From Geoffrey to you; Like a bad car accident

Monday May 11, 2009

Like a bad car crash…

I remember the first youth group that I attended upon my arrival here in Kenya; it was pretty painful to watch. We had a small group of young adults encircled around the pastor who was leading a dull discussion about sex, is it even possible to have a boring discussion revolving around sex when talking to teenagers.. yeah apparently it is. Every mouth was shut. Each set of eyes was fixated on the ground. Some were texting while others were talking on their phone. As questions were asked each response was an overwhelming deafening silence. No one talked, no one shared and it seemed like everyone wanted to get out of that place. They were so uncomfortable that it made me uncomfortable, I even wanted to leave. The pastor was giving it his all but these people wouldn’t budge. It was kind of like a bad car accident that you just didn’t want to watch; painful and messy.

I have been working with youth for a few years and feel as though I have a natural knack for it. I was overly confident in my ability to give these youth a thriving and beneficial environment as I thought of my first lesson. The next Sunday afternoon I stepped up to the plate with one of my favorite lessons in hand and struck out in a more grotesque way than the pastor had the previous week. There was no getting through to them and they wouldn’t budge! No one talked. No one looked at anything besides the ground. No one was willing to share or open up. This youth group was filled to the brim with an underlining inept and gauche tone. Like the pastor crashed and burned I did too my first week. I knew they wanted to leave and so did I to be honest. I was a little curious as to why so I asked the pastor about the culture and what the problem was. The difficulty of getting people to open us was made aware to me. Most people don’t feel guilt but shame is ever present and many things are socially unacceptable and have a negative connotation or stigma. If you open up and talk about your shame then you are putting yourself in a position where you may be mocked, ridiculed, and victimized, more so than what we experience in America. These youth haven’t had as many opportunities to share and open up as we have and don’t live in a place where you can ask any type of question, many things are taboo and aren’t spoken about (HOWEVER the culture has been changing and the taboos are becoming less and less and things are now more socially acceptable than they have been previously).

The pastor has a lot of natural talent and abilities, but from what I have witnessed these talents seem to revolve more around adults, preaching and teaching than they do with youth. For whatever reason I feel as though my gifts are opposite of his and I have a natural ability to work with youth, it is as if I can get them to open up as a friend but still give them guidance from the perspective of someone who has been around a few times. Many people hate teenagers, I want to spend a large chunk of my life working with them; everyone has their calling. I’m also a people person, all of you have probably come to that realization if you have spent anymore than five minutes with me and if you haven’t I would question what rock you have been living under, I thrive in social settings and have this natural gift to bond with others and often find people ready and willing to be broken and transparent with me. Even though being the youth pastor here had a rickety rackety rockety start, I have been able to do what I do best and bond with these young adults. I feel like the environment we have now is light-years ahead of where we were two months ago; they are actually opening up. They share now. When they are going through a difficult time they actually say they are going through a difficult time. We have all grown closer together and have so many things we want to do in the future. We have a thriving environment on Sunday afternoons now.

Through these youth becoming more comfortable and opening up I have learned that the things they struggle with and are tempted by are identical to us in the good ole’ U.S. Even tough ten-thousand miles separate us, sex, drugs, and alcoholism are struggles that the youth of Kenya and the youth of America both seem to stumble into. We talked a little about getting drunk yesterday, and surprisingly everyone except one person had gotten drunk before, and we aren’t talking about people in their mid-twenties many of them are still in high school. If you ask a group of high school students in America if they have ever gotten drunk I know you will get the same reaction and response. Sex, porn, getting drunk or high, fighting and having a foul mouth are some of the main struggles that both of our youth suffer from. I’m not sure why but this completely blew my mind. I was so worried when I came here that I would have no idea what to say or how to relate. I thought that the struggles were going to be completely different than what I am used to, but they aren’t. Before coming here I have had my share of youth that have been abused, molested, raped, addicted to drugs or alcoholics, depressed and suicidal, experiencing fighting parents, teen pregnancy, abortion, prostitution, thinking of dropping out of school, and not having a father and they have all of these issues here as well.

I guess I wanted to express two things today. I think it is pretty amazing that we now have an environment in which these youth feel comfortable enough to open up, it is something that many of them haven’t done before and we have had some pretty intense things shared in the past two months. I also find it interesting that I am sitting in a third world country that is ten-thousand miles from my home and yet the struggles and temptations prevalent here are the same as if I were talking to a group of teenagers in America.

Asante Sana,

Mwendwa

Prayer Requests:
Carro’s operation and her family coping with her in the hospital
Funds for a generator
Medical building

Randoms:
I have two friends named Sarah and Ruth that are my age. They both work beneath my hotel room and if I stick my head out the door I can see them. Yesterday Sarah called me over and said Ruth wants to talk to you, then Ruth blushed and buried her face. We were all talking and like everyone else they were worried about who was going to cook for me and Sarah came up with a really good idea. Why don’t you marry Ruth for the next four months and she can cook for you… wow… really? She kept on urging us to get married. She pointed out how I live right above where she works so it would be so convenient…. Wow can you say awkward? I am pretty sure Ruth has a crush on me and Sarah is trying to make something happen between us. Sarah and left Ruth and I alone to talk… both of us were pretty embarrassed and blushing quite a bit. She asked me if I wanted to take her back with me to America, she said it with sincerity and truthfully. I had to sit there and explain to her that we weren’t going to get married and that Sarah was joking and that I wasn’t going to take her back to America with me. I have had to give the “I just see you as a friend” talk to a few friends before but this was by far the most awkward and weird. Sorry Ruth and sorry Grandma I know you can’t wait for me to get married but you are going to have to wait just a little bit longer.
Things that I do that are completely normal and acceptable for our culture is so weird for the people in Kenya. You don’t say “Bless you” when you sneeze. When I try to clean up after myself people get mad. I put on bug repellant last night and Mutuku looked at me as if I was crazy and then started to laugh at me.
When I am walking to my old house there is a group of about twenty kids that are always outside. They yell out “MZUNGU” or “Joe-free” (that is how they say my name) or “Mwendwa” then they all come running to me. They literally run so fast and drop whatever they are doing to shake my hand. Two of them always ask me for candy. I think it would be a pretty bad idea to give them candy this early in the game though, if I do they will NEVER leave me alone. I think I am going to give them a ton of candy and junk food right before I leave. So every time one of them asks me for money or candy I start to ask them for money and candy. They always say “tomorrow tomorrow.” I think it’s funny. Especially when I reach into my pocket and pull out an empty hand and start begging them for candy and money… they get a kick out of it!

Word of the Day:
Tafhathali naweza kwenda msanani
Taw-faw-dolly nuh-wez-uh qua-when-day mmm-sa-naw-knee
Please excuse me to the bathroom… this one is a must!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.