Most wonderful phone conversation - caring, loving, giving people
I was going to post about the sermon I gave Sun. or that I'm celebrating my 60th birthday, but talking on the phone to Susan tonight was like the best birthday present I could think of. (No offense to those of you who have given me wonderful times & thoughtful gifts.)
Susan told me a story of people who have little sense of the individual and little care for themselves, but much caring for others. They want to love and give to others - to help orphan children with no pretense of our western society. The many children they have are their children and they don't differentiate between the ones that were born to them and those that they found on the streets. They have a strong desire to be a part of a larger and larger community and to spread joy and love. But they live in a country that is divided by tribes that don't speak to each other. So when they found a religion that accepted all kinds of people, they wanted to be part of that and they wanted to spread it wide in the hope that some day all of Kenya can be united and happy together.
I never met Susan and we never spoke before tonight. I knew of her, because she's a Unitarian Universalist minister who traveled to Kenya. We have a mutual friend whom I met on Facebook a couple years ago, Kevin. Kevin's brother-in-law, Patrick, who is ~80, whereas Kevin is maybe in his early 30s, first found Unitarian Universalism many years ago and created well over a hundred congregations. Kevin has a few congregations. I created a web site for one of the congregations, Ruai Unitarian Universalist Church which also mentions the Tasia congregation. Susan understands more about which is which and who is involved in what congregation as she also met other congregational ministers (they're not official UUA ministers, of course, but certainly are ministering). She wrote a blog about her journey here.
Children at church in Kenya
Photo by Leon Nyongesa of Nairobi, Kenya
They live in Nairobi, which is a large sprawling city, and they live in the poorest part - no electricity, no water in homes. Kevin's house is one small room and he is an entrepreneur, starting many businesses in order to give the people jobs, and loaning people money to start their own businesses. But Kevin does not want a bigger house or more things. He wants to help the orphans and create more schools. He wants to teach them gender equality, AIDS prevention, and many other things that are not generally taught there. Besides getting the young adults to graduate, but a test is required and it costs $40 per person to take a test to graduate from high school, which is a lot of money to them.
I don't know how it is going to happen, but Kevin has planned a FUNDRAISER for TODAY! Can you help? See what they need HERE. As you know, every little bit helps. They accept PayPal.
Susan says she would trust them to buy what they say they need with donated funds or if people wanted to order things for them in stores in Kenya, there are American companies in Nairobi where you can purchase what they need and they can pick it up. They have large luxurious malls for white people since Kenya is a British colony and tourists go there to see the beautiful animals there that can only be seen in zoos here.
Photo by Leon Nyongesa of Nairobi, Kenya
Learn more about Kevin's congregations - check out their photos from their Facebook page - see their videos. You might notice they also have businesses with products you can buy. We haven't figured out how much the shipping will cost, though, but keep watch because we'll figure that out soon.
NOTE: Read more in comments.