“There’s No Place Like Home”

As Dorothy clicks the heels of her red magic shoes, she repeats this phrase three times and is transported from Oz back to her home in Kansas.  The phrase expresses the desire of her heart: she wants to go back to the familiar surroundings of her childhood home.  It doesn’t matter how much magic and glitter fills the land of Oz, it is not home.  Within us there is a bit of that truth that Dorothy expresses.  When we are on vacation or on an extended business trip, there is nothing quite like walking through the doors of home. At home there is family.  At home there is a sense of identity.  At home we feel comfortable and secure.  These were the things Dorothy was missing, even though she made friends in this new strange land, even though it was a place of challenges and adventure.  Home could not be replicated any place else.

Home issues have been on our mind lately.  At Agape, we are providing a home for 106 former street boys. For many of them their family home was a disaster.  But we have come to realize that all of them need that connection to their family roots.  It is part of the cultural identity of the individual in Kenya.  The reason many of them are at Agape is that something went wrong with their connection at home.  It may have been poverty, a family quarrel, a remarriage, a death of a parent or a combination of several factors.  Some of these situations can be solved and recently Patty and I have begun to think more and more about finding a way to reconnect and strengthen the home of our boys.  For some this will mean they may be able to return to their home permanently. 

Many things will need to be done before this can be affected.  Our intention is to begin this as a pilot project with about five of the boys who are be best candidates for what we are calling “HIP”  Home Integration Program.  The home places of the boys will have to be visited.  Interviews with remaining family members done.   And this will have to be done repeatedly in order to make sure we are getting all the facts straight.  The visitation cannot be done by a white person.  The arrival of a white person in a rural home translates into chaos quickly.  We would never arrive at the truth or a solution to the real problem if we did this work ourselves.  There is a strong temptation to dependence in the Kenyan culture.  We still find ourselves being received by nationals as a monetary resource.  Instead we will be relying on our Kenyan staff to do the research in the homes.  Then we’ll sit and talk with the staff and the individual boy about the home.  In most cases there will need to be some empowerment of the family take place before the boy can be reintegrated. In all cases the boy will need to be emotionally prepared for this change.  In the case of some there will have to be some counseling.  Like social work with families in the US, we will face some situations which will be disappointing, but we are hoping that with the right strategy and the Lord’s blessing we will be able to hear some of our boys say, “There’s no place like home.”  In any case, the effort will be worth it.  Some of you know what a fractured relationship with family is like.  It has a strong impact on every aspect of life.  God willing, we will find that some of our boys will find the stability and security that comes from a strong positive family life.

There are a number of added benefits to the ministry of Agape in such a program.  Most obviously, if we are able to reintegrate some boys, it opens up a bed for another needier situation.  It is also true that when these boys become adults, they will be transitioning to their homes anyway, or what is left of the home.  There maybe a family inheritance of land waiting for them.  And in the Kenyan psyche, home is not just the place where you grew up.  In the melting pot of America, few of us have a strong connection to a particular place built by countless generations living on the same plot of ground.  America is a mobile society that takes home with them.  Not so in Kenya.  One’s home place is part of the individual identity.  In fact one of the ways that Kenya’s greet each other is by asking, “Where do you come from?” translated, “Where is your family’s home place?”  The more we can work to build this sense of individual identity within our boys, the more secure and stable they will be as adults. 

Of course, this effort will take time and money.  Travel is expensive in Kenya.  You may complain about $2/gallon gas prices in the US.  Here we pay more than $4/gallon and some of the places we have to visit are quite some distance.  Kenya is about the size of Texas.  That’s a lot of driving

There are also some we spoke with when we were in the US last year who expressed an interest in reintegration.  Several were in Rotary clubs in district 5220.  Please write to us if you want additional information or have an interest in this new HIP pilot project.

Agape is a wonderful place.  But it is not home.  It is a substitute home.  Just as earth is a wonderful place.  It too is not home.  It is a temporary dwelling.  It is safe to say, Real homes are better than substitutes.  “There is no place like home”

New and Notes.

1. School has begun and so has the rainy season.   Each night we are welcomed home by a nice evening thunderstorm.  We have had limited power outages from Kenya Power and Darkness

2. Agape was recently visited by the Town Clerk.  That office may not be familiar to many of you.  He acts on behalf of the mayor to execute programs.  We are petitioning the city through the District Children’s Dept. to give us the adjacent land next to Agape.  It will almost double the size of Agape’s grounds.  He was favorably impressed and plans to work toward giving us this land by the next city council meeting. 

3. One of the staff members of the Ministry of Environment came by on the same day and told us that the park where we normally meet with street children will be placed under our care.  This means we will be able to construct a small hall for meeting with the boys for worship and storing a few small supplies.

Prayer list

1. Praise for the new relationship with the city officials and the possibility of acquiring additional land from which we can be more effective as a ministry

2. Pray on May 23 when the Kisumu city council meets to decide on the adjacent property

3. Pray for the citizens of Kenya in low lying areas who are being displaced by the rains

4. Pray for our teams coming in June, July and August.

5. Pray for the work of Stephanie, Ralph and Paul on the music CD and music video for Agape.