After Africa

I've decided to keep my blog, even though I am no longer in Africa and no one probably cares much about what I'm doing now....but nonetheless, I decided that I'm going to keep updating it every few weeks or so. Who knows what about, but I'll come up with something. If nothing else I'll just tell everyone what I ate for lunch that week....so you better pray some exciting things happen in my life so you aren't reduced to reading about my turkey sandwiches and Cup o' Soups.

That being said...I've officially changed the name of my blog to Kelsey's After-Africa Adventures. I thought that was fitting considering I probably won't be in the same place for more than a few months at a time for the next year or so...and this seemed easier than changing its name every 3 months.

So there you have it. Enjoy.

PS....today for lunch I had a BLT salad from LaRosas....

A Few Things...

I thought I'd go ahead and put up some links on here just in case anyone is interested in learning more about Mathare Valley or about sponsoring a child or whatnot. Also...for those of you who don't have Facebook, I'll put up a link to my pictures, too!

This is the organization that I worked with this summer. There's lots of good information on here: http://www.hopemissionsintl.org/home

And here: http://cmfi.org/partner/hopepartnership

If you're interested in sponsoring a child in Mathare Valley you can email Sue Warren at CMF and she will help you out: Suewarren@cmfi.org

This is a link to my pictures from the summer: http://picasaweb.google.com/kelseymcmullen/Kenya2010?feat=directlink

Taco Bell, On Demand Cable, and Mountain Dew---Oh America

I'm back in America! Hooray! I am oh so sorry that it took me so long to write again since I've been back, but I have been extraordinarily busy eating lots of tasty foods and laying in my air conditioned house watching On Demand cable :) I did miss the joys of America so so much! But in all seriousness, I really have been spending a lot of time thinking about my experiences, thinking about what I learned and what I saw. So I just wanted to share some of those things with you, kind of a brief overview of what God taught me over the last 2 months!

One of the things God was shoving in my face and forcing me to realize, whether I wanted to or not, the entire time I was in Kenya was how faithful He is....always....no matter where I am. He's always there for me, leading me through my ridiculous life on earth, showing me that He knows better than I do, but that He's also looking out for me and making sure I don't screw things up too badly for myself :) He also taught me a lot about joy and what it means to be content no matter what my circumstances are. These two things kind of went hand in hand a lot this summer. To be honest, I went through a lot in 2 months...more ridiculous things happened to me in those 2 months than in 3 years of living in the States. In 8 weeks I sprained my ankle (and had to walk on it for the next 6 weeks!), got crazy sick at least twice (and got less than crazy sick countless times), found out my sister was getting divorced, chipped my tooth, was broken up with, got an infection in my chipped tooth, was in crazy pain for 2 weeks, and then found out I needed a root canal as soon as I got home. Oh and then I had a sinus infection during our safari and plane ride back. Sometimes I felt like God was just throwing things at me to see what I could handle and was probably laughing at me a good bit along the way (in a loving, "laughing with you" kind of way, of course). 

Needless to say, there were more than enough opportunities for me to feel discouraged, sad, and super angry. But I didn't. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I handled everything this summer with complete maturity and understanding, I definitely had my low moments, but God was with me through all of them. Every time something happened He used it to teach me about myself, about Him, and about life in general. Despite all that happened, I've never felt more joy in my entire life than I did while I was in Kenya. Not happiness necessarily, but joy. I was content. And I know for a fact those feelings came straight from God because there's no way I could manufacture those feelings while everything was happening. It was really amazing to realize that God had a hand in everything and that He was using my situation to make me better, to make me grow. God made Himself more apparent to me during those times than ever before. What was even more amazing was that I had no one but Him to rely on through that. I was thousands of miles away from my closest friends, my family, the people I would normally talk to when things went wrong--which forced me to rely on God for comfort. And I'm so glad I did because He taught me that He has more answers and is more comforting than all of my family and friends combined (sorry guys, you're all still great, though). I learned that He should always be the first one I turn to, no matter what happens. It's so easy to forget that when you have amazing people around you.

