A Third Culture Kid's Ramblings Pt 1

My earliest childhood memories-- sharing chai with my sister, Keri and Leila Merritt ( my childhood friends) and Mama Joyce ...dipping blueband spread bread sandwiches in the tea! Feeling the warmth not only from the Kenya sun but the warmth from the love and kindness of my Africa home.

My sister and I 

....Yes, Kumba, Cameroon .... yes that is the country Cameroon in West Africa... no Africa is a continent  -- Cameroon is the country of my birth....frustrating conversation with U.S. postal worker when filling out forms....

From the not so nice "n" word that I was called in 3rd grade when ignorant Texas kids found out I was from Kenya....to some of the curious questions ....." Did you have loins as pets?" ....." Did you live in a mud hut?" struggling to find the words to explain my world or worlds that are all mashed up!

Am I African? Cameroonian? Kenyan? American? Some where in between......  

A child's perspective is an interesting thing. Children take things at face value...I knew my simple idyllic life was just how it was. I loved concrete red floors....not so much the mosquito net that to often slummed into my face during the night and made me feel claustrophobic.  I loved passion fruit juice for breakfast, imaginary play with my sister and friends, big sisters verses little sisters, and all the adventure that would always seem to find us...... from the crazy man coming up in our yard to seeing the big girls attack by a wild hawk( Ok that was a bit scary!). Loved going to the pool almost every day after school....oh the cool water felt so good after my feet were so hot from running around with such thin soles of Bata tennis shoes.  Fairy circles, Narnia, survival games....so much fun even if we had to hide all our books so when the Merritt girls came over they would play with us and not read! 

Mom, my sister Debra,my brother Wade and me

I loved Sundays...although sometimes they were long days...the adventure of even the journey of getting to the rural church where my Dad would preach was exciting. We had a baby blue volkswagen  bug. I would often crawl back in to the 'back-back' and enjoy the journey from there. During the raining season we would get stuck in the mud but no problem several village folks would just push us out or sometimes even pick us up! When we arrived people would start to gather....us kids would run around ....beautiful green rolling hills and red dirt...goats, cows, and chickens to chase. Then we would gather for worship. Men would sit on one side and women and kids on the other...all on wooden benches under a tree or thatched roof enclosure with mud walls with splattered holes that the sun would shine through ---I often thought it looked like stars in the sky. A women in back would belt out a phrase of a song and we would all echo her with clapping and on some songs there was trilling! Then my mom would gather us kids up and we would go out side and sit on a

large mat. She would bring out her flannelgraph and tell the stories of the bible. This is my earliest memory of putting God's words in my heart. I loved the Noah story and Queen Easter.....the story of David and how God saw into his heart was my favorite. 

After church service we always went to one of the leader's home for lunch. Yummy chicken stew, greens and ugali ( corn meal mush) ...I can almost smell the charcoal infused food... which was enjoyed more because it was shared.  Then after the last pot of chai was consumed it was back in the blue bug for the long bumpy ride home....this time I would stretch out and sleep after we dropped off the few folks that squeezed in our car.

I have so many memories of my early growing up years in Kenya...but what stays with me the most is a sense of warmth, joy, adventure which all has given me the confidence to face life! And for that I am grateful!

Loneliness

"At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self."  Brendan Francis

I think this quote has summed up my journey these last year and a half.  Leaving one's community and moving somewhere totally new would of course be a lonely journey. So in some ways I was expecting some loneliness but the depth to which I have descended into loneliness has caught me by surprise.

I remember as a young girl my mother affirming in me that I was very good at making friends. I have always thought that some of the wonderful fruit from the pain of being a third culture kid was being able to build a community fast. I basically lived in two places as a child Kenya and west Texas. As an adult, I have lived in several places. Some places have taken longer to build friendships than others but community has always come. Even as I write this, I know that with time God will bring community because he has built us for that but this desert is hard to walk through. It is not only hard because I am an extrovert and I gain my energy from being with people but because I feel that my sense of self has been lost.

