News

Volunteers bring Christmas

January 18, 2010

 

In December 2009 a group from Seattle Washington, spent their two-week Christmas vacation working at Mara West Camp to help spread some Christmas cheer to the Maasai community. The trip was organized by Rick and Delray Luce, who have been to Kenya every other year since 2001.

“We know of the needs in this part of Kenya, and if we can combine a safari trip and service to the community, so be it,” says Rick.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Daynthe group of 29 hitched a trailer at the back of a Mara West Land Cruiser and loaded it up with gifts. They drove from one community to the next, stopping every time they came across a group of Maasai kids, mothers and their children walking barefoot. Most of the Maasai kids were without sweaters even though it had been raining and the ground was still muddy and wet. The mission group showered them with surprise gifts: clothes, toothpaste, toothbrushes, candy and crocs for everyone. Also distributed were Frisbees and balls for the children out in the rain herding their parents' cattle.

Ken Lauren, a general practitioner, worked at the AMS clinic for the entire trip and brought his wife Linda and his 87-year-old mother, Ruth, who was moved to tears by her first experience in Africa.

“When Ken suggested that I come to Africa, I said, 'Africa?!' and thought, 'oh my, I am old and getting forgetful.'” Shares Ruth, “I am 87 heading to 90. I keep thinking I'm gonna pinch myself and wake and find that this has all been a dream. I am so thrilled to be here and see what dedicated people have been able to accomplish, and to have a glimpse of what will happen in the future,” she said.

Most in the group came as complete families to share the experience.

“After my first time coming here, I couldn’t get the look of those little kids out of my head for months.” Says Rick Luce who brought along his children, “and you think about them waking up on a mat that is elevated about four or five inches off the ground and I dare you to get those faces out of your head.”Barbara Prowant, a lawyer who heard about the mission trip at a dinner party, says the trip was an opportunity to become more open about how much the world has to offer. “It was an interesting experience. I connected with local people at a personal level, something you are not able to do when you go to many resorts where the only people you get to connect with are the safari guides and the waiters.”

The executive director of Serving Others Worldwide, Isaac Heckman, was part of the mission group and said of the experience: “Every time I come here, it is an eye opening experience to my own selfishness in life. People back in the States say ‘what a great thing you are doing,’ but I come here and I see my own selfishness.”

For Kathy, a retired paralegal, the December trip was a testimony to the fact that people are the same no matter where you go. “Mothers love their children here as much as anywhere else. America has so much, but there is more to the world. You don’t need a big fancy house to be happy; all you need is to be healthy and be surrounded by family.”