (or multiple chicks) for the school. I am so excited about this project because it is one that can really last and will be a way that the school can become more self-reliant. In the past, the school has been primarily supported by volunteers coming from different countries. Mama Betty has sat by and supported past volunteers as they have begun similar projects with other people in the community and has never once asked someone to help her start a project for the school. She is one of the most selfless people that I have ever met. She always tells me that she is just a vessel. Whatever God blesses her with isn't meant for her, but is meant to be passed through her to someone else. Even this coop won't benefit her or her family personally, but will be used to provide for the students and people in the community. I am excited that through this project Mama Betty won't have to rely so much on donations from volunteers to support the school, but she will be able to have her own source of income to support it. I think this is true community development because it is empowering her and the school to be a sustainable organization.

So, if you are interested in supporting this project, please send me an email at annawellemeyer@mac.com or a message on Facebook. You can let me know if you want more information or if you have decided to partner with us, how many chicks you would like to buy. Also, we are hoping to raise all the money this week because I leave in just two weeks (where did the time go right??!)!!!!
Jehovah Jireh
Below are pictures of Mama Betty and the coup in the process of being built! It is now almost done!

I'm a real farmer now!

The planting.
The cool earth makes its way between my toes as I tread down the long rows. I loosen my grasp to allow the beans to gently and steadily begin their journey from my hand to the land. I swing my arm back and forth, back and forth. I travel down one long row and up the next, down and up, down and up. Get more seeds, then down and up again. Repeat.
Break for chai.
Let the plowing begin.
The teacher needs a teacher! I have found one; Jessica, who is well into her 60s, maybe even 70! I watch as she lifts the jimbe and swings it down. It cuts through the now soft soil. In one swooping motion the land is sliced and laid as a protector over the seeds.
My turn.
Over and over again I raise my jimbe and swing it down, bringing with it the soil. I tuck in the seeds so they will be comfortable until they spring into life. I praise the Lord for the overcast sky that is providing me with some relief from the heat. "Wow! Anna is strong. Wow! Very special teacher! Anna, my friend, she is good worker" I hear my friend James say. I dig and dig. I can feel a blister forming on my palm. I keep digging to the beat of Jessica singing. I dig and dig and dig. We have now reached the final row! Dig and dig and dig...
Now, I am a real Kenyan farmer (the teachers would say I can now marry a Kenyan because I know how to farm, but I think I will leave that be!)


I really love farming! My body felt good working hard knowing that what I was doing was going to produce food that will nourish my body. Kabula is a big farming community. Everybody has a shamba (farm in Kiswahili). This past weekend we had Friday and Monday off of school. When we returned today every teacher I talked to had been working in their shamba over the weekend. Below are some pictures of us farming!

Here comes the rain do do do do....

