| Email: Blair Moorhead
YAV year continued
Greetings from Nairobi! I have been back in Kenya now for three weeks, part of the three-month extension tacked on to my year-long YAV placement. The reason I am still in Kenya is to continue work on the All Africa Conference of Churches’ 9th General Assembly preparations, so 12 hours after I landed in Nairobi I was back in the office doing just that! I went back to the United States for three weeks to touch base with my family and church family before embarking on the three-month mad dash towards the Assembly. While I was in the States, I caught up on all the new family members (I missed a wedding and a baby) and my church graciously raised a third of the YAV costs incurred by staying in Kenya. Only $1,000 more to go!
Since I have been back, Assembly work has meant writing funding proposals, getting trained on a conference-planning database used at the Olympics, and sending reminder emails galore. The Olympic database is a tool that will help us gather all the names of the delegates coming to Maputo so we can point them to their workshop on climate change or tell them where the interfaith session is taking place at the click of a button. At the database training, the six of us huddled around one projector came from three different continents. During the part of the session where we learned how to enter in our delegates’ mother tongues, we had about five different linguistic backgrounds. From such a small and potentially mundane part of the work day, I was able to smile and think—this is why I am back at the AACC.
The diversity that you could not avoid even if you tried is one of the most exciting parts of this job. A week after the database training, I attended an AACC dinner and sat next to a communications officer from Lesotho (one of those small, small countries found inside South Africa) and a man who works for the Kenyan Ministry of Youth. Oh, and there was a Swede at the far end of our table too. These small examples of coming together are at the heart of ecumenism, the gathering of people from all across the Christian family and all across the earth! The function that is bringing us together may be labeled a conference on the effectiveness of foreign aid, but the true focus of each meeting is celebrating God’s love and seeing how best to act on this love in global society today.
Not only was returning to the international experiences of a continental organization been welcome, but catching up with friends is always a blessing too. If I wasn’t depositing flannel sheets with my host mother (can you believe they don’t sell those in Nairobi?) I was having a girls’ night with the ladies from my church. The last two weeks have been full and blessed. One of the more unexpected catching-up moments came when I went with a friend to a book launch last week. I was mostly excited for the opportunity to see what a book launch was and get out of the house on a week night (woohoo!), but the highlight turned out to be the Kenyan Prime Minister’s wife delivering the soiree’s keynote address. She was accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister, and all the dignitaries plus the free sodas and samosas were nearly too much for me to handle. I thought I was coming back to Nairobi to work with the Assembly, but really it was to mingle with top government officials.
Almost as exciting as rubbing elbows with famous people has been meeting the new flock of YAVs in Kenya (almost as exciting). Their enthusiasm and unbridled positivity looking forward to a year of new experiences of culture and spirituality was also personally invigorating. Going home for such a brief time then being thrown back into the busy work environment and different culture of Nairobi had its difficult moments, but reliving the excitement of first days in Kenya helped make the transition experience even more positive. I am indeed so happy to be back in Nairobi and so grateful for the opportunity to continue such a meaningful program.
Blair Moorhead |
