Wilhelm picked us up at 9am.
I was dressed in my “mission trip clothes” and had my game face on.
Today was going to be the day that I fell in love with Kenya.
it didn’t happen
Wilhelm took us to The Junction {Nairobi’s version of a mall}.
We walked around looking for a place to exchange money and eat some lunch. We hadn’t eaten anything since our flight from Paris.
We had to walk through security just to get in the door.
They opened my purse, patted us down and then we went inside.
There were guards at every store, some with machine guns and some with sticks.
I kept looking at John and then looking around me and he noticed that I was struggling to take it in.
My heart was prepared for dirt floors.
For dirty laundry hanging everywhere.
For kids that were half naked and covered in bug bites.
People who couldn’t speak English.
not this
Wilhelm wanted to show off his city. The city he loves.
And what better way to do that than to take us to the affluent part of town. The place where business men and women spend $30 for lunch and shop at their version of Wal-Mart.
It just wasn’t what my heart was expecting.
Nairobi is a hub for lots of international business. A place where new buildings are being built left and right and where traffic is a nightmare and a half.
But this girl from the states expected Nairobi to be like what you see in the movies. Or on Feed the Children commercials.
The sweet missionary couple who were staying in the guest house adjacent to us said to not judge Kenya based on Nairobi.
“Nairobi in and of itself is like city state and doesn’t represent accurately the rest of Kenya.”
John could tell I was discouraged. That my heart wasn’t “in” today.
But as the day has worn on, I realized that I wasn’t fully accepting all that God had for me.
That He orchestrated this unexpected time in Nairobi.
That He wanted us to see the affluent parts so I could gain perspective.
That He wanted me to search myself and find the flesh in me that wanted to secretly stay here in the safe.
The protected.
The secure.
But we aren’t called to a ministry of security. A ministry that plays it safe and always uses the lighted sidewalks.
It’s good to spend some time there because it helps prepare us for the dark times.
The times where we rely on the faith we had when it was “easy”.
So, did I fall in love with Nairobi today?
No.
But I fell deeper in love with a God who uses all the things, including the safe and affluent, to change my heart.
Jestidwell's Blog 
So, you didn’t fall in love with Narobi because it is a city with safety, health, and individuals that are educated and have jobs. You don’t see the poor-and they do exist.
Shouldn’t Nairobi give you hope?
Do you want the slums to continue? For them to exist forever?
What exactly are you here for if it is not to help the poor get out or improve and eliminate the slums? For those areas to become a bit like Nairobi. With safety and homes and jobs and health and streets and cars and etc.?
You were disappointed that these people weren’t openly suffering?!
Can you not bring His message to the people of Nairobi?
I have been trying to support you, I’ve been praying for you.
And now I am about to comment something that others will likely interpret as “bullying”(it’s not): I am disgusted that you are disappointed by a lack of extreme poverty and suffering.
Suzanne, I do not know you, but I do know John and Jessica. God IS using them in ways you do not understand. He is letting them experience many things while on this journey. It is not for you to ” judge”. I found Jessica’s comments very enlightening, as I have never been to Nairobi. Through her eyes God let me see what we do not see here in the states. I will not judge you, but from your not so kind words, you are not showing a christian character. I will pray for you.
How is Suzanne not showing a christian character?
Are we Christians not allowed to speak against those Christians who do not represent His purpose? Those christians that so blatently go against his word?
How is it un-christian of her and others hete to point out the obvious about Jessica? How are “harsh” words so wrong-when you yourself do the same?
Jessica has clearly stated that she was discouraged by Narobi not languishing in extreme poverty.
I ask: How can any good christian, moral person be discouraged that people aren’t in extreme poverty?
Jessicas statement does not show one who is moral or compassionate. If she was, she would be gladdened that Nairobi is prospering.
Yet-Jessica isn’t inspired or hopeful or happy that the people she has encountered are not in extreme suffering. Are not outwardly suffering. She is discouraged that Nairobi has food and all things that a modern society has.
If you can’t see how horrific it is that she is discouraged by the fact Nairobi isn’t a slum, isn’t filled with children and adults dying from hunger and preventable diseases.
Than I say that your accusation of “un-christian” behaviour applies to you. For what one strives for is safety, health, life and a way out of poverty.
