Well, hello there! Long time, no see. I know, that's my fault, but I'm glad you're back here reading more about our lives. I've been so slack in updating the blog, but I'll get you up to speed.
In the last year, I took a new job at Explore Charter School in Brooklyn teaching Kindergarten. I needed a different environment from the school I was teaching at previously and I found it. I got to co-teach, which I loooove. I lucked out and was matched up with a teacher, Corey, who is fun and hard-working and knows how to teach. I got to really focus on literacy instead of everything, which is awesome, and the schedule is more like a year-round school with a week-long break (sometimes longer) after each of the 5 terms. I really enjoyed my first year there and will return in August.
Matt's still plugging along at Credit Suisse and enjoying his work. Not much else to tell about that. *Shrug*
We've been very involved with things at our church. Matt and I co-chaired the spring auction which raises money for the missions and outreach programs. We worked with a team to raise around $250,000, which was pretty exciting! It was hard work but good work, so it was worth it. We're both involved in connection groups which meet every other week or so to talk about spiritual matters and life. We both feel really blessed to be a part of our groups and have that network of faith to sustain us. This summer I'm going to be helping out in the newest endeavor our church is undertaking called "El Nido," which means "The Nest". It is a program we are starting in Washington Heights to help curb the tide of poverty. El Nido is a space where young families can come and receive support and guidance in lots of ways. I will specifically be helping with The Reading Corner, which will be a regular reading program geared toward infants through 3-year-olds and their mothers to increase literacy in the community. This is exactly the kind of thing I am passionate about, so I've been grateful to get to lend a hand in the formation and execution of this program.
After the terrible tragedy in Orlando, our church started a hashtag: #solidaritytolove. We have a large LGBT community at our church and wanted to remind people that the church CAN be a place of unconditional love and support. We participated in the Pride March a week ago to again show love and support for the gay community. Besides being important, participating in the march was fun! We lined up at 1:30 and didn't start marching until 4:30, but that was because there was the good problem of this year's march being the biggest and most attended march ever. Luckily we were standing and waiting in a shady spot with a nice breeze. Many groups joined up at the last minute because of Orlando, which was not good, but the turnout of love and support was awesome. While Matt peeled off on 14th St., I marched all the way to the end, stepping off the route at about 6:45 that night. It was cool to pass the Stonewall Inn, which had just become the first national monument for gay rights, pretty cool.
You might have seen a few weeks ago that Matt and I went to the Jazz Age Lawn Party with our friend, Kyle Southern. It was so fun! Basically, it's just a jazz-age themed picnic on Governor's Island. There was food, drinks, Charleston dancing, bands playing 1920s jazz, old cars (including the car that the real "Great Gatsby" drove), lots of amazing outfits and roaring twenties looks. Matt joined in the Charleston dance contest, contending that he just needed to flail his arms and legs around to fit in. He was tapped out pretty quickly (because, have you seen Matt dance??), but he felt victorious because the judge walked past him twice without tapping him and he wasn't the first to go out. Victory for Matt. One of the many reasons I love him is that he isn't afraid of having fun, even if he looks like a buffoon. I feel like this quality will be even more important when we're 80.
Let's see, a quick recap of the rest of the past year: we survived a blizzard, hosted lots of family and friends, have spent as much time as possible in parks and out on the oval in Stuy Town, have cooked and eaten lots of good food, saw some good Broadway shows, and have been enjoying life in the city. We continue to marvel in the fact that we live here and this is our life. We are really lucky.
But now...on to the next adventure. This one takes us away from our city, our country, our continent, our hemisphere! Tomorrow we embark to Kenya! We have been longing to go to Africa and our chance is upon us.
This all started when Mom, in one of our many conversations, floated the idea of going on a mission trip to Africa with ZOE ministry. My eyes got wider and my voice got higher as I asked, "Are you serious?!?" From there our trip took shape.
Let's start with ZOE. Started in 2004 by the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, ZOE stands for Zimbabwe Orphans Endeavor and it is an organization that began as a relief program for orphaned and vulnerable children. But, over time and with feedback from the participants in the program, ZOE has transformed itself from doing relief works to an empowerment program, becoming more effective and strategic about providing the assistance that orphans need. Typically, the orphans that enter the program are 12-15 years old. I can't imagine all the grief, confusion, and struggle that these young people have had to go through but I'm excited about how ZOE is helping them.
Instead of giving charity, ZOE provides skills and tools that orphans can then use to create a better life for themselves and others in their family and community. Through a 3-year program, ZOE teaches children to:
+ Be secure - ZOE educates them about their rights and makes sure they are protected from abuse and exploitation. ZOE also provides safe housing and the know-how, tools and skills needed to raise their own livestock for food.
+ Be healthy - participating orphans are taught ways to maintain hygiene, cook food safely, educate them about causes of and prevention for insect-borne diseases and HIV/AIDS.
+ Be connected - so many times the orphaned children feel alone and lost in a world that, so far, hasn't treated them well. When they join ZOE, they are welcomed into a group of 60-100 other orphans from their community. They form a new kind of family in which they support each other, teach each other new things, and worship together.
+ Be prepared - the goal for the 3-year program is for orphans to be ready to live without needing hand-outs from anyone ever again. To do that, ZOE provides orphans with an education, micro-grants for small businesses, vocational training, and business start-up materials so that the orphans are ready to support themselves and their families.
From the ZOE website: "Since 2007, over 30,000 orphans and vulnerable children have transformed their lives through this empowerment program. After graduation, these supportive groups continue to work together, often empowering additional orphans and passing along the skills, knowledge, and resources they have received to others. ZOE is now active in Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Liberia, India and Guatemala." If you want to learn more (I only really scratched the surface!), go to www.zoehelps.org.
Our trip is to Kenya and unlike many mission trips, we aren't going to build something or give out things, or teach vacation bible school. We are going to learn more about the ZOE program and to meet some of the graduates and participants in the program. We will worship with the people, see their homes, hear about their businesses, rejoice in their successes, and learn about how we can help them with their challenges. We will give our hearts and lend our ears and share God's love with them, but we don't want to contribute to the notion that they need hand-outs to survive.
In our preparation for this trip, I read a book recommended to me entitled It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-blower.
In it I learned about Kenya's history as a colony of Britain and the struggles the country has been through to establish independence and a working, democratic government. It's been fraught with struggles and corruption, but people like John Githongo, the main protagonist in this book, have been helping to end some of the sleaze that has been rife throughout the government. I see ZOE as a part of that reinvention to empower Kenyans to take control of their country and make positive contributions to their communities.
Besides that good work, we get to go on a safari!! We start in Nairobi and will be traveling to the Kangeta region to see the ZOE program in action. On the last day we go to the Samburu National Park to see (hopefully) some of the best animals in the world. I'm most hoping to see elephants. Well, and lions. And of course giraffes....so everything. I want to see everything. We go late in the evening, around feeding time, on the 13th and then we wake up early in the morning on the 14th to go see more animals. We're packing our binoculars and cameras, so I hope to have many good photos to share with you in a few weeks.
Takeoff is tomorrow and we get back on the 15th. I'll try to post some updates on Facebook if we have service, but please check back in a few weeks for pics and stories from Kenya!
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