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All Things Work for the Good |
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Monday, 01 June 2009 19:28 |
After 23 years, I finally made it back to Kenya. As many of you know, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer at Kagonye Secondary School in Kenya, East Africa from 1983 to 1986. The time I spent in Kenya were three of the most formative years of my life, more than going to the Virginia Military Institute or serving as an Infantry Office in the Army. It was in Kenya that I finally discovered what some of my gifts are, and it was in Kenya that I finally gave my life to Jesus Christ and became an unabashed born again Christian. Becoming a Presbyterian didn’t happen until five year later, but it was in Kenya that I finally realized how I was struggling in the Slough of Despond and how only Hope in Jesus Christ was finally able to pull me out. However, even though I became a Christian in Kenya, my departure from Kenya was abrupt and unceremonious.
After staying for a third year as a volunteer, I was really pleased with what I had accomplished while at Kagonye. In conjunction with the Headmaster, we had gathered the funds to build a dormitory, library, laboratory, and 50,000 liter water cistern, as well as a tree nursery that supplied over 10,000 seedlings every year. However, I was ready to do something different, and just about the time I began wondering what I would do after I left Kenya, an opportunity came that would allow me to stay. I was offered a one year contract as a cross-cultural coordinator for all incoming Peace Corps Volunteers, which I readily accepted. I would sign the contract on the 2nd of January 1987 and by all accounts serve for a year or two, save some money, and I would then be set upon a career track that really excited me. God definitely seemed good at that time. However, a few days before the New Year, the director of the training group irritated, aggravated, annoyed, or just didn’t somehow kowtow to the brand new assistant Peace Corps director for Kenya, who then promptly fired the director and everyone who was a non-Kenyan on staff, and announced that anyone the ex-director had offered a job to was also blacklisted for the duration of eternity. That included me. So, at one moment I thought I had the world by the tail, and the next moment, I felt kicked in the exact same place. I had less than a week to make preparations to leave Kenya, with no fanfare. The teachers and students at my school were all dispersed on holiday, so I left Kagonye, thinking that I would never see it again.
However, after 23 years, I stood at the entrance of my old house in Kagonye and was amazed at the incredible changes that had taken place. The school had grown to the point that they were building a computer and library building, and were intent on also building a new dormitory to supplement the old one built 23 years before. The teachers were all supplied by the government, which had not been the case when I had first arrived. The students were eager to do well on the national exams, and the previous year, three students received full scholarships to university, while six others qualified for university if they could raise the funds. This was also a long cry from where the school was when I started teaching there. What really amazed me was that the school, from the parents, to the teachers, to the students knew who I was and what I had done while there. They kept talking about the legacy I had left, and they presented me with a gift of appreciation. In many ways, it was the celebration I had missed 23 years before.
The experience was overwhelming, but it made me think about how Solomon said; “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
Just as it had been time for me to come back to Kenya, 23 years before, it had been my time to leave. The Christian journey that God had set me on had in many ways brought me full circle so that I could now come back to Kenya as a mature Christian, receiving and hopefully giving much more than just the things I left at Kagonye, because now I could leave my testimony of faith and the witness of my life, which I hope does reveal Christ. Once again, it brings to realization that “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) I am sure that over the next month or so, I will reflect more on my newest Kenyan experiences, but for now, I feel blessed that in God’s time, He brought me back to Kenya to see the progress, the changes, and the opportunity to share my faith, and to bring to full circle the time I spent at Kagonye.
In Christ,
Pastor Bob
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