Jessica is a selfish individual. For only a selfish individual is discouraged by a lack of poverty since poverty is the Glory card that one can pass on. Can feel good about-because how can one brag and bask in helping someone who isn’t in extreme poverty? Right? Right?
That us the message I gain from all these posts supporting jessica and letting her know its “understandable” to be discouraged that someone isn’t suffering and on the brink of dying.
Real christian? Real Christians help those no matter what their circumstances in life.
my dear please excuse the “harsh” language but on what planet is “God” using a woman who is disappointed that Africa was not the hellhole she expected? I think people have so misused that phrase that it has become meaningless. There is nothing godly about someone hoping that others are in pain, want and suffering just so they can assuage their own misguided hero complex.
Shame on you why do you need her to show you her skewed version of Nairobi. You can google and learn more from the net about Kenya. The savior complex that seems to be bestowed on well meaning Christians maybe should and is better suited to be used closer to home. All you good loving Christians do not help those in need closer to,in the ghettos, on skid row please we as “Africans” do not need your saving. Save your own.
Jessica, I know you were expecting praise and encouragement but maybe you are getting what you need instead? There is value in what has been written here, I hope you will let yourself see it.
I don’t know how you missed it but there are millions of impoverished people in Nairobi. God did not send you to the mall, Jessica.
Bravo though, for letting the world watch as you bumble you way through sensitive cultural and spiritual issues. Most people are not brave enough to take the heat. I hope that your “mission” will be fruitful and that you will leave Africa with more than you took from her.
I think many of you are confused and would benefit from reading the bible. God does not call us to preach the gospel primarily for us to “experience things”. The gospel is not and never has been about you, your experiences or your feelings. It is about winning souls for Christ. How on earth can God ignore every single one of His disciples in Kenya only to bring a family from faraway Oklahoma to do the work of experiencing things? They should just tell us they are on a vacation so we can urge our Kenyan brothers and sisters to tell them the best places to visit.
Maybe G-d can use somebody else to help them rid themselves of their prejudices. Afterall, missionaries are supposed to show G-d’s love and help others live better, right?
Her blog comments are a display ignorance blended with arrogance that the world outside your vicinity is not developed. As a born again kenyan, I don’t see how we can be part of God’s family with such shallow minded, unbiblical missions. Do you share Christ to poor Africans so you can be celebrated? Please point me to that scripture. Mission work is to the rich, poor, developed, needy, depressed, not in need etc. It’s for everyone. She needs to dig deep and ask God for his vision, not hers.
Geneva, THIS is what is wrong with Christianity today. THIS comment is why people are fleeing from the church in droves. Because in some circles NO ONE can questions motives with out being labeled “judging”. When someone puts out words like Jessica has on her very PUBLIC blog, it is an open door for questions. Nothing Suzanne said was rude or judgmental. That was YOUR interpretation and your JUDGEMENT of her words. And your closing statement of “I’ll pray for you”……wow. What a condescending, snarky way of saying she was wrong and you are the one to help her see her ways. As Christians we all need prayer, yes Geneva, even you. Suzanne doesn’t need any more than you simply because she disagrees or was disappointed with Jessica’s statements. What an arrogant phrase to post! “Ill pray for you”. People are allowed to disagree, people are allowed to call in to question someone’s words, it is Biblical. You know what isn’t Biblical? Using a conversation with God as a tool of manipulation so one can see the “error of their ways”.
Geneva you don’t have to go to kenya to see it. Google it. And it was christian like of Jes to want to come and make a difference. She would have avoided the disappointment if she did her research well in advance. Even the Lord says it Himself no victory can come withoit some form of preparation. So Suzzane is not being nasty she’s just saying it like it is. It’s the truth. And being a christian I would expect much more from Jes. Why should a christian only be okay with poverty and anguish around them? I’d have expected her to still go ahead and search out those areas that need her help and her undying love to help out.
” God IS using them in ways you do not understand. He is letting them experience many things while on this journey.”
How are they demonstrating God’s will by being depressed when they see prosperous Africans?
Geneva, I should insist we pray for you instead. Christianity is being used as a form of perceived value towards “missionary” work…and I say this as a Christian myself. The problem of coming into a place with a set preconceived idea of a people or community is that you will either be pleasantly surprised or terrified…as a missionary, your happiness or better yet, as you called it, “falling in love with Nairobi” should have been based on fact and not fiction. This is the problem we face as Kenyans when we travel into the western countries and the first question we get is…”how did you learn English” or we get comments like, “your English is so good”…vexes me every time…but I always remember that these statements come from a point of Ignorance. Knowledge is King…don’t assume.