Wow, I really can't believe that I have been living here in Kabula, Kenya for a week already! Once again, time likes to play tricks on me and it feels like I have been here forever and for no time at all. But regardless of how much time I have been here, I fell in love with it the moment Joyce greeted me in Bungoma and brought me back to Kabula. She was so friendly and made me feel right at home. Then I met my family and they are beyond wonderful!!!!!
The family I stay with, the Lubangas, run a ministry called ICODEI. They have volunteers come in from all around the world to help in the areas of education, medical, and micro finance. Usually when student teachers come here there are other volunteers staying on the farm as well, but lucky lucky me I am the only volunteer on the farm right now (which I really couldn't be happier about!). Another volunteer is signed up to come in April, but they haven't confirmed for sure yet. For now I am treasuring the time I get the Lubangas all to myself :)
I am going to try and make this kind of short because I know people hate it when blogs get too long and then nobody ends up actually reading them, but rather just skimming them. So we are desperately in need of rain! They usually start planting in February but they still haven't begun because there has been no rain! We pray every night for God to open up the floodgates on Kenya and yesterday we saw Him be faithful. Even now as I am typing this I hear thunder roaring in the distance and it make me very excited and in the mood of praising God. If it continues to rain through the rest of the week, Mama Betty said we will begin planting this weekend. I am excited to learn how to farm as a Kenyan (although it is not my intent, I was informed the if I want a Kenyan husband I will need to learn how to farm.)
The school, the school, I have forgotten to write about the school. It is so different than my school I was teaching at in Bloomington, but it is really great! They are both great in different ways. The students love being at school. The structure is very different. There isn't one teacher for one class, but all the teachers teach the different classes and different subjects in the different grades. Like me, I am teaching English in class 1. (similar to 1st grade), math and creative arts in class 3, and English in class 4. It is kind of hard for the students in class 1 to understand me because they are still just learning English, but I think it is good for me as a teacher to figure out how to communicate and teach in a way that will help them grow. All the kids are wonderful and have captured my heart (despite the fact that they are still warming up to me). Relationships between students and teachers are a bit more formal than I am used to (especially being a kindergarten teacher in the states). I am adjusting and learning though and that is always a good thing.
The last thing I will talk about is the teachers- they are fantastic and hysterical. They love cracking jokes and have been so friendly to me. I always have a good laugh every day so that is definitely a positive thing. The school environment is good and they make it a very happy place for me to be. They are also very willing to teach me about Kenyan culture and ask me questions about America. These discussions are full of laughter, surprise, and learning. I feel very blessed to be able to have them.
So really I have only scratched the very surface of my time here so far. So much has happened and I have learned so much that I feel like I have been here for a life time. God is doing good things in my heart and mind as well. I am witnessing His faithfulness and goodness daily as well as continually be refined more and more into His image for the sake of His kingdom. The Lubangas have been such an encouragement to me and I could sit and talk with them for hours about God. Really it is a gift from God to have such wonderful fellowship while I am so far from where I come from. The kingdom is here and now and is all around us and I am learning that more and more each day.

Grace, Peace, and Love,
Anna

Leaving for Kenya

Off to Kenya today!  It really doesn't seem like a reality!  I have been talking about this since my junior year of high school and now it's actually here.

I'm excited to share my experience with all of you who end up reading this.  Some of you asked for my mailing address while I was there, so here it is:

Anna Wellemeyer
c/o Reuben Lubanga
ICODEI
P.O. Box 459
Bungoma , Kenya
50200
East Africa

Letters take about 2 weeks to get there.  I love mail :) but no packages because the mail system is so unreliable.

Ok love you all.  Sorry this is so short but I have some last minute cleaning and packing to do!

The end and the beginning

So, I have been meaning to write this post for some time now, but every time I sat down to do it, something just didn't seem right.  I think  now is as good of a time as any to finally write it.

While I was in Nigeria God made it very clear to me that I was to go back on a year long STINT.  I will tell that story later, but I just wanted everyone to know that I am going back in September!  Today though, I wanted to share my first journal entry I wrote back in the States.

(written on August 1, 2011)

It seems surreal to be back in Haslett sitting up in the tree overlooking the pond.  The melody of the birds here is harmonized by crickets chirping rather than cows mooing or young Fulani shepherds singing.  When I look up I expect to see a herd of cows grazing the land.  Surprisingly my backyard resembles the Nigerian bush during rainy season (minus the magnificent rocks!)...

Here are some of my thoughts from today:
TIA.  It is a phrase used int he movie Blood Diamond meaning "This is Africa."  It was commonly used during the trip when power went out, when we saw something ridiculous happening while driving, or when something went wrong.  For some reason the phrase and how it was used always rubbed me the wrong way.  It was like something was painfully churning on the inside whenever I heard it.  It leaves very little room for hope.  It was always used with a somewhat negative or "strange" connotation.  It seems to carry the meaning that Africa is a land where nothing goes right.

Then I think of us using it.  Yes, we were in Africa. We lived an African reality – but an African reality as a bature (white person, a foreigner).  Other Africans don't have kids flock to them when they enter a village.  They don't get their picture taken with a pro soccer team while mobs of people try and squeeze in with them.  They don't get invited to a dinner at the governor's house after only being in the country 5 weeks. And they don't get to stroll through security while everyone else gets asked for their passport. It somewhat frustrates me that yes, I got to experience the reality of Africa, but I only got to experience it as a person with white skin from America.

