Maralal Training

When God says, “Jump.” Our response should be, “How high?”

But what if God asks you to do something you don’t know how to do?

Do you punt? Run away? Hide?

Or do you ask, “Why me, God? Couldn’t you find someone more qualified for this than me?”

I don’t know why God called me to minister to youth living with HIV. I am not the most qualified. In fact, when God put this ministry on my heart, I was pretty sure he’d gotten the wrong heart.

And then I was bombarded over the period of about a week in different ways with the message, “when God calls you to serve him, you already have in you what he needs to complete his work…whatever else you need he will provide.”

So I stopped fussing and started following and God has been providing exactly what I need every step of the way!

At the end of August he provided me with a way to get more education on HIV/AIDS from a world-renowned expert.

I found HIV Hope International online and communicated with Duane Crumb, the founder and director that I wanted to know more about his organization. He wrote back and said there was a seminar in Kenya and I could contact the organizer to see if it was possible to attend. Long story short, I was accepted and last week made the 10+ hour journey to Maralal, Kenya. (See Maralal Journey blog for details of the trip).

Duane travels around the world facilitating seminars like the one I attended to equip and empower people to develop their own strategies, materials and programs to effectively address the issues involved in HIV in their local cultures and meet the needs of those living with the disease.

Maralal is the county seat so it is a fairly big town. It has a good power supply; a few cyber cafes and I even found a shop that sold a few Western food items…but sadly not a passable road in site!

The hotel we stayed in was sparse but comfortable. The shower was hot (most of the time) and the mattress was firm! We ate most of our meals in the hotel dining room.

 

Because it’s always a good idea to travel light, I had decided to wear the same outfit coming and going, so I washed the clothes that I wore on the trip to Maralal. This is the color of the water when I was finished!

The seminar itself was held at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Maralal. We arrived on Saturday night and attended church there on Sunday. A local missionary family who hail from Finland picked us up and drove us to church. They have three small children. Their daughter and I bonded over our and shared our eyewear!

The church service was small. No more than 15 people but probably twice that amount of children. Pastor Silas was very welcoming and also took part in the seminar so we got to know him well.

A group of seminar participants traveling from north of Maralal didn’t make it for the first day of the seminar because there was fighting between the Samburu and the Turkana in a town on their path so they had to wait and travel when things cooled down. My girls sms'd me all worried because they heard the news that there was fighting in Maralal. But really the injured had been taken to the hospital in Maralal, the fighting was not in town.

The seminar participants were primarily Samburu, there were also four wazungus (foreigners), and a man from Turkana. There were 7 Samburu women. We couldn’t communicate much, but by the end of the seminar we were good friends. 

The seminar was translated into Samburu and Kiswahili. We ran a generator to run the projector, but that was as high tech as we got. Some ladies from the church cooked our lunch over a three stone fire. We met Monday thru Thursday from 9 to about 3:30 p.m. On Friday we only met in the morning.

 

The ELC Maralal church is about a kilometer outside of the city. The views from the church were beautiful.

 

The first day we talked about how the church should be involved in HIV/AIDS, the goals for training, and received in depth information about transmission of HIV/AIDS. We then discussed the concepts our audience had to understand, the barriers they might have to understanding the information and what tools we needed for teaching.

On Tuesday, the first question was “Is HIV a judgment sent from God? In the “pre-test” we were given before we started the seminar the same question was asked and 70 percent of the participants responded that yes they believed HIV was a judgment from God.

The answer is NO by the way! We are all sinners. If anyone deserves this disease, we all do. One of the participants answered this way. “God loves us as a father, the same way we love our children. Loving us is giving us free will. We make choices that have consequences.” HIV is a natural consequence of sin.

On day two we also talked about the myth that HIV is a curse. Another topic was testing and we made lists about why people have sex outside or marriage. Lastly we discussed behavior change versus influencing behavior and how to encourage people living with HIV/AIDS.

On Wednesday we discussed stigma and discrimination. It took awhile to get into the discussion because there is not a word for stigma in Samburu! A lot of this was culturally based and very interesting to listen to the Samburu discuss their culture.

Then we discussed ARVs and how they work. This could have been a very complicated topic but Duane made it easily understandable and culturally relevant. We also had two bible translators at the seminar and they agreed to translate this chapter from Duane’s book, “HIV Hope for the Nations” into Samburu for their final project. 

On Thursday, we talked about our role as educators and how to interact with our audience. After lunch we started to present the projects that we had been working on. 

The lone Turkana man in the group gave a poem.

Duane requires that each participant present a song, poem, game, skit, etc. that they would use to teach about HIV.

I agonized over what to present. At first I thought I would make up an educational game…but I’m not much on game theory, so I prayed and got more anxious. And then Wednesday afternoon I had an idea. Ephesians 6 popped into my head. It talks about putting on the armor of God. Putting on the armor of God means sacrificing the things of this world. So I used the word SACRIFICE to come up with the main parts of the armor of positive living.

Breast Plate	S	Self- Acceptance
Shield	A	Adherence to ARVs and clinic instructions
Helmet	C	Choices – Make good Choices
Foundation	R	Relationship – Have a personal relationship with God
Sword	I	Information – Get the correct information
Heart	F	Faithfulness to partner/wait for sex until marriage
Rear Guard	I	Identify family and friends in Christ to support you
Glove	C	Condoms – Use Them!
Belt	E	Everyone is at risk. I am not alone. I can speak out and help others.

I also drew (not well mind you) a picture of what the armor of positive living would look like. 

God’s inspiration and timing couldn’t have been better! My presentation went great and was well received by my fellow participants.

It was also well received this week in a meeting with AIC Pastors about Maarifa, the psychosocial support ministry I am starting for youth living with HIV. We decided to use it as a framework for the materials we will create to use with the youth.

You know you are following God’s plan for your life when there is no mistaking His hand in the work that you are doing. I’m so glad I listened to God’s call even though didn’t feel qualified or ready. Now a short month and a half later I have made the leap into the unknown and have found the path was there beneath my feet all along.

Step out and faith and watch what God can do!