Why don’t you people try to help the poor and homeless here in North America instead of looking for poverty to ‘fix’ in Africa?
-Bob Marley
P.S.-when I said ‘you people’, I meant John & Jessica.
THIS. IS. THE. BEST!!!! LOLOLOL. Neville Ross is the real MVP!
maybe she’s just like mother theresa and she likes it when people suffer? i think she was just shocked to get off the plane in africa and see a fat, white guy buying mayonnaise
We need up-votes in here ASAP
I think the fat white guy is her husband
*UP VOTE!!!!!!* LMAO!
Oh dear! Elaine, I think you’re right, oop at me. Mother Theresa syndrome it is 😦
Am trying to read and re read this article, not happy because you didn’t find what you were told or read? am sorry this is called ignorance, and who is happy to see people suffer? I think the people to be upset about are those who fed you the wrong description and you to have been so ignorant to believed it.
Seems to her like they dont need it. She could have at least done some research on google before going. But i learned in school and from the news a long long time ago that there were cities in africa. Doctors..teachers.. i mean how do you manage not to learn this?
homeschooling probably
Not a good enough point. Even with home-schooling, you should be able to get on Google (Bing, Yahoo search, Wikipedia etc) and know that Kenyans speak English and Swahili, that we are majority Christians and that not all of out country is barren desert with dying helpless and/or diseased orphans. Honestly home school or no, there is no excuse. Internet searches for your chosen destinations are any traveller’s best friend.
I agree Suzanne…..peoples misconception of the world needs to stop…..Africa is a continent not a country how could u not think people would have development in 54 countries….smdh
Mother Teresa did. Her whole thing was that the poor must suffer. Maybe that is what this lady is going for?
Another ignorant person ( Terminusbound). Pls read about Mother Theresa before commenting on her work. If someone helps the poor doesn’t mean she loves to see the poor suffer.
Mensah, maybe you should do some research on Mother Theresa, there are numerous sources about how she would purposely keep people sick who could be easily cured, because when they suffer, they are closer to jesus. she was not a good person.
Yeah Mensah, I know this is three years later but I hope you do get notified. Do some research on Mother Theresa. She was a legitimate monster. As Kathleen said, she thought suffering brought you closer to Jesus so she made it a point to deny sick/dying people in pain any sort of pain medication or even give them treatment, which in some cases were very treatable diseases. No one said that someone who helps the poor loves to see the poor suffer. People are saying that Mother Theresa in particular was a woman who allowed the poor to suffer needlessly.
There is low and then there is this!..i’d say grow up,but am sure you are a grown woman ,so how about you stop being such a shallow mind!.You are so ignorant i can’t even find words for you.
This is completely harsh. She learned lessons and came to see where her understanding was faulty. Please, do some missionary work, and then come back and be as vulnerable as was the author.
Please don’t do missionary work. Stop trying to force people to believe in fairy tales and grow up.
She is disappointed because it is difficult to sell the ‘god cure’ if people are not (feeling) sick. That’s why the catholic church is working hard to ensure AIDS is spread around the entire continent. More suffering = more souls = more money and power for the clergy.
Well you can’t sell the myth of God to prosperous people. Because they don’t need it. They are doing perfectly well without Christianity infringing on their lives, telling them they are going to hell, and asking for 10% of their money. That’s why missionaries go to poor and destitute areas, because those are the people desperate enough to buy into fairytales and nonsense. It’s also why the more educated and prosperous a country becomes, the more likely they are to abandon religious mythologies.
She was expecting to pity them and thank God he gave her the white life she has lol. Her saviour complex couldn’t compute that Africa isn’t what they’ve been taught. She thought everywhere was a dirt road her intro let me know she is the last person Africans need help from. Matter of fact we don’t need help from any white person ever. All they’ve ever done is bring disease, famine, and murder of our cultures and they steal our land they steal our art to fill their museums. They are cancer set upon african people and they all need to leave us the hell alone.
It is pretty amazing in Africa, when you get out of the city limits, you are definitely OUTSIDE of the city limits. Instantly, you are in a different world.
true. when you get out of NY into Idaho, you are definitely OUTSIDE city limits too.
