KENYA 2020: The Road Not Taken

Thursday night a team from Green Bay arrived. They come from the first church Grace Imathiu served. Every year they hold a 3-day leadership retreat for 40 high school students from 4 secondary schools. In addition to the retreat, they provide scholarships to pay school fees, and then provide funds to fill the gap between what the students can afford and the cost of a college tuition. It is an amazing program.

In a strange twist of fate, I met the leader’s son a decade ago when sat next to us at church. He was new to town, we took him to dinner, etc. We knew each other for years when his mother visited him in Ann Arbor and he introduced us. She had read about our work in the bulletin and could not wait to tell me about what they were doing … in the same community in Kenya. This is the third time our teams have overlapped.

So, what does this have to do the road not taken? We took a few hours today and drove through one of Kenya’s beautiful national parks. Once inside the gates, you find yourself on a maze of gravel and grass paths. Repeatedly, “two roads diverged” much like in Robert Frost’s poem. Pick one and you may cross a river just as 20 feet from an elephant … and pick the other and … well, you will never know. Talk to the stranger and well, you never know.

Since our work in Kenya began, there has been Ebola, terrorist attacks, some political violence and now the corona virus. We come anyway. The work is good. The work is making a difference.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
[from the final stanza of The Road not Taken]

Think about coming along next time.

A student in the field at Gichunge Primary; Students writing to students in Ann Arbor; One of roads in the National Park; The elephants crossing the river.