Maybe, I have lived long in the part of the world that one's self is defined by one's place in community. Now that I have no community outside of my family or a very beginning community, it feels as if I am a bit lost.

"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." Mother Teresa. Dave and I have always felt that our wealth has been our relationships and this journey has felt like 'terrible poverty'.

 Besides moving somewhere new our family is going through transitions of 2 children going off to college.  Although, I am so proud of my 'adult ' kids this can really change the dynamics of your family and its culture.  Besides missing them terrible , it has taken some adjustment to our now family of 5. I am growing to appreciate and like our new family dynamics but it has been yet another change.

With such a change moving to the U.S after living in Africa for so long and our family changes and transitions, it has been hard to walk through these with out a community close by. The few phone calls and e-mails that we have received have been so appreciated but we have needed people to sit with us that know us and know who we are.

Just before Christmas we had some missionary friends over who were on furlough. After always being the new person and stranger at so many events and functions it was a breath of fresh air to be with people who knew me.  It was so sweet to talk about familiar people,places, and experiences. For them to talk about our future based on our past shared history.  Then on Christmas Eve we had our first visitors from East Africa --dear friends that we have known for many years. It was so nice to be with them and to be known. To laugh together and also share our struggles.

I think it was those experience in someways that helped to define the loneliness that I was feeling. It was not just not being able to hang out with girlfriends for coffee or praying with brothers and sisters....it was not being with people who really knew me and knew all the exciting journey that God had taken me on.

Sometimes because we are so far from our previous life it is easy for it to seem that it did not happen or was just a dream. Yesterday, I connected with a couple of my friends in Rwanda. We chatted over FB and although I would have preferred to have visited face to face...I was very thankful for this technology and connection with friends.

We started our first weekly small group in our home here in Chicago last Sunday night. I could see the beginnings of our new community. I know that my loneliness will not be a forever thing and this is just a season.

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Luke 5:16 .This has been the redeeming fruit of this season---sweet fellowship with my Lord ---going to Him when in the past I may have turn to others. He has and is caring me through this time of loneliness.

Mashup Church Experence

St. Paul's by the Lake Episcopal Church Chicago

Dave, my husband was asked to preach today at a South Sudanese Church. This church was not located in South Sudan or any where near Africa. This church was meeting in Chicago. It was meeting like most immigrant churches at a odd time on Sunday afternoon when the building is not in use. It was not in the basement of the church but meeting in the main sanctuary.  We came early before very many had arrived. The Church building was a beautiful ornate old building built in 1882. Stained glass windows depicting the early apostles framed the sanctuary.  The wood work was exquisite with intricate work every where you looked. It was just breath taking! It was decorated for this Christmas season. The smell of incense was in the air. Then on the front pews there was something unusual that you would not expected to see in an Old Episcopal Church , two African drums.

Soon several South Sudanese began to join. This was primarily a gathering of the Dinka , who are very strikingly tall dark beautiful people. They began to sing in Dinka. I do not know this language but have heard it before through the years of meeting Sudanese refuges in Uganda and Kenya. The singing is very rhythmic and remains with you. 

I began to close my eyes to worship God in my heart and as I did I was transported far away to a small church gathering under a tree in rural Africa. I could see the large tree we were meeting under. Children wandering around playing with simple toys made from wire and other recycled material. I could feel the cool breeze blowing through reminding me of God's spirit. I could see all the colorful material that was worn by the women and the clean pressed suits by many of the men. In the near distant I could see several huts with thatched grass roofs. When I opened my eyes and saw the Old Episcopal Church building  again...somehow these to things were having a hard time coming together for me. It was such an unusual experience.  

It reminded me of a mashup song--where 2 or more songs and blended together to form one song. It was if the old American church with its liturgical service was mashed up with a traditional Dinka worship service. What was made --was something unique and beautiful.  I am so thankful that I experience  a Mashup Church today. 

Babies

When my children were babies I must admit this is one of my favorite stages!
I love infants!

I love the way they smell!

I love how much they like to cuddle!

I love how utterly dependent and trusting they are!