When you get out of Little Rock and deep into the Ozarks, you’re outside city limits too and into some of the worst poverty in the world. She wanted dirt floors and people who were washing their clothes in a stream? She should have just gone to Arkansas.
Yep.
Girl I get it. I was like that when I landed in Johannesburg. My heart was prepared for the worst and I was overwhelmed with the “Americanized” version of Africa that I was faced with. Trust and believe, God is going to break you and mold you and stretch you and most importantly USE you in EVERY part of your journey when you surrender the journey…all of it…to Him. Praying and loving you!!
Please. I am married to a South African and spend about half the year in SA. Joburg is “Americanized” because it’s a main commerce hub for the country. Did you expect to touch down on a dirt runway and have the natives come and greet you? I’m totally offended that you think our country is a backwards hovel. Go spend some time in Durban or Cape Town. SA is an amazing, thriving country. It’s not without it’s problems, but it’s also not some underdeveloped ghetto that needs “saving’ by the likes of you.
Thank you, Eva. I’m utterly blown away by the tacky nature of this blog post — and Adrianne’s response.
You’d think her and Jessica were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
Poverty Tourism at its finest. Christians travel to foreign lands to gawk at the “brown people” with bug bites.
No class. Neither of them. None at all.
Some more ignorance. Am getting to the point that I feel ashamed for you my fellow christian. I mean, you have the Internet for heavens sake. I can’t understand it at all. Am I really reading from mature adults? And then to top it of, you are disappointed that people are developed? I think I am reading a different Bible. If you heart is preparing for the worst, there are plenty neighborhoods here in the USA you can go to. Smh, I can’t even laugh, that’s how sad it is.
“Americanized”?
So because Nairobi has stores and tall buildings a malls…it’s “Americanized”?
The ignorance of so many here is astounding. Nairobi is NAROBI! It isn’t “Americanized”
Stop being so close minded and open your eyes and mind!
Indeed. Because like… before America, there were no commerce or markets right? I mean, that is what a market has been for a few thousand years: an open-air mall. It’s now American to put walls around it? Like nobody else in the world would think of that?
And, I mean… tall buildings? STOP THE PRESSES! AFRICA DISCOVERS “AMERICAN” SECRET OF CEMENT! How did this girl think she was getting a flight to Kenya? By taking a 767 out of Paris and landing on a dirt airstrip out in a field? As someone who has done mission work, I admit that you actually need great leadership and local collaborations to understand and target the actual problems that need to be solved. And, moreover, the biggest problems are for (drumroll) the local minorities and oppressed people in that area (just like in the US or anywhere else).
So yes, I get the concept of not understanding the exact problems that are the most important to target in mission work. But I mean… not understanding that people have cities in developing countries? I mean… phew. Her mission must take anyone, and not even require the most basic preparation to understand what the heck they are doing. (If they actually have sufficient framework in place to do anything at all…).
While I’m mildly incensed by the attitudes (e.g., “disappointment”), my disappointment is in her mission group that clearly required no advance prep. I mean, she’s just a kid. I get that she doesn’t know things. It should be the job of the leaders to explain things and push kids to “get” the problems that they are there to help with. If only so they don’t embarrass the whole mission group, at a minimum. Too often Christianity is used as a great cover for outright incompetence. Can’t balance the church budget? “God will provide.” Didn’t prepare people competently for their mission trip? “God teaches us in mysterious ways.” Newsflash: God teaches us a lot faster if we pick up some of the slack. Just saying.
I now feel quite embarrassed. In reading this post, from the tone and ignorance, I assumed that I was reading something written by a girl perhaps right out of high school, not a grown woman and mother. That realization is… sobering, to say the least.
However, it really does bring home the need of church leaders to instill a sense of curiosity and responsibility in carrying out your Christian duties. Imagine if you started a new job at a hospital, and were like “Woah. I thought this would be like ER and House. I am super disappointed that I just do blood draws rather than open heart surgery.” People would: A) Think that you are some kind of moron and B) Fire you if you kept up that level of abject ignorance. To bring that kind of ignorance into your mission work?
I guess you’re just betting that God is a much nicer boss than I would be. Which, having read the Old Testament, seems doubtful.
