Well, February is coming up again. It’s going to be two years since my husband and I first went to Africa and began to have our lives transformed by the people there. In a few months, I’ll be traveling back to Africa with Global Hope once more! This will be my third trip with them and this time…

…you are invited!

Yes, this time some of the people who sponsor “our” villages Ola Nagele in Kenya and Garmaam in Ethiopia will be representing the rest of the extended village (100 people sponsor each village, you may recall) as they visit Garmaam and the cluster of villages near there with me. We’ll only be going to Ethiopia this time.

And it looks like there will be room for a few of you, too!

We’re looking for adventurous, passionate people to come check out the work we are doing in East Africa, meet and spend time with the villagers there and share about their experiences while we’re there! Global Hope is a small humanitarian organization without a religious affiliation. They work with the world’s most forgotten people groups and help them learn to transform themselves, getting water for their village, education for their children, dignified means of earning an income for their families and more.

I would love to have some of you be a part of February’s trip!

The trip to Ethiopia will be ten days long. We will depart on Thursday, February 23 and return on Saturday, March 3. The trip will cost an all inclusive price of $1350 (less if more than seven people end up coming!), which includes all ground transportation, food, lodging…everything we’ll need while we’re there unless you decide to get some Ethiopian wood carvings or bracelets from the villagers as souvenirs. In addition, you’ll also be responsible for airfare to Ethiopia. Airfare there in February is much less expensive than in the spring, summer or fall.

If you would be interested in this experience with me, my Global Hope friends who will lead our trip and members of this awesome MckMama community, speak up!! You can read more details and hear about the purpose of the Compassion Trip to Ethiopia (it’s the one labeled Dire Dawa cluster) right here this weekend (the trips notes and application should be up on the website by then), and you may email me at contact.mckmama (at) gmail.com or my Global Hope friend Jonathan at jonathan.ahlschwede (at) ghni.org if you want to let us know you’re interested or have questions!

February is coming up fast, so this is all going to be getting nailed down soon. I hope you might consider making the journey! I am so passionate about this continent, the work Global Hope does there and about my friends there. I will be honored to share the experience with some of you.

If I push rewind on my experiences in Africa so far, the trip I’m on being my third, and try to remember the questions I had about the women and their way of life here, I land on a few of them. Of course, after being here, I have gobzillions more. But my initial questions at least now I have arrived at reasonably satisfying answers to. Since many of you have not been to Africa and have asked me about the women here, I thought I would ask aloud some of the questions I had before I ever came. And then of course I’ll answer them to the best of my knowledge so far.

The variety of people, tribes, clans, living arrangements and housing types in Kenya are many. I will mostly stick in this discussion with the village of Ola Nagele, located just outside of the town of Isiolo, in the dry north central part of the country.

What kinds of homes do families live in?

In Ola Nagele, most of the homes are made of a wood (“timber” as they call lumber) frame. The roofs I saw were usually made of tin. As they are close to town, such supplies are available.

This is the inside of my friend Mirijam’s house. It is, by all standards, one of the much, much nicer interiors in the Ola Nagele homes. Wubshet, an Ethiopian national who works with GHNI, having devoted his life with his wife Habiba to working alongside poor villages in Kenya, described Mirijam’s house as “very modern.”

Her floors are dirt, and she swept them before tea. See her sweeping?

Afterwords, she sprinkled a little bit of water on the floors to make them less dusty. Some of the women who have been educated about health and wellness a little also sprinkle a chemical on the ground near the edges of the floors to keep fleas away. If that isn’t done, the children (who usually sleep on the floor next to their parents’ bed or mat) can easily get fleas in their skin, causing infectious bumps.

Wubshet and Habiba live in Isiolo itself, in a very nice house owned by an American missionary friend of Wubshet’s. The homes in the center of Isiolo have walls around them with giant metal gates that stay locked. I snapped this photograph of Habiba and Wubshet washing up after dinner the other day, baby Abraham on his mama’s back.

As you might remember, housing in Shambani is different as well. Most of those people, of the Turkana tribe, sleep in round huts made of bent sticks and mud. They look exactly (to me, at least) like the kitchens in Ola Nagele. A fire pit, rudimentary supplies and some pots for cooking are inside.

And then there are the nomadic camel herders, always men, who don’t have homes at all. Rather, they sleep under a tree at night, many of them using a wooden headrest about ten inches tall as a pillow. My dad bought one while we were here, actually. A wooden headrest, not a nomadic camel herder.

Are the men involved in family life?

