Helping Without Hurting Part 1

I am the queen of the quick fix. Whether it has been health, projects, work, house-cleaning, my aim is to do get it done quickly and thoroughly. Unfortunately, these two things are often not mutually exclusive.

I have also been called well-intentioned many a time. I once had a coworker say, after becoming frustrated with me for taking (what I thought was my delegated task) into my own hands: "I've realized, after some reflection, that you're very well-meaning." While I'm glad he saw my heart behind my service, we all know the highway to hell that this habit proverbially builds.

So, what does a compassionate, servant-hearted, typical Robinson want to do when she's thrown in the midst of a developing country, people who continuously tell her they want to come to Canada, and financial problems that seem insurmountable? She listens. And she says things like, "I really hope that happens too. I'm praying for you."

And why, you may ask, does she not immediately dole out cash to every single problem she sees and hears? Because she's reading through a book called, "When Helping Hurts" and she's reflecting on her own brokenness as a white North American and realizing that throwing a quick band-aid fix on others' problems isn't actually going to be part of the solution.

Yes, her skin may crawl, sitting and listening to stories of people who give away everything, go without food, and help those who can't meet their basic needs. But, she's learning something in the process: money has caused far more complex problems around the world when it has been valued as the saviour or thrown at a problem without any research.

Since being in Kenya, there are three things people will commonly say to me: "Welcome to Kenya. My name is ________ and you are very welcome here. I really want to go to Canada." If it doesn't happen in the first three sentences, it comes up in conversation very quickly. I have actually only one friend who has never mentioned this to me and I'm a bit in awe of him for it. I often feel immobilized when hearing this, because my gosh, am I ever aware of what a privilege it is to be able to travel, live, and volunteer overseas. I had absolutely nothing to do with where I was born in the world, the opportunities that have come across my lap, and even this sabbatical offered to me. It is the sheer grace of God that I have had the opportunities I have had and my hope is to be a good steward of them. But, my heart also yearns to create these opportunities for other people.

I want my friends, who live their whole lives serving their local community and giving away what they are blessed with, to be able to travel and see more of the world. I want them to make connections and travel to places where they can tell their stories so that we who have been blessed with material wealth and opportunity can live a little simpler and be part of creating dreams for others. I want my students here to be able to accomplish the dream of seeing other lands and studying overseas. I want my possibilities to be their possibilities. I want my friends who go without food in order to fill other bellies to have enough for themselves and the others they help.

But, I am realizing as I read through "When Helping Hurts" that I have a deeply-ingrained needs-based view of missions and poverty alleviation. According to Corbett and Fikkert, "the goal [of poverty alleviation] is to see people restored to being what God created them to be: people who understand that they are created in the image of God with the gifts, abilities, and capacity to make decisions and to effect change in the world around them; and people who steward their lives, communities, resources, and relationships in order to bring glory to God. These things tend to happen in highly relational, process-focused ministries more than in impersonal product-focused ministries."

I've recently faced the fact that I’m such a product-oriented person. I'm a Robinson, after all. We're hard workers. We're notorious for our work ethics, production, and accomplishments. We pride ourselves in them. Yet, God has drawn me into more relational avenues the last few years, slowly stripping off my obsession with busyness and productivity in order to give me rest and right relationship with Him, myself, and others. In the last two years, it's made me a better, teacher, friend, daughter, sister etc. And, I still have so much to learn. It is, after all, a process.

So, for now, as I pray about what God is teaching me in these 5 months, how He wants me to live back in Canada, and what future role I will have in missions, I'm creating new habits. Instead of going out and buying a new outfit for a newborn, I am crocheting her clothes, making her family a meal, and visiting her in the hospital. Instead of making a monthly commitment to support 5 ministries at a time over here, I'm giving slowly, praying, and asking God how I can continue long-term support and relationship with these ministries. Instead of buying a bunch of new supplies for the school, I'm bringing in a few things that help, but mostly encouraging and building up the teachers in their practice. And, the head teacher is so good at reigning me in and using resources that they already have, in order to put the school’s money toward things we really need.

I am reminded daily of how able, skilled, and hardworking East Africans are. Like I've said in the past, the people at Abba's House take anything they're given and turn it into so much more: their cows give the compound milk and the extra is sold to neighbours; their well not only supplies clean water to them, but also to people in the local community; their land doesn't sit idle, but is used to produce food for the children and provides jobs for locals. With some more time dedicated to building relationships, supporting local teachers and friends as they seek solutions to their problems, and recognizing the assets already readily available in each person I meet, I hope to avoid my default toward paternalism.

