Wilberforce Mission House: Kenya 2024
A reflection from Kyle Winters, Assistant Director of the NCSC Wilberforce Program, on the WLP Mission House month in Kenya:
In our first WLP Mission House summer, fourteen students spent the month of June living together at Villadise in Kikuyu, Kenya, and serving with PCEA Kikuyu Hospital, Cloud Factory, Comet House School and Young Life Africa. They also spent a day with CFK and SHOFCO in Kibera and were forever impacted by the need in that community and by the compassionate response of these two organizations. They ventured to Nakuru National Park and Masai Mara, went ziplining, visited local churches and markets, were invited to students’ homes for home visits, and welcomed friends living and working in Kenya to join them for dinner to hear their stories.
Comet House School is founded by a Kenyan national who now lives in Atlanta. His vision is to use education to help break the cycle of poverty, so he raises money to fund kids to attend school and scholarship low-income students. The group was able to spend a lot of time playing with the kids in addition to various projects to help improve the school grounds (library, computer lab, painting, etc). This was walking distance from where we stayed, so it provided such a unique opportunity to see a small slice of Kikuyu each day.
Another group of students volunteered at PCEA Hospital, where they got to help assist with some major procedures that they wouldn't have been allowed to practice in the States without some sort of medical license. Surgeries, live births, and even an offer to assist with an amputation (which they respectfully declined) were among the experiences they gained in addition to shadowing doctors and nurses.
Our students were also able to partner with the local Young Life leaders to help run a few events for local high school students. Several of them are involved in Young Life in Chapel Hill, so this provided some fun and camaraderie in addition to more opportunities to interact with local Kenyans.
We were able to go on an overnight safari and then spend time in a few towns, where we were able to interact with locals (house visits, markets, etc) and soak in the sights, sounds, and smells of a world so different from ours. There was a simplicity and purity to it, and many of the UNC students articulated an appreciation of a slower pace and more joyful and community-oriented culture.
We got to have visitors come to our Inn for dinner through UNC Alumni and Friend Connections in and near Nairobi. This gave students more exposure to people living and working in the area (both Americans and Kenyans working for NGO's). One of the most poignant experiences for them was a visit to the Kibera slum in Nairobi with an organization called Carolina for Kibera, started by UNC alums.
As we slowly got to know some people in the Kikuyu community through our time at the hospital, school, and church, we were able to hear some of the heart-breaking stories that seem to be commonplace in the area. The inability to pay for medicine as simple as insulin has a profound effect on the lives of many here, both in the patients coming to the hospital and the families of students at Comet House School. Andrew, our lone commuter to a business, shared some of the challenges with different business models and the tension of providing jobs for Kenyans with the very low wages they are often paid. We got to debrief some of these challenging stories in the evenings, and it was moving to see the students' tender-hearted and compassionate responses to what they have seen and heard so far.
There was also much joy and delight! Those at Comet House continually get swarmed by the kids there upon arrival. There is so much fun and laughter with games, dance moves, and playground soccer. The hospital folks were able to witness and participate more and more in some very educational (and intense) procedures. Andrew had (got?) to dance to African music in front of 100 coworkers on a zoom call for Cloud Factory - apparently something the business makes new employees do. Rarely a day went by without something new/fun/curious happening.
Overall, there was so much to learn, experience, and process as the students got to share life together and engage with God's beautiful and diverse creation and His heart for all people. These young men and women courageously pressed into every aspect of the experience, both the joyful and the sorrowful, and we will continue to hear more stories as they return and unpack the month in Kikuyu!
You can see a bit more on our instagram page at the following links: 1, 2, 3.