To my knowledge, no they really aren’t. I have met many African women and many African men, but never have I met a specific husband that goes with a specific wife in one of the villages. Mirijam’s husband’s 18 year old son, who lives with Mirijam and her family, told me that his “father is not around.” The men do build the homes for their families in Ola Nagele, though, and try to find daily work to bring home a little bit of money. It’s possible that Mirijam’s husband has found work in another area of Kenya, although that’s only a guess.

How do the villagers get around within the village and to town?

They walk. Everywhere. It isn’t common in Kenya to ride camels (in some places in Africa it apparently is), and I’ve never seen anyone on any kind of animal at all. One of my Ola Nagele friends, Kala, has a pair of Keens that he said a European traveler left with him a year ago. Amazingly enough, especially if you know anything about that brand of shoes, he had completely worn them out. He still had them on, although the sole of the shoe was more than 30% worn away completely. That, my friend, is a lot of walking.

What do the women do all day?

From what I have seen, the women are working all day long. Picking up eggs, breastfeeding, shooing away goats, carrying babies (it seems as if all babies two years old and younger spend a lot of time on their mama’s backs), patching up their homes or kitchens, cooking, walking to town to sell eggs, walking back, walking to get water, walking back. They cook in their kitchens, little huts nearly every family has on the same plot as their home. Here is Mirijam’s:

What do the children do all day?

Some of the fortunate ones walk to school, if there is a school in their village or a town nearby. In Ola Nagele, the children who attend school walk two hours to get there, except for the children who are deaf (Ola Nagele has many), as that school is just outside the village. Seeing children, even elementary aged ones, in dusty, torn school uniforms walking home right on the side of a busy road is a common sight. The children who are too young to go to school, or don’t because their parents cannot afford the uniform or because there isn’t a school anywhere nearby, just hang out around the village.

After beans for their one meal that day, children might spend time playing with homemade (out of string and twine) soccer balls, push toys made of a piece of wood with a nail and a plastic peanut butter jar lid, the tape from inside of a cassette they found somewhere (I saw this the other day) or some chalk. The children show imaginations for play that know no bounds. As they get older, chidden help their mothers carry water (always in yellow plastic jugs).

Mirijam was very interested in my life, too. She asked lots of questions about my children, and I ended up giving her this photograph of them:

Where do the villagers give birth?

Right in their homes or under a nearby tree.

It ha been with extreme fascination and awe that I have learned a little bit about how women and their families live in Kenya, especially in the poorer villages. The amount of admiration I have for the mothers like Mirijam that I met, who didn’t utter a grumble or complaint to me even once about how hard their lives are, would be impossible for me to fully express here.

Suffice it to say, life is hard in Africa and the women especially? They rock.

Years ago when I first took my first missions trip overseas, I heard it. Whenever I have friends who travel to help others or spread awareness, it comes up. And each time I come to Africa, someones asks it of me.

“Why spend all that money to travel to the poor? Wouldn’t it be better to just give that amount of money to those people for things they need?”

My answer then, now and from here on out is always going to be: “No. It wouldn’t.”

The reason it’s not better to send funds than to go to someone yourself is simple: To just throw money at a need is to say that money is the solution, that money is what matters. However, my friends, I have learned that nothing could be further from the truth. The opposite is actually true: Money is not the solution; money is not what matters.

By coming all the way to someone with a need, we send a message loud and clear to the friends we’ve come to love on. We tell them that they are what matters. Of course, of course, money can be a means to a very important end. Money can dig wells and buy food. And while sustainable development in Africa that the villagers themselves work on and take ownership of is vital, much moreso than aid (Oh, dear, I should probably not even get started on how aid from other nations has actually broken Africa’s back instead of helping.), when someone is in a crisis mode like the hundreds of people walking south from Somalia every day to find water are, meeting a tangible need is of life or death importance. But the entire drought crisis that the Horn of Africa is facing cannot be solved with money. Therefore, to assert that just sending money is the answer, or is the most efficient way to help, is foolishness. Donating money, even if one can never travel to see the people they are helping, is wonderful way to help out those in need, though. Be it through monthly sponsorship of a Compassion child, donating money to the Red Cross, or becoming a part of one of Global Hope’s extended villages, financial support through non-government organizations actually bringing water to the thirsty is key.

It’s just that it’s not the only key. Or, by a long shot, the biggest one.

The biggest key is love.