Yet I am still so appreciative of the Nigerian reality I got to experience and live in.  I now have friends who live in mud-block homes with a mattress on the floor that is filled at night with an entire family.  I know children whose parents keep them home from school to farm.  I know children who walk an hour just to go to school.  I know women who work their tails off farming and selling things at the market so they can scrape up enough money to send their children to school.  I know by name and voice children whose parents have died of AIDS.  I know an orphan who has no idea where her brother and sister are.


I also know women who sing praises to God while chopping vegetables to cook Jollof rice over the fire.  I know young men who give up their days to collect firewood and farm for widows, hang up mosquito nets for members of their community who don't have any, and coach futbol for young kids while teaching them about Jesus.  I know people who dance down the aisle to African drums while tithing.  I know widows who love to laugh and dance praising the Lord.  I know women hungry for the Word of the Lord.  I know families that have welcomed orphans into their homes when they barely have enough living space for themselves.  I know teenagers who desire to be the first ones in their families to ever finish secondary school and go on to the university.

TIA, the way I know it, is a place where yes, things may not always go as planned, and yes, there is not an abundance of material things, but it is a place where there is a dependence on God and a place full of hope.  A place full of potential to look a lot more like the kingdom of God.  That is my prayer for the phrase TIA.  That one day it won't be used when the power goes out or you see a guy slip a policeman 50 Naira as he rolls through the checkpoint.  Instead, you see a youth collecting firewood for a widow and your reaction is "Of course, TIA."  You hear of a community putting their funds together to send all the children to school – "Of course, TIA."  You see people living in peace, freedom, and the love of Christ – "Of course, TIA."

Reality colliding with Facts

(excerpt from a journal entry written July 21, 2011)

    Yesterday as I sat on the rocks overlooking the village I was praying and watching a small Fulani shepherd child tending to his cattle.  I had a moment of deep reality revelation/realization.  I was sitting there watching this little boy, who couldn't have been more than 9 years old, in his every-day life.  I was spying on this little boy's reality.  All he knows is spending his days roaming around grasslands with his family's cows and his stick.  He has so much time to exist and think, but what does he think about?  He doesn't go to school, so have his critical thinking skills developed?  What all does he have to think about when his life experiences consist of roaming around with cows everyday?  If he is Fulani, he most likely doesn't know Jesus.  Oh, how I wish He knew the Lord so he could spend his days praising Him, and talking with Him, and listening to Him.
    He started singing and his voice carried to me of the reality we were living in.  I was sitting on a pile of rocks halfway around the world from where I was born watching a boy that was a part of the statistics that so often tear away at my heart live his every-day life.  He is one of millions of children that don't go to school because either his family can't afford it, they need his help with the cattle, or they don't see any value in it.

My view as I was praying that day

    Here was the image colliding brutally with the facts.  Here I was in the same proximity as the child that God has placed on my heart and I was shocked and filled with compassion at the same time.  I was shocked that I have spent 5 and a half weeks seeing these children everyday (even sometimes annoyed when they were being so noisy outside the Ed Center that my students couldn't concentrate) and this was the first time I was hit with this reality.  I was shocked at my helplessness and the huge mountain that is access to education for all children.  But God says with the faith of a mustard seed we can move the mountains.
    Even so, what is and education if these kids don't know their Creator and Savior?  I sit at the village church praying that all of the people could learn how to read and think critically so that they can study the Word of the Lord.  Then I look at the Fulani boy who has no formal education and no relationship with Jesus and I am paralyzed in my mind.  Then I think about how in 1 Corinthians it says that the wisdom of the Lord makes man's wisdom look like foolishness.  God is big enough to reveal His truths to whomever He pleases.  He uses the weak to shame the strong. Yet, at the same time He has given us His word as well...
   I believe that in the end God will completely heal, redeem, reconcile, and restore His creation.  I believe that He is doing that even now.  I get so overwhelmed when I think of the big picture and the brokenness of the world.  I think I need to focus on where God is leading me in this moment, like Abraham... God is faithful and will take care of all of His creation.