• Events Schedule
• Small Groups
• Missions
• Alpha

• Amazon
• India

• Bolivia
• Kenya
• Uganda

• Richmond

Slums to Safari

Steph Modder

Not quite sure how to express the diversity of the past couple days.  This was an all encompassing diversity of locale, demographic, landscape, travel methods, emotional status, accomodations, cuisine, and revelation. Let me try to give a brief synopsis. (This is Steph though, remember… there are no guarantees).

Wednesday we were walking hand-in-hand with poverty striken children through garbage and waste littered dirt paths taking them from school to the few pieces of rotten lumber and scrap metal they call home where a single mom weak with symptoms of HIV or a familiy of six was there to greet us and welcome us in.  Thursday we were lifting off the ground in an airplane, crossing the Rift Valley to the Maasai Mara where we were greeted by Baboons, Warthogs (Pumba) and the friendliest staff at Kichwa Tembo (Head of Elephant) Lodge. 

We went from trying our best to serve what most would consider “the least of these” (at least in terms of physical conditions the heart condition, however, is usually inversely porportional...thats a whole other post) to being served and treated like rock stars (a cold beverage upon arrival, tea and coffee before safari, hot water bottles placed between our sheets, room service (or tent service in this case), amazingly ridiculous meals that would make any buffet in the states look like a trough… the list of ridiculousness goes on.  I have to admit enjoying these blessing sometimes felt like a heap of guilt coals on my head.  As I sat and ate dinner my all-you-can-eat three course dinner it didn’t take long for me to remember the flawless faces of Josephine or Gavi who had no idea when they might eat next.  As I lay in my warm bed with two fluffed pillows and a hot water bottle warming my toes I thought of the hard, raw ground the babies had as a bed if they could fend off the hunger pangs long enough to actually sleep.

In all honesty, I’m not sure what to do with all the diversity of emotion that I experienced… and I’m assuming most of us experienced. Really I have more questions than answers. How do you or should you even try to reconcile operating simultaneously in these two environments that are on opposite sides of the spectrum from each other? How far do you take the “doing for the least of these” passage? Should I be able to enjoy luxuries and being served if I am truly taking in the gravity and pain that is the life of these little friends I met the day before?

The tension is that I know God is a generous God. I think where it gets difficult is that in my Western mindset saying God is generous evokes thoughts of monetary, professional, or circumstantial blessing.  So I wonder then why I get to expeience those things when these kids haven’t even a twinge of any sort of blessing in those areas?  That thought is then coupled with the realization that the humble, dirty homes we were invited into were full of gratitude unequaled by most people I encounter day to day.  Circumstances, though bleak, didn’t seem to completely kill hope and the ability to see that the few things they did have were a blessing.  I don’t know. This really is all just me processing out loud with you guys reading this.  I think this is a common missions trip experience. Especially when the missions trip is to a developing country. Everything is foreign. The landscape is foreign, the food is foreign, the people are foreign and the emotions that accompany them all are foreign. 

We have two days left here.  We need to make the most of them. We all are going to need a lot of time to process everything.  This has been a heavy and yet completely enlightening experience. Each day brought a new level of thought, emotion and revelation.  To bring it back to the roots of things (this one’s for you PM), I think some new lions have been spotted and they need to be chased and some lions have literally been chased and I’m still alive with all my limbs in tact.

Commentary