Love is all you need, as the song says. Naturally, love doesn’t fill a tummy or quench a thirst. That is why on this trip to Africa, we loved Ola Nagele by getting more water to their village and checked on Gambella’s drip irrigation system for watering crops. And coming in person has been good for all of us, those on our teams and the Africans we are growing to love more and more. The villagers all but insist that they welcome us each time with a dance, and Gambella alone slaughtered two goats on our behalves, as did Bules Dima. To turn the invitations to those celebrations down would be a great dishonor, as welcoming visitors that way is very important in the African culture. And this all reminded me of an important fact: More than anything, and I have heard this time and time again from so many people who work in developing nations, the people there just want us to come. They don’t need another gigantic organization to swoop in without a word and build a school or create a diesel powered well pump that will break in a few months and, even if it doesn’t, will run out of diesel and then sit useless as the villages can’t afford more (Yes, we saw this. Time and time again.). They don’t need someone to pop in, play games with their kids, take photographs and then leave, never to be heard from again. They want us to come. To love them. To have relationship with them. To care for them. To listen to their needs, their struggles. To share their joys, their hopes. To come.

It is important to them, just like it was important to me when my Daddy came to visit me in college, helping me build my IKEA bed, watching me play soccer on Saturday, telling me how proud he was of me. Sure, the $72 he spent in gas driving up and on groceries for me on Sunday afternoon could have been used instead for me to buy even more groceries to fill my dorm cupboards. But the visit from Dad plus his help? Way, way, way better. I knew he cared. Was proud of me. Missed me. Wanted to see me, even if it meant sacrificing a weekend of his time and a few tanks of gas. That is what the Africans want from us, in whatever ways are possible for us. Maybe it’s letters to our sponsored children, a one time financial donation, a video email of your family singing Merry Christmas to your home church’s sister church, an actual visit to Africa or a literal cup of water.

And I know I’ll hear this, “But not help those in our own backyards? They need help!”

The answer to this is simple, too. Yes, there are many in our own backyards who need help as well. But I’ll never truly understand this argument in the first place, for the very nature of this question implies that it’s an either/or issue. It definitely isn’t. The answer is plainly, “Yes, let’s help those in our own backyards. Yes, let’s help our neighbors who live far away. Let’s do them both!” Better yet, let’s stop segregating our neighbors into groups based on where they live in the first place. Every human being on this planet is a neighbor of mine and yours. It does not matter one lick where they live. My dad says that no matter where you go in the world, if you throw a rock, you’ll hit a need. It isn’t important what that need is or where it is, what is important is that we try to meet the needs of those that we happen to hit in our lives.

So instead of focusing on who needs help more, arguing about if money should be given for food for Ethiopians or water for Kenyans, disagreeing about the airfare that short term missions trip takers spend vs. what one thinks that money could be used for, complaining about the manner in which I am currently loving my African neighbors, what if we all focused on love?

Loving our neighbors.

Will you take a moment today and think about what that means to you?

It’s amazing what a little love can do. And $12 a month. Having only just started sponsoring Ola Nagele here in Kenya last February with a bunch of you generous readers, sometimes I can only imagine the difference that will be wrought in this little girl’s village during the next few years.

Of course, some of the tangibles are already there: There is a fresh water tank in the village now. Yesterday, a second ditch was dug and pipe laid to an area where a second tank will be placed. And more will certainly come. A school someday, perhaps? In the meantime, a means of getting water for irrigation and maybe a borehole (for more consistent fresh water) may be in Ola Nagele’s future, as well as some chicken coops the women plan to build in the very near future with some of the money from their Global Hope sponsors.

One thing is for sure, seeing Gambella, one of the villages in the Isiolo cluster of four villages Global Hope is helping in this area, is so encouraging. Gambella is nearly done with Global Hope’s help, having pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and done amazing things in the past couple of years. Matt and Mary, the two people who gathered sponsorships for Gambella the way that I did with Ola Nagele and Garmaam, are on this trip with me in Africa this week. Watching them see, serve and most importantly, love “their” village makes me excited for my own family’s future with loving Ola Nagele and Garmaam, “our” villages.

And there are more things that excite me. Where there was once just a dusty patch of dry ground, there is now a school.

Where there were once young minds thirsty for knowledge, there is now a chalk sign reminding children they can achieve their aspirations.

Back in Ola Nagele, Ramadan laughs. He reminded me today that I visited his house yesterday. “Yes, I remember, Ramadan!” I have told him of my friends back home who want his village to thrive and succeed, to have fresh water, schools, a place for their chickens to stay and hopefully someday some crops.

With love and support, I know Ola Nagele will do it. They will rise above their circumstances. Being with them this week has made me all the more sure. On one of my future visits here, I hope to see a teacher’s roster stapled to the door of a classroom like there is in Gambella. If they spell roster “rooster” it will be all that much more charming!