One of the other things I really began to understand this summer was how awful and selfish I am. I also realized what an insanely huge task it is to try and fix myself and make myself into who God wants me to be, who God made me to be. I literally could not do it. I am way beyond the point of fixing myself, we all are. I think that is honestly one of the things that has kept me from really trying to grow in the past, just the overwhelming notion of how much work it would take. But what I learned this summer is that I don't have to do it, I can't fix myself. But God can and He wants to, I just have to let Him. It seems so crazy when you think about it, I know I'm ridiculously selfish so I'm going focus on myself more to try and fix myself. You're basically just feeding your own problem. If I'm going to allow myself to be fixed or to grow I can't focus on myself, I need to focus on God and on other people, on serving and loving them, and God will do the rest. I think this is one of my favorite lessons I learned this summer. When I first began to understand it, it was like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I don't have to try to fix myself, because I know I would fail miserably if it was up to me. But God won't fail, God can't fail. I just have to leave it up to Him, give myself over to Him, and He will make me into the person He needs me to be in order to serve Him in the best way possible. 

Ok one last thing I learned this summer...I mean I learned 1,000 other things, but this is the last one I'll mention for now :) During our debriefing time they talked a lot about how it would be easy for us to get bitter toward  consumer-focused American culture after seeing so much poverty and brokenness in the slums. And a lot of people admitted that they were already having a hard time adjusting back....but for me, it was almost the opposite. I guess a lot of people come back and focus on the intense poverty of the slums, which is totally understandable---but for me, being in the slums made me actually feel worse for Americans. The people in Mathare Valley have literally nothing and they survive in really awful conditions, but they know they have nothing, they know they have to trust God to provide their next meal or keep them from getting a disease from the sewage that runs in front of their shack. They have more hope and faith than I can even fathom. People in America have none of that. We all have this false sense of security, this idea that we don't need God, He's like a Magic Bullet...you know, those weird blender things they have infomercials about at 3 am? He's not necessary to us. Sure He's a fun extra in life, He makes some great salsa and He proves to be very useful when we decide we want to use Him, but if your mom accidentally sold Him at a garage sale, your everyday life wouldn't really be any different. You could still chop up your own tomatoes need be. God's not like that in Mathare. He's more like oxygen. You literally need Him to survive. He's all you have, all you need. You could survive without anything except for Him. 

Seeing how much joy and faith and hope the Kenyans had just broke my heart for America. So many people go through their entire lives without ever experiencing real love or joy or completeness. People don't even know what real, pure, sacrificing love looks like and that kills me because I get to experience it every day, in 1,000 different ways. Spending 2 months in Kenya didn't make me want to criticize Americans for how they live, it made me want to show them love and acceptance and value. It made me want to share what I have with those who need it the most. So my point is...I learned that I don't necessarily want to be an overseas missionary. At least not yet, although I'm not ruling it out completely for the future. But for now, I learned that America is just as much of a missions field. People need Christ just as much here, if not more so. They aren't living in physical poverty, but they are very much living in emotional and spiritual poverty. And they need missionaries too. 

Ok one more thing I realized in Kenya (Sorry... I'll keep this short, I realize this is ridiculously long...but it kind of relates to that last bit, so I can't really leave it out now can I? Feel free to take a break, get a snack, take a nap, do whatever you need to do) is that we all have an immense power to affect other people in our everyday lives. Every time you interact with someone you leave an impression. You have the power to make or break a person's day every single time you interact with them. It's kind of a scary thought, to be honest. I don't like thinking that I have that much power over anyone else....but I do..and so does everyone. I mean, how many times has your day ever been made or broken by someone else's actions? Whether someone at the grocery store is super nice to you and makes you feel better about an awful day at work, or whether someone cuts you off in traffic and puts you in a bad mood for the rest of the night....we affect everyone we come into contact with. I never before understood the intensity of that...but it really is powerful. We have the ability to show people, every day, in every situation, that Christ loves them and that there is a real, pure, unconditional love out there for them to experience. It's a lot of responsibility to carry around....and it's scary....especially for someone like me who tends to be so self-centered that I forget there are even other people around me half the time. But it's reality, every time you interact with someone you change their world, even if it's just a little bit. That's one thing that I learned and won't be able to forget...no matter how much I might try :)