The Pure Joy of Doing Work That Changes Lives

Loading wheelbarrows full of sand and gravel and pushing them up a ramp to dump them on a concrete floor last week in Kenya brought me great joy.

I was privileged to be a part of a church mission trip to help build a clinic that will provide maternal and child health services to four Maasai villages. They are some of the most remote villages in the tribal lands, where women and children have very limited access to health services.

The work was not easy, and I didn’t bring any particular skills to the project, but our Maasai partners were patient with us and helped us to understand how to make concrete, how to use it as mortar to build a concrete block wall, and how to then fling concrete against the walls as stucco, which they then smoothed out. It’s harder than it sounds, but our Maasai partners were patient and encouraging as we learned the technique.

All of this work was occurring at more than 6,000 feet of altitude, so I was a bit breathless at some points when pushing those heavy wheelbarrows up the ramp. But the joy of working with my church colleagues and my new Maasai friends on a project that will provide vaccinations, prenatal care, infant and pediatric care and family planning support to Maasai communities that desperately need it was actually energizing.

My church – the Congregational Church of New Canaan (CCNC), Connecticut – has been working with the Simba Maasai Outreach Organization (SIMOO) over many years, and I have been honored to financially support previous projects, including providing access to water, addressing food security and providing scholarships for teenage girls to give them an education to be able to meet their true potential.

But this was my first time to go to Kenya and to meet the people who we have been supporting. I quickly learned that the Maasai people are perhaps the most loving, welcoming, open and happy people I have ever met. We were greeted with smiles, laughter and love. Even the orphans in the rescue center radiated love and joy.

One morning when we arrived at the site, I got out of our truck and hugged a group of the little children at the rescue center, who waved to us as we drove up and ran toward us with their arms open wide. One of them, a little boy named David, then came over and reached up to hold my hand. He wouldn’t let go for 10 minutes – one of the most touching and joyful experiences of my life.

Music and dance are an incredibly important part of the Maasai culture, and we were able to witness numerous performances where both women and men expressed their joy for life and their faith in God.

We visited the Kibera slum in Nairobi and saw children playing recorders in a beautiful performance. We saw the children in the Maasai school we help support do a moving traditional song with chants and rhythm. We saw the men in a Maasai village perform the traditional Adamu jumping dance, and they asked some of us to jump with them. And we saw the women leaders in the SIMOO community singing a traditional song with their rhythmic dance and their bright colored dresses and elaborate jewelry.

The patriarchal traditions are strong in the Maasai culture, but in the communities that we are serving, progress is being made, and we believe that is critically important to support those women and to give them a chance to use their incredible gifts and talents in meaningful work.

One of the biggest dividends of the trip was the deepening of relationships with my fellow congregants. I know that all of us are grateful for the opportunity to spend such quality time together in service to our Maasai partners, and grateful also for the love and understanding that we shared with each other.

Special thanks to Marianna Kilbride, the director of spiritual formation for CCNC, for her leadership in the partnership with SIMOO over many years, and to the many members of our group who have partnered with her to make this work so impactful.

This was my first visit to Africa, and I come away from it determined to return and to support my church’s efforts to improve the lives of the wonderful Maasai people in Kenya.