Finding My Purpose
Stepping out of the back door of the airplane and into the sunshine, I made my way down the stairs to the tarmac. I couldn’t believe I had actually gone through with it. After nearly 20 hours of travel, my feet touched the ground on a continent and in a country that, just a few months prior, I never would have dreamt I would ever see. It was February of 2012, and I had arrived in Nairobi, Kenya.
I think everyone, to some degree, spends a large part of their short time on this earth searching for that something they can do that has meaning or purpose – that something that will make a positive difference in some way. I’m no different. I’ve said before that I’m attracted to jobs that bring happiness to those impacted by the work I’m doing. That is what attracted me to work in the tourism/attractions industry so long ago. Seeing families – especially children – having a good time and enjoying the experiences provided by the venues at which I worked was all the motivation I ever needed to keep doing what I was doing.
Three years ago, when I stepped off of that airplane in Kenya, I didn’t know what I was doing there. I was traveling as part of a short-term mission team from my church. There were two focuses: medical and microfinance. Medical is pretty self-explanatory. If you don’t know what microfinance is, I’d suggest checking out these resources. The point is, at the time, I was the Visitor Services Manager at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. My background didn’t really fit into either the medical or the microfinance category. I really had no idea what I was possibly going to contribute to this team and this trip.
In the twelve years prior, I had held various operations jobs with increasing amounts of responsibility at places like the Indianapolis Zoo, Walt Disney World and, of course, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. I graduated with a degree in “Tourism, Conventions and Event Management” while working full-time running the Rides Department at the Indianapolis Zoo. I became well versed in customer service skills, training, motivating staff members, safety, efficiency, crowd management, project management, operational planning, and many other operational things. And, while I’m not one to ring my own bell, I do think I’m a pretty darn good Operations Manager!
Back in Kenya, I was in a foreign place – both literally and figuratively. I was in a country I’d never been to before and that I knew little about. I couldn’t provide any operational assistance, because I didn’t really understand the context of where I would be going and what I would be seeing. But, what I saw was beyond anything I could ever have imagined.
Mathare Valley is one of many slum areas scattered around Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi, the capital city, has a population of around 5 million people. But, approximately 65% of that population is living in extreme poverty – in slums like Mathare Valley. Mathare (pronounced mah-THAAR-ee) itself is right around one square mile in area. And, while no one has an exact count, it’s estimated that somewhere between 500,000 and 900,000 people live there. That’s like taking the entire population of Indianapolis, Indiana and housing it in an area about the size of two Indianapolis Motor Speedways.
But don’t get lost in the statistics. For just a moment, imagine one child living in this slum. Imagine this child, waking up in the morning in a twin sized bed that he shared with his parents and 2 other siblings. Imagine his one-room house, constructed of sticks and scraps of corrugated metal, that is 6 feet by 8 feet in area, with a ceiling height of just around 6 feet. The uneven dirt floor has a scrap of linoleum stretched out in the center. With no electricity, there are no electric lights. It’s dark inside, even in the middle of the day, because the one window only looks out to the narrow, 4-foot-wide alleyway that doesn’t allow the sun to penetrate too far down. There is no indoor plumbing. No running water. The smell of raw sewage permeates the dusty air.
What you are seeing in your mind is just a thing of your imagination – mental pictures assembled by your brain from the words I just wrote. But those words I just wrote are an actual description of a very real place that I saw myself. It’s a real place, a real home that I visited. While it may seem unreal and far off to you, it is a very real thing to me. It’s not just something of my imagination; it’s a memory. Real people are living this way everyday.
To say that my perspective was changed would be an understatement. During that visit, something broke inside of me, and suddenly things that used to be so important to me didn’t seem important at all. Somewhere, deep inside of me, I knew I needed to do something to help. That something came in the form of a job at CMF International, where I was hired just 6 months after that first visit to Kenya to lead their Child Sponsorship team in the home office in Indianapolis.
But that’s not the end of this story. Now, I’m being called to go and serve there, with the field team in Nairobi, Kenya in partnership with Missions of Hope International. There is a need for someone to assist in helping the program there prepare for future growth. They need someone with a background in operations to help work through challenges and obstacles standing in the way of that growth. While we’re reaching over 12,000 children today, there are ten times that many children living in Mathare who have no hope for a better life. It’s a need I cannot ignore, and a purpose toward which I feel my life has been moving without even knowing it.
Many people would be quick to think that this journey that has lead me to Kenya started three years ago when I stepped off that airplane in Nairobi. I would argue that this has been going on much, much longer. For most of my adult life, and all of my professional career (which dates back to 2000), God has been giving me the experiences I will need to fill this very specific role in Kenya. I don’t think it’s an accident or a coincidence. God gave me the skills, and then He sent me on that short-term trip, which lead me to CMF, and now to Kenya for 3 years.
While I know this is the right path for me, there are still a couple of items I need to do before I can go. One of those, I’m fulfilling right now with four weeks of cross-cultural training at Mission Training International near Colorado Springs, CO. The other involves raising the remaining funds needed to send me to Kenya. I’m currently about $16,000 short of my goal, which could delay my departure. Please consider making a one-time gift of any amount to help me get there. You can do so by clicking this link and following the on-screen prompts. Every gift – large or small – helps.
But, this isn’t about funding me. I’m merely the tool that God is preparing to use. A donation to help send me to Kenya is really an investment in the future of the entire ministry in Kenya. It’s an investment in the futures of countless children who will be reached with a message of hope because of the work I’m being sent to do. And, trust me, you, too, will be blessed knowing that you’re playing a crucial part in this story. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.
Click here to make a one-time donation.
To learn more about my specific budgetary needs and/or other ways that you can get involved, visit my budget or partnership pages.
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