GIVING CHEERFULLY IN KENYA Tuesday, April 5
2 Corinthians 9:7: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver We have often heard, and probably repeated the scripture, “God loves a cheerful giver.” I know I have repeated it, especially to my children when I was trying to teach them to live Godly lives (and, let’s be honest, learning to help with chores at home!) This scripture came in clearly to me when I was volunteering in Kenya. I was a volunteer on 4 visits to a rural island community in Kenya, along Lake Victoria. It was a poor fishing village, no paved roads, no personal cars. Sometimes there was an old pick-up truck but mostly people got around with old motor bikes, bicycles, or walking. Food was not plentiful. People got by with a little corn, tomatoes, and not much else; meat was only for special occasions. For the women, getting fish was a dangerous proposition. As the women went to the fishing village, the “brown bag men” as they were called because they carried their belongings in brown paper bags, had special arrangements made. “You want fish? Behind the bush first.” The women were forced to trade their bodies for food to feed their families. High school girls traded their bodies for sanitary supplies or money. Women’s health and education was not a priority there. Enter the non-profit I worked with. Our focus was three-fold. Women and babies’ health, pregnancy prevention for high school girls, and small business opportunities for women. As the saying goes, “If you educate a woman, you educate a family; if you educate a girl, you educate the future” -Queen Rania of Jordan. As a teacher, the education part was my forte. However, we had a very strong association with the doctors there and did training on such basic things as prenatal health and delivering healthy babies. We even taught suctioning of nasal passageways and airways to help babies breathe. The director of our group always asked, “ If we have a call in the middle of the night for a birth, do you want to go?” I always said no. I had delivered four of my own and frankly, I preferred to sleep. One night, a local doctor was not available and our team had a labor and delivery nurse. She needed help, so this time, I went to the “ hospital” with them. It was a bare room in a bare building with no electricity and no lights. The only available light was an oil lamp one of us held up near the birth canal. Water was in a tin basin nearby and blankets came from us. One of us stood near the mother’s head and whispered encouragement or wiped her brow. This is the job I wanted. In a cosmic twist of fate, because of my experience, I was given the job to stand by the nurse and wipe away fecal material as the mother expelled it. As I frowned upon this assignment, I thought back to the scripture, “God loves a cheerful giver.” I volunteered in Kenya, cheerfully, because I wanted to offer God’s love and hope to these people. I reflected that Jesus sat by the lepers and the poor and the unclean. Who was I to say, “I only want to hold the mother’s hand or cradle the newborn?” So, my job, as distasteful as I thought it would be, was necessary for the nurse to do her job and the baby to be born in as clean an environment as possible. One swipe of that towel and it just became part of nature. By the way, there is a little girl in Rusinga Island, Kenya named Marilyn. I pray that she is full of love and chooses to live a life of hope! Lord, help us to choose to give cheerfully in everything we do. Amen Marilyn Watson 41