My foster baby Gabe

I love those early weeks when they look into your eyes and they are like a sponge soaking up all your love up.

God has taught me so many things through my care for babies. Not just caring for my own children but also those I have baby sat and fostered.

I remember the first time I put my oldest daughter , Sophia in a car seat to drive about an hour across town to visit her Grand parents. She cried and cried! I cried! I could not explain to her why being fastened in a plastic car seat was safer than being cradled in my arms. All she wanted was to be comforted my her mother and that is what I wanted to do but I knew the safest place for her was where I had her.

I remember like it was yesterday that during all that crying and frustration an understanding of my relationship with God my father came to me. Are there times when I am crying and do not understand the places that God has placed me? Just as I knew the car seat was the best place for Sophia , God knows the best place for his daughter to be. I must trust that God has me where He needs me to be.

Looking back on my life , I can now see many times that He has placed me some where that at the time I did not understand and felt betrayed,

neglected,

forgotten

and alone

but later realized that it was for my best and the kingdoms best and I saw God's glory come from it!

But I still am like a child and love the times that I am held the most. I love cuddling up to my Lord and soaking in all the love.
I feel this as I care for babies.

Sophia and I on our porch in Uganda

I can remember some of my most precious times with God have been during the quiet and stillness of the night as I was feeding my babies. Those are sacred moments that I will never forget!

This week as I have started to take care of a friend"s baby as she returns to work so many of these memories have come to my mind.

Babies are such a blessing from God!

I Have Heard the Levitical Call

Looking for 20 new partners in our new call to serve the Diaspora of EastAfrica in Chicago. Please join us in praying for this!

I often get ask ," Now what are you all doing in Chicago? What is your job?" It is funny because this is a question that people have asked us through the years as we have served as missionaries.

I think before vocation was a buzz word ( or now it seems it is out of fashion) this is the word that described the calling on my life that is played out day by day.   The term Vocation , I would define as a calling to do and be something that becomes comprehensive....a passion that one can not walk away from---a knowing that what you are doing has eternity effects.

I have always wanted to do what God asked of me...be what He wants me to be... I do not know if my holistic view of life came from my up-bring as a TCK ( Third Culture Kid) with East African world view influences but I have always viewed my job more as who and whose I am than just what I do for a living.

Even as I went through my educational training I knew that it was not going to be traditional 9-5 job for me. As I write this ,  I know there are others that have been called to a vocation that looks more "traditional" and that is where God has placed you...but I have heard the Levitical call. " The Levitical priests—indeed, the whole tribe of Levi—are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the food offerings presented to the Lord, for that is their inheritance." (Deuteronomy 18:1 NIV)

I believe that as a church we all have to answer the great commission...some are called to go and some are called to send but all are called to the commission of God : "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.' " (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV)

  Levitical call is a term that I have been chewing on lately.  As we have transitioned back to the U.S. I feel more like Dave and I are in our early 20's more than where are age-mates are. What I mean is that we are renting as apposed to owning a home...we are starting over gathering household items not having so much stuff that we are renting storage units....we are starting something anew rather than being settled in our careers. I must admit that I have struggled some with jealousy, envy, and wondering what have we acquired ?????

In one of my quiet times I felt God gently nudge me that one I should not compare but more importantly that He has called us to a different path. I had been reading through the Bible ( actually listening on line to daily readings) and was struck by the different standard and requirement of the Levies who were in full time service to God. He reminded me of the cost of saying yes to Him so many years ago...I was saying no to using my gifts and talents to acquire wealth and although we have not and do not buy into the thought that missionaries should "Suffer" and we have certainly not taken an oath of poverty, we have lived on less and used most to serve others.

But just as the Levites needed Israel to also follow God's calling by providing offerings to sustain them...missionaries today need the church to answer God's calling to give so that those of us who have answered the Levitical call can put our full energy into serving others. 