Perhaps my greatest contribution to the needs around me can be informing those of you back home of the incredible organizations I have found/have connection with over here. If you’re like me and you’re trying to find a way to be a good steward of your resources or if you want to be involved in global work, whether up close or from afar, may I suggest reading “When Helping Hurts” and praying about what role God is drawing you into first? If you’re interested in researching some incredible organizations, check out the following websites and read about the hearts of those who started them. I dare you not to be moved:

The children’s home I often visit (my home away from home):
http://lovingindeed.com/abbashouse/
The wheelchair distribution I was part of (friends of mine started this organization and I love the advocacy and training they do):
http://fathersheartmobility.org/
This is a friend’s ministry in Uganda. He’s got big plans and passion for his local community.
https://www.acts4uganda.org/

Same Teacher; Slightly Different Classroom

Well, I've just completed my first week of officially teaching in a Kenyan classroom and it seems as though I've experienced a month's worth of activity. Acclimating to a new culture and trying to do something that should be second nature to me now is harder than I expected.

In this week's episode of things that would never happen in Canada: One of the first questions that the students asked me when I met them was if I beat children? I quickly recovered from shock and informed them that we don't discipline that way in Canada. Their eyes seemed to alight with glee when they found out that discipline in my classroom came more in the form of training and talking through a problem. Even the teachers stared aghast at me when I told them that we don't strike children in Canada. "So, how do you punish them?"
"Well, I go over my classroom expectations at the beginning of the year and then I just look at them when they're not following a rule. And I keep looking at them until they change their behaviour. If that doesn't work, we have a private conversation in which I remind them of the class expectations, we discuss the fact that they're not complying, we talk about the root cause of their actions, and then we make a plan to follow the rules. Students know they are not welcome in my classroom if they can't follow the rules and they just usually choose to obey. If they do something that is really damaging to school property or to another student, we work through a program called restorative justice, where they have to make a plan with the teacher for how to right the wrong that they've created. If it's done well, they learn the consequences of actions not only to themselves, but to others."

I watched as their incredulous looks turned into smirks aimed at each other. I could imagine the glaring thought bubbles above their heads, "Sure, Mzungu. You try that for a week and see how well it works here."

And to be honest, I'm not sure yet how it will work here. When an entire system of discipline, family structure, and society is different, I don't know how well another culture's expectations will fit. But, I've tried this system for half a week and I will tell you that I'm working with remarkably well-behaved children who know how to self-regulate. Their smiles in class and even the serious demeanour they adopt when I make them redo an assignment that they've failed to bring to class seem to be outward expressions of acceptance. But, this is only the first week and I have much yet to learn.

When I think of classroom discipline, I think back to what "Little Women" taught me as a preteen: if you hit and humiliate a child, they will only grow up learning to hit and humiliate others. Taking time to talk through an issue, get to the heart of our nature and why we choose to disobey, and then being given the grace to try again or to learn from our mistakes and feel the consequences is sometimes tedious and so hard, but so effective. I know the stress level of being a teacher. No matter what culture we teach in, we navigate stress factors, time constraints, exhaustion, and differing personalities all day long. It's easy to be human and resort to anger, impatience, and quick reactions. But being a teacher hasn't given me the luxury of just reacting the way I want to in the moment. It's given me parameters to put my emotions aside and deal with the human in the moment. Has it always been easy? Have I always been successful? Certainly not. I'm human too. But, I don't have the luxury of really messing up because my livelihood depends on my learning self-control. So, perhaps introducing a different type of classroom management is something I can contribute to this experience.

Another hurdle I was jumping through this week was food. I had a lot of looks of curiosity and disbelief as I brought my lunch to school this week. I didn't realize that lunch is prepared for the teachers and they asked me several times this week if everyone was wealthy enough in Canada to bring their own lunch each day. That was a curve ball I hadn't expected. Here, I thought bringing a peanut butter sandwich each day was meagre fare compared to the big bowls of rice and stew given out to teachers, but I quickly realized that it was privilege to be able to afford peanut butter, jam, bread, fruit, and vegetables every day. Even discussions about free education and children who couldn't always afford meals everyday quickly turned into the comment, "Yeah, but you can't compare poverty in Canada to poverty here." And they were right. I can't. Poverty takes different shapes and forms in different parts of the world. But, like any good Pentecostal missionary, I have brought my copy of "When Helping Hurts" with me to Kenya and I am slowly working my way through it, recognizing the brokenness that I came from in my society and trying to serve brokenness here without doing more damage than good.