I am so tired of your self righteousness. Every country has it struggles with poverty maybe some more than others but until you are able to compassionately help those who are closer to you please stop coming to save us get over yourselves we are not in need of saving nor are we in need of missionaries we have enough Christians in the country that can adequately handle the spread of the gospel. It doesn’t get better because it came from some white person
*clapping profusely*
Niiice
Preach! We are not here to soothe your guilt. I have people stopping me on campus everyday, teaching me about the gospel. None of this, no more. Girl bye.
Africa is not trying to be “americanized”, it is trying to be developed. It is not always about you, so give it a rest. Боже мой!
We don’t need no Americanized africa; we don’t need your securalized culture in kenya. you guys fail to get this, just as you came and found a modernized Nairobi It’s us who built this will you were whining with “pity for Africa”
replace “Americanized” with modernized, some of the development in Johannesburg is way pas what I see in the Bronx, or Harlem.
Jessica, I love reading your blog!! Your honesty and wit are entertaining but even more than that your vulnerability in sharing is admirable to say the least. I pray that God will move in a mighty way while in Africa and His Love, Grace, & charity will be poured out to all that come in contact with you. May God keep you safe and focused to do His work that He has called you to do. My prayer is you not be discouraged by those that are ignorant or blatantly rude in what you are doing. Enjoy those who are encouraging and turn a deaf ear to those who do not. I will probably never get to experience a mission trip as this but I can pray and encourage you!!
You are the hands and feet of Christ! Enjoy your trip, Pam Kibler
Do you know what’s ignorant? Generalizing an entire population, as well as assuming the people of the country need you to bring them Jesus. It’s grotesque and narcissistic.
Eva, I completely agree. Well said, here and in your other comment.
I absolutely cannot stand ever-so-smug “Christians” looking upon everybody and everything outside of their bubble as being “dirty, unsafe, needing to be converted, and open-game for their display of religion…. the “only try one.” Americans are only a small percentage of the work’s population and their way is NOT the only way. If you have to have people on a rung of society lower than yourself to “help” to make yourself feel better…then what you know of the Bible is very little.
Exactly!
Well said, Eva! So tired of some Christians feeling they have to bring everyone to Jesus. It’s a personal choice…what to believe or not…just stay home already.
With respect, are you being genuine, or kind of just grasping (falling in love, for real?). I feel like as Christians we sometimes become self-important and presumptuous when it comes to “God’s plans.” I know that God works all things for good, but I never feel comfortable presuming grand things about my role in this. I am just a tiny speck in His universe.
You are ignorant. All commentors in support of Jessicas statement that she was ‘discouraged’ Nairobi is a thriving city, that it is “Americanized” that “Africa”(a dang CONTINENT) isn’t filled with poor, suffering, dying, starving blacks are ignorant.
The more I read the more infuriated I become.
Thank you
Ritsa, please know that not all Americans are this ignorant and unaware of the civilization that existed in African countries long before America existed (as the “USA”). And many of us in the US are also victims of the christian need to ‘rescue’ and ‘save’ anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their world view. This ‘white savior’ mentality has harmed so many people! I am sad that these folks continue to inflict their need to ‘save the world’ on everyone.
As for me, I am SO HAPPY to know that there is prosperity and economic growth around the world and that you are resisting the attempts by misguided religious folks who want to be the ones to ‘show you the way.’ I wish they would get a life- of their own- and stop meddling in the affairs of others who haven’t asked for help.
you know what is “blatantly rude”, expecting that the Africa that i grew up in is nothing more than a slum filled with disease and want… and then announcing that you are disappointed because it actually has stores! The horror!
She is in Kenya which is in Africa. Kenya being the country. All you well meaning Christians need to work on your own communities stand up for your own. Please stop coming to save us we can do it ourselves. Utilize the internet and learn more about different countries.
Rossie, the reason these ‘well meaning christians’ don’t work on their own communities- which are filled with poor, homeless people- is because most of those people resist the ‘rescue’ efforts in which they are often required to participate in the religious rituals of these ‘white saviors’ in order to obtain ‘help.’ The poor and homeless here don’t fall down and worship those who are trying to ‘rescue’ them, so those do-gooders don’t feel as fulfilled as they would be if some poor, totally illiterate ‘heathen’ accepted their help. And then the good christians can’t feel good about themselves.