Now back to the question of "What are you doing in Chicago?" We are still missionaries. Even though we have relocated ,we are still serving the same people we have served over the last 20 years: East Africans that are now living in major cities in the U.S. --Chicago being one of them. Our hope is to Shepherd, Equip, Evangelize and Discipleship the Diaspora and out of this plant a multi-cultural church reaching the un-churched or De-churched of Chicago.

What does this practically look like? We are following relationship lines--30+ relatives of our last church plant --CCR ( Christ Church in Rwanda) and relatives of our friends in Uganda live here in Chicago.  We have also gone to several functions of different East African Communities and have met new people and are beginning to build relationships. It is amazing how much credibility our time living in East Africa and also my childhood experiences in Kenya has given us as we met new folks. Often times we know someone who knows someone who is related to someone and a connection is formed! We have so many God stories ---way to big for coincidences! He has used this to open many doors.

We have had several of these new friends over to our home on Saturdays for shared meal and fellowship. We have visit many in their homes, places of work, schools and visit a few in hospitals. From this we have gathered a group that are leaders in their different communities and have formed a steering committee for Great Lakes Fellowship ( which is going to be a monthly fellowship for the Diaspora--folks from East Africa that are living in the States now). We had our first steering committee meeting last Saturday night. We had a great group with representatives from Rwanda,Uganda,Kenya and Tanzania!

Our first GLF Steering meeting

I hope this explains some of what we are up to and again I want to say that this can not be possible with out your prayers and support. Please if you are not one of our monthly partners and would like to be one of the 20 new partners we are praying for , you can find more information on
Rwanda Outreach and Community Partners (ROC): http://www.rocpartners.org

Contributions may be sent to:
ROC Partners

- Jenkins Memo

3007 NW 63rd Ste 205

Oklahoma City, OK 73116-3605

Home Is A Choice

We have now been in Chicago for about a month. 
Most of the boxes are unpacked.
Furniture is arranged.
Pictures are hung.
A place for everything and everything a place.

Each mementoes placed caries a special memory.
Each picture hung floods my mind with the goodness of God.
Each cloth tells a story.
Each cup holds a conversation.

We are sinking in to our new life very far from where we came.
Smells are different.
Sounds are different.
Sights are different.
Yet there are familiar touches, smells, sounds, and sights. 


Home is more than a place.
Home is something you cultivate with the ones you love.
Home is extending your love to others.Visitors make a house a home.

Home is a choice.

Homeless No More!

We now have an Apartment in Rogers Park, Chicago in a very interesting neighborhood. A Jewish Community intersecting with an Arabic Community near little India with East Africans sprinkle all around.

         We had just about rented another apartment but it was a bit higher rent and we discovered later that it was not in the safest area.

About this time a Rwandan friend of ours who was working for a realtor management company called and said she found us a three beds and two-bath large apartment in Rogers Park. Dave went and the next day to view the first floor apartment.

One of the things I had been praying about was our neighbors. Even the best apartment if you have neighbor problems your home can be a miserable place. As soon as Dave arrived he saw someone we knew. Church planters working with primarily Jewish and Turks occupy the two units above us.

What a small world! When Dave called to share this with me I was again reminded that God works every little detail out…beyond our expectations. I was just praying for friendly neighbors that would not be offended by us having lots of visitors and ministry out our home.

So God gives us an experienced Church Planters that has been in Rogers Park for years as our neighbor.

I just saw the place last night for the first time. I love it and I am so excited to turn this place into our home and a place of comfort and hope for all of those that God has planned for us to intersect with!

Thank you to all of you who have joined us in prayer and have sacrificed so that we can answer this call to Chicago.

         P.S I am going to blog how I turn this place we’re living into a home with all the “picking “ and garage finds.  So stay tuned!Here are some before pictures.

Living room with lots of windows

Fireplace

Opposite wall to fireplace

Dinning room

Dinning room

Kitchen

For those of you on face book check out this house warning party that my sister-in-law Patty Jenkins has organized //www.facebook.com/events/657562367587912/

If not on FB you can go right to my wish list of things we still need to set up house.http://www.myregistry.com/public/Jana-Jenkins the password is Blessings