If I didn’t before (although on a beginning level, I definitely did), I for sure now do believe in the work Global Hope does in developing villages. Giving them a hand up, not a hand out. I’m so thankful to be able to help Ola Nagele a little bit. I wanted you to know that most of the 100 spaces for being in Ola Nagele’s extended village and supporting them at $12 a month are still taken, but a couple have opened up since February. If you would like to show your love to Ola Nagele in that way, you can join the village right here. It’s a small commitment to a group of people living in a very difficult area of the world who have chosen to be committed to their own village’s growth and development.

I believe that one time when I return to Ola Nagele, this family kitchen will be full of fruits and vegetables grown in the village and not sitting empty while a family goes hungry.

Gambella has turned their aspirations into achievements; so can Ola Nagele.

Yesterday, our entire team visited Ola Nagele, the village my family sponsors along with nearly 100 of you. The men dug another huge trench for more water pipe so another clan in the village can have water in their area. (It’s a big village!) A few days earlier, though, the women of Ola Nagele, which is only a few kilometers outside of the desert town of Isiolo, Kenya, invited me to come and meet with them.

I gladly accepted and spent a delightful afternoon with about 40 beautiful women, many of whom were familiar to me from last February and vice versa. They all call me by my Borano name, Kabale, that they gave me last time. It will forever be the name they call me by. They remembered my children from last time, too and loved looking at more photographs of them. Hearing African women say “Lachlan” is about the cutest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.

The women danced for me first, and then we sat down to a meeting under an acacia tree. It’s a thorny one, the stereotypical “African tree,” the type that giraffes eat off of. I was able to address the women with encouraging thoughts, challenges, words of thankfulness and an introduction of the many “friends of mine back in America” who are helping their village out. They also addressed me, sharing about some of the things they are accomplishing in their village and about some of the struggles they are facing.

These women are a force to be reckoned with, and I truly believe they are changing the village of Ola Nagele forever. I told them over and over how beautiful and strong they were, and they just laughed and covered their faces with their hands.

Near the end of our meeting, the women asked me a few questions. “Most of the Europeans and Americans only have two or so children. Why do you have five like us?” (“Maybe I am African, too!”) “I am 49, and my back is always hurting. Do you think it’s because of sickness, because I have five children, or because of my age?” (“Oh, man, I really don’t know. It could be a combination of those things. I’m really sorry your back hurts.”) “Will you come back again?” (“Yes!”) “Who is caring for your children?” (“My husband!”) And so on and so forth.

I didn’t feel as much like a visitor in their village the other day and even less like one today. They don’t feel like unknown African women to me anymore, either. They are very quickly starting to feel like friends. Mirijam, Diri, Nadjima.

And this afternoon I was invited into one of their homes. What a breathtakingly special opportunity to connect personally with a few new friends that I was so grateful for. I’ll share more about that soon. But not too soon, because the President of Kenya is coming to Isiolo to speak at a public square in town. Because of his visit, all roads will be shut down in the area. Also, the internet will be turned off for the day and no cell phone service will be available at all.

But there will still be plenty of friendships to be strengthened, adorable faces to see, difficult facts to face, strong women to be inspired by and much more of Africa to love. Goodnight, my friends. Or good morning. Or good afternoon, depending on where in the world you are.

These are the children of Gambella Primary School, grades 1 through 8, in front of their new sign on the very last day of the school year. There are well over 100 students enrolled now. Just a couple of years ago, before Global Hope began working alongside Gambella, there was no school, just a few students who met under a tree with a teacher. We are so proud of the work this village has done in a few short years that the least we could do was buy some paint for a school sign for them. It was my dad’s idea. The headmaster loved it. The teachers decided I should do the lettering, so I freehanded the text with chalk and then my dad and Abdi, one of the teachers, helped me when it came time to paint. Yup, painted at Gambella Primary School, giving the students a small, tangible token of my pride in their immense efforts and dedication, in spite of the obstacles they face.

This is what I did yesterday.

The beginnings of what I worked on today.

Can you see it?

I was reading a friend’s blog some time ago, before I’d ever been to Africa, following her travels in developing countries. I was amazed, awed, interested, intrigued…and puzzled. Why did the women wear their hair like that? What kind of food was she you eating? Are the men involved with family life? What do they sleep on? Are the people religious? Why didn’t her group just bring food to the hungry kids? What’s the temperature there? Do siblings care for each other?

(The answer to that, here in Kenya at least, is yes!)

I sure wished I had a way to find out the answers to my burning questions. Maybe you are curious about my trip and the people of Africa, too. Rather than do a post where I share about what I think you want to know, I’m inviting you to ask me directly! Right now, I am right here (just click to join the conversation) chatting for a short while about Africa. Bring your questions, nothing to silly to ask, or just come and watch the chat!

The chat is now over! But to see what everyone asked and what I answered, just click on the link and read away!