On an entirely different note, do you remember the Hugh Grant storyline in "Love, Actually"? You know the secretary that he falls in love with and everyone says she has the biggest rear end in the world? Grant is surprised and offended for her and only sees her beauty. Well, I'm the secretary and Hugh Grant. Every time someone mentions my size, I find myself wanting to protect this obviously beautiful creature. Trust me, I've seen the chiropractic X-rays. God gave me a very well-arranged skeleton. I'm just trying to figure out how to reduce some of the exterior packaging. This week's unexpected conversation went like this:
Teacher (watching me unpack my leftover vegetables and put them in some hot water with noodles): "So you eat a lot of vegetables?"
Me (smiling): Yes. I eat meat a couple of times a week, but mostly vegetables.
Teacher (Looking at my bowl and up at me several times with an indescribable expression on her face): "So, how are you so energetic and...Huuuge (she actually drew out the word) if you only eat vegetables?"
Me (slowly breathing in and smiling to myself): "I think it's how I have eaten at home. I eat more processed foods and I eat on the run back home. I've actually lost weight though. I know it's hard to imagine. And, I've been exercising."

As much as some of these conversations may offend me or test my patience, the truth is they're not meant as an offence. And, I couldn't bear to own up to the real truth anyway. Why am I so slowly losing weight? Why do I eat so little, but am still overweight? How do you explain to someone who just gets enough to eat that back home food was like a drug? It was my earliest drug because it was the only thing readily available to me. Since I was a child, I would drown my pain in food. It was the only thing that numbed my emotions and helped me cope with some painful things happening in my life. How do I explain that even after going through therapy and Freedom Session, it is still the thing that I have to consciously be aware of not abusing? How do I explain that people in my culture tend to drown their pain or emotions or stress in alcohol, relationships, sex, exercise, perfectionism, materialism, workaholism, T.V., drugs, and all manner of other things? Maybe that happens here too. I just don't know what the socially acceptable version of it is. How do I explain that, though I have taken so many steps to add healthy behaviours into my life, my body is slowly changing? How do I explain that since coming to Kenya I can't fall back on food as a drug of choice because I see little children and some adults eat exactly what they need or can get? Even snacking has been virtually eliminated because I can't bring myself to consume treats that I know the kids aren't getting. It's much more black-and-white here. I chickened out, though. I gave my excuses. Perhaps, I'll work up the courage to share the truth in the near future.

I wish everyone could get a few months outside of their context, in a developing country, to see not only what privileges we take for granted all the time, but to really allow God to make lasting change. I hope, with everything within me, that the changes I've made here will stick. That I won't forget the feelings of these days: the loneliness, the joy, the awkward awareness of privilege, the deep desire to advocate, and the ebbs and flows of being yourself in a place that challenges you.

I realize that this post is more serious than my typical humour-driven/sarcastic writing style. Perhaps I'm writing closer to events than I did in my last post. Since I'm a teacher and an eternal optimist, I will open-face sandwich the end of this post. Let me tell you about the beautiful things this week.

Children at the school actually love what I'm teaching them. I'm getting to teach basic French again and I'm loving the review for myself, forming French words and teaching them neat tricks to form their words as well. I'm hearing from parents that they're loving the lessons and I'm just loving the experience of being in the classroom with children who are eager to learn.

I saw my first baboons this week, guys! And, none of them have tried to challenge me for my lunch yet. Actually, I haven't met with a baboon on my walks to school, so I'm silently thanking the Lord for that. But, the other day as my students were writing their compositions in English 6 and a thunderstorm shook the building, I saw a gathering of baboons across the field. They had taken over the benches that the janitor and cooks left empty when the rain started pouring. As the storm picked up, a troop of baboons migrated across the field, fortunately not seeking refuge in my classroom.

My final source of joy was the last day of school. I was able to participate in field games with my students and other teachers. Sport really is the universal language. It doesn't matter how many things I struggled with this week, nothing can change my mood as quickly as the doubled-over hysterical laughter that comes from a teacher half my height trying to tackle me or the competitive war call of a goalkeeper psyching out an opponent. It was so good to move and work with a team and feel my endorphins kick in. And, I was able to see some of my coworkers in a new light, to laugh and have fun with them.

Getting to see the familiar faces at the children's home and wrap all my favourite people in a hug filled my heart after a busy week. I'm grateful for a place that now gets to be my home away from home and for people who feel like family. They listen to my stories and laugh with me and I feel God's grace abundantly recharging me once again.