That you aren’t all illiterate heathens with no running water – and actually have shopping malls with shelves filled with food and other goods- is very discouraging to them. How will they receive the praise and gratitude they feel is their due if you aren’t in need of their ‘services’? How can they force their religion on you if you already share the same ‘faith’ (as there are already many christians in African countries)? Perhaps they believe that THOSE christians aren’t christian enough and don’t share the same evangelical bent. Besides, don’t you know that there is a prize waiting for them in heaven for every soul they save? They want to stack up as many brownie points as possible so they can get the biggest mansions in heaven. Without your cooperation, how are they going to do that?
@ Norma Jean, Thank you for explaining that bit that i have always wondered about. I mean like there is enough poverty, racial tensions and a whole lot of fixing that needs to be done back in the US from a christian perspective. But NO! they want to carry their small minded, superiority nonsense down to Kenya and we are expected to cheer them on? SMDH. Please, somebody save me from this foolishness. As Rossie aptly put it, We Know God, Have known God and Can teach God way better than you can judging from your myopic mind set Jess…
Take your charity elsewhere. You are robbing us of our dignity.
No, she is robbing all American citizens of our dignity and credibility in the world. I feel ashamed and can only hope we build and work on an education system that discourages small-minded ignorance and lack of understand.g
Ummm as a BORN AGAIN kenyan, I found the blog ignorant, disturbing and rude. I am offended to say the least, disappointed to realize the verse in the the Bible that states, “my people perish because of lack of knowledge”, is alive and well. This is a display of total ignorance. I can’t!!!!
It is not outside of God’s perogative to send one of His across the world to gain perspective. Perspective that may even enhance ministry at home. I did not read disappointment with affluence or advancement, but rather unmet expectaion. The heart of a nurturing person plans on loving people in undesirable cicumstances. Those circumstances can and do happen in Africa, America, and everywhere in between. We are called to be His hands and His feet in helping others gain access to what they need, but we are not the provider. He is! We are just agents of His provision. Clean water, education, adequate medicine, and many other essentials are desperate needs, however, they are not the most critical. That need is Jesus, and He is the one who can takes care of the rest. Therein lies the problem with affluence and industrial advancement. It is not the affluence itself that disappoints but the concern that it may shroud the greatest need of its privileged recipients. Affluence, like it has in America, makes it harder for those who enjoy the benefits to come to the end of themselves, as the prodigal son did in scripture. Only then was he able to be reconciled with his father. Same for us and our Father. Even Jesus shared with His diciples that wealth made it hard (not impossible) to come to Him. So, the issue is not how we see the world around us, but how we see Him. When we catch a glimpse of His love for us while we were/are all sinners, it changes how we see everything. Keep sharing!!
PJ- With all due respect, you wrote “Clean water, education, adequate medicine, and many other essentials are desperate needs, however, they are not the most critical. That need is Jesus, and He is the one who can takes care of the rest.”
Is that a joke ? Are you truly serious that as long as you have Jesus everything else is handled ? So how is it possible that millions of Christians live in Africa, and those same people starve to death, die from tainted water, inadequate medical care ? Are they not Jesus loving enough ? Are you saying that if a person does not believe in Jesus, then that is why those people are starving etc?
Let’s be real here. Faith filled people die every day in poverty. What Jesus wants is for people to get off their butts an fix the poverty. NOT by saving them with Jesus backed words.. but by SAVING them with Jesus backed ACTION. It is not by getting on a plane to go view the poverty, because that is what you need to change yourself, it is by doing something to change those lives in the horrible situations. The airfare alone for two people could change peoples lives forever. So much waste in the name of “missions”
Completely agree. If these missionaries actually donated the ca. 1000usd airfare each to a charity or a village or a project rather than getting on a plane to observe the problems, everyone would be a lot better off.
Off the point perhaps….I don’t believe in anything religious but I have enough money to live well in a nice house with plenty of food, access to all the medicine I may need, great variety of food, a happy marriage and heathy children. Isn’t this proof that MONEY and not faith keeps you alive?
Well Put Ashanti! As the good Lord said, the poor shall always be with us, BUT that does not translate to too “sit on your backside pontificating to those less wealthy about what is critical for them and cover it in gospel garments.” Nkt.
Actually the “heart of a nurturing person” loves and cares for all people in need no matter what their circumstances.
How utterly arrogant it is that you presume to know what is in “God’s prerogative”.
