A successful trip if…

Before I left the US to go to Nairobi, a good friend asked a great question that I thought often when I was away.  He said, “What is it that you are going to do in Nairobi that will help you know, after the fact, that it has been a successful trip?  That is, if you come back home and have done X then you will be able to say the trip was a success; what is X?”

The first answer that I gave to my friend is still the best answer I can come up, I think.  I said that I’d been praying a lot about the trip and that I really wanted for my kids to experience the world in new ways — so that they had a better sense of how big the world is, how big God’s love is for so many people in the world, how many really big problems there are in the world, and how their own lives might fit into all that.  Jennifer and I initially planned this trip initially a couple of years ago with the kids in mind (and their ages) so that they could have this experience.

Very closely on the heels of the first objective is that I (we) wanted to be helpful to the people of Nairobi — through training, bringing information and supplies, and being encouraging friends.  The third thing was that I also took the trip personally with an eye toward “scouting out” the destination.  I teach International Human Rights to law students and I would love to find very practical ways for the students to become involved in the work of human rights across the world – whether through working in the US in particular ways to help abroad or through travelling to Nairobi (or elsewhere) to learn and participate.

The good thing about asking a question about what will make a trip a success is that if/when it happens you can identify it.  (This is exactly the kind of goal-setting I was teaching in Kenya, actually: namely that unless you set forth a goal or objective, you’ll never know if you reach it and so you’ll never know if you’re really doing what you set out to do!)  It is obvious to me that both of my kids really thought about the world in new ways.  While Natalie talked more about it openly, Benjamin even said to me that while he knew about the poverty and about some of the differences in the world from our conversations he now saw that he had not understood about because he hadn’t been there.  I thought that was a pretty astute observation, and I think he’s right.  But because of the way that the kids got to experience Kenya, they aren’t thinking of Kenyans as somehow fundamentally different from themselves, but simply as friendly people that often have very few physical possessions and a short supply of food but are still basically happy and joy-filled.  As I’ve said before, I’m really glad that the kids think about their friends in Kenya at the same time that they think about poverty in Kenya – that’s all the more motivation to help, and it doesn’t make poverty seem as much of an overwhelming and scary thing but rather something that needs to be dealt with.

The other two objectives were largely met also – though I won’t write about those just now.  But what does bear mentioning is that I had to come to terms with the fact that African culture itself doesn’t like my question!  That is, I’d been told even before I went to Kenya that very much of the culture is built around relationships – and is not task-oriented in the way that I am.  It’s another thing that I really found to be true – even though I “knew” it to be true in advance.  So while my western mindset is to look for things that I will accomplish to see if something has been successful, the Kenyans were more interested in just being friends with me and getting to know me.  Fortunately for me (and my kids!), this coincided beautifully with my primary objective anyway.  So my kids now think of Africa and think about George, Nicholas, Eunice, Florence, Susan, C.J., and many many others.  I, too, leave with many more relationships and friends – with Wambu, Moses, Mbuvi, Jackton, Robin, Millie, Irene, Laurent, Beatrice, Wellington (and I could keep going on and don’t want to offend any by leaving them out!).  This is a good thing – but not exactly the kind of thing that’s “measurable” in the way my task-oriented type-A persona wants it to be.  But I think one of the lessons for me from the trip is that I need to be more content and enjoy the pace and relationships; that’s part of what God intended.  That doesn’t mean that I’ll shy away from wanting the Kenyans to work on their planning, problem-solving, goal-setting, etc., since I think those are critical to their advancement, growth, and leadership-development – but it does mean that I have a better appreciation for trying to balance those with relationships, or (maybe better) being able/willing to build relationship-building itself more explicitly into my goal-setting.

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