My background story, and SEEK

My interest in Africa began in the summer of 1963...  Martin Luther King's "March on Washington" and his famous address: "I have a Dream"; at the same time, my father spent 6 weeks as part of a State Department delegation to visit the governments of the newly-formed African nations.  I nurtured this interest in college, choosing African themes for term papers I needed to write, and going to IVCF's Overseas Training Camp in Costa Rica. Over the years I've intentionally cultivated friendships with Africans, picked up some Swahili while teaching my students about Kwanzaa, and have intentionally prayed for people and situations in Africa.

Retirement brought the opportunity to explore the possibility of going to East Africa to spend a year working alongside Africans... learning from them, and serving them. Last February and March I visited different missions and NGOs, looking for a "good fit". I was really impressed with all the very worthwhile projects in which Africans and Westerners worked together to build more productive and just lives for the East Africans.

I chose to return to SEEK (Suba Environmental Education for Kenya), in far western Kenya, founded 15 years ago by Don and Nancy Richards.  Environmental Education, as the name suggests, is a primary vehicle for demonstrating God's love for the people, especially widows and orphans, and for their environmentally-depleted land. They educate using many modalities... perhaps even more powerful than their educational words is the real-life impact of the SEEK base: a model of a renewed environment, complete with demonstration gardens and sanitary facilities anyone can copy, e.g.. composting toilets with hand-washing facilities that don't require plumbing or expensive equipment. The SEEK base is also a model of lovely, attractive buildings constructed from local materials, which use solar power: how green is that!!  

Another thing that really impressed me is Nancy & Don’s style of leadership...  through their warmth, and gentle instruction, they’ve trained local Africans to run the various ministries they started. For example, one of the orphans they nurtured for many years is now a fine young man, newly-married and “paying it forward” as he leads a ministry with children, many of whom are orphans as he was. Also, the SEEK base is run year-round, by local Africans.

I will be working in the school that they founded for orphans, and assisting in the environmental work SEEK is doing in Mbita and in other schools in the district.