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Below is a guest blog from 'The Emojong' himself, i.e. our visiting priest and friend, Keith Butler...

Bwana asefiwe! Praise the Lord in Swahili. Haven’t learned much yet, but that will always get you an entrance.

What a joy it is to be back here in Amagoro, Kenya where I visited for two weeks last April. That was a whirlwind trip, but this time round the time is three months long so I am hoping for less of the vortex approach and more chances for rest and for learning.

This three month stay, in the interest of full disclosure, is part of a four month sabbatical leave from my call as missioner of the Greenbrier Episcopal Ministries. The good folk of those two churches decided they could do without me for four months (imagine that!) so here I am already at the end, this week, of the first month.

That time has been chocked full of new and wonderful experiences. Partial list: Preaching for numerous services, including a funeral yesterday with more that 2000 souls in attendance! Renewing acquaintances I made last year, visiting the schools where we have sponsored students, preaching for the yearly Service of Thanksgiving held for those students and their families. I could go on and will do so in later articles.

For this effort I want to say just a little about an impression that has haunted me since I was here last time. Many of our days here are spent in traveling. We visit the schools where our students are striving to keep their grades up. We pay their fees and gather receipts for the banks and for our records. A time consuming process. We drive to larger towns nearby to shop and to order things for the mission house. Always on the road…it seems.

And as we drive through little town after town, we pass empty stores and offices. Sometimes we drive through what appear to be whole ghost towns, all built in that ubiquitous British colonial style familiar all over Africa, the Caribbean, and India. Most often the forlorn buildings sport fancy names like the new sporting goods store we saw last week literally in the middle  of nowhere. It’s sign freshly painted read: Veni, Vidi, Vici.  How telling; so often campaigns(businesses) begun with the highest of hopes, but rarely with victories to trumpet.

I often wonder what keeps the people of this proud land going and in the end I can only believe it is their Faith and faith in the future. Something deep inside them wards off despair, for the most part, and keeps them so open and smilingly optimistic.

For our part, in this section of the country, Western Kenya, Tesso land, the Elewana Education Project provides real hope of change and a demand for justice. Through its ongoing program to provide computer labs, we, the project and its many supporters, do what the government has promised for years but has been hard-pressed to fulfill. We open windows to the world through modern means of communication whose full potential is just now beginning to be explored.

What’s more, the sponsoring of students throws open doors of hope for worthy and talented students. They are offered real chances to breakout of dark expectations and fulfill their dreams for themselves and for their country. They are perhaps small steps, but vital steps all the same onto the road sided by flourishing businesses and working schools and not floundering, abandoned storefronts.

And all of this and more, the call and the dream of the Rev. Zachary Drennen, our project leader, whose devotion to this call is total and prompted by real love for these young people. But, I’ll save him for next time.

Please visit the website at www.elewana.org for more information and to keep abreast of all that is happening through these updates. Please prayerfully consider how you can help us keep this exciting ministry alive and flourishing.

The Rev. Keith W. Butler

E-mail: revkb52@gmail.com

PS: Would love to hear from you!