>> Clean water, education, adequate medicine, and many other essentials are desperate needs, however, they are not the most critical. That need is Jesus, and He is the one who can takes care of the rest.
Right, without desperation and ignorance, religion can’t get a foothold. Listen, you missionaries want a REAL challenge? Try preaching to scientists who are members of the National Academy of Science, instead of to those in a country who are 80% Christian. The scientists of the NAS are like 72% atheist, 20% agnostic and 8% religious. Now there’s a demographic that CLEARLY needs god!
LOL
Lol
Your assumption being that those wealthy are not Christians. How super presumptuous and self righteous of you. Kenya is a majority Christian country meaning majority of people practice Christianity. Kenya has its issues and we do not need you to come and save us…..please spread your Christian charity to your country and go work with the communities in the ghetto etc. Work on bettering race relations in your country and understanding where the black community is coming from and what they are going through. That too me would speak more of being a Christian than coming to “Africa” to dazzle the natives with the story of Christ majority of them have heard it and have the Bible actually translated in their language…….look up that statistic _ how many languages the Bible has been translated to in Kenya!!
YESSSS!!! Preach sister! Your comment is beyond accurate! Lol @ “dazzle the natives with the story of Christ”!
Dear heavens. YOU know God’s perogative??! How very convenient for those Christians who say this – especially when it matches up with their own.
*clap clap clap* Bravo! Bravo! Hahahahaha! With all due respect (which apparently is at an all time low), Christians have some very stupid people if you truly mean what you say. How can clean water and other essential things for human survival be secondary to Jesus. You would rather somebody die in a sorry state as long as he has Jesus? Get the hell out of my country you stupid religious demagogues. We don’t need your brand of mission work! I am glad we changed the constitution of Kenya and we are no longer a Christian state but a secular one. It’s really amazing what religion can do to perfectly sane people.
Why are you surprised that Nairobi is a big, metropolitan city? Why are you surprised that they speak English there? English is one of the two official languages of Kenya! (The other is Swahili).
Kenya is a relatively wealthy nation compared to it’s neighbors, and something like 83% of it’s population is Christian… the majority of those Protestant. And this is all information you would have found in a travel guide or online.
Do yourself a huge favor and research the areas you’re traveling to next, so you’re not so disappointed next time.
There are more Christians in Kenya than in the United States of America, for God’s sake! How prideful and presumptuous to assume THEY need something YOU have. Humility would do some of my fellow Christians good. Try showing the love of Christ first to those in your own backyard before flying across the ocean to save people who likely already know Him.
More Christians in Kenya then the USA? Uhm……..I don’t think so. Not even close.
82.5% of Kenyans identify as Christian, compared to 83% of Americans.
Technically, they do have fewer Christians than the US, because they have a much smaller population. America is the third most populous nation in the world. However, percentage wise we’re neck and neck.
I’m still really confused why you as well as your friend JM are in Africa? What skills do you have that will be benefitting anyone? How much are you spending on this trip that could have really been used in a better way? So you are disappointed that you did not see the poverty and suffering? Poor you. This trip seems VERY self serving. I’m utterly confused as to your goal. To feel better about yourself? To gawk at poor people?
Agreed…I’m still waiting to hear someone say WHAT they are doing there. Taking pictures or viewing slums isn’t really a ministry. I mean at the very least just say we
are there handing out Bible tracts or something.
i’m sure more people need tracts in Detroit than Nairobi. See, could have saved a few precious dollars and feelings of disappointment.
With all due respect, David, we have plenty of Bible tracts in Detroit. We don’t need that kind of help.
Thank you for being honest! Having been a missionary for a number of years, I do understand this. Blessings to you today.
Well is it possible to help us understand because clearly everyone is lost.
Oh course they can not give a reason for missionary work it is purely narcissistic , and self serving so they can claim to do gods works feel smug indigent to those inferior heathens
@John. Slow clap. Yep. Then they can go back to their backwoods in the US and impress their equally illiterate and ignorant friends how they saved “souls for christ” in the African bunduus. I tire.
The security in the mall is for good reason. Read about where you are going before you go there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westgate_shopping_mall_attack — I know that this is a different mall but it was not hard to have that result come up when reading about Nairobi.
Kenya as well as all of Africa is richly diverse. Not finding the poverty of your dreams (which is a whole separate insane concept) the moment you step off the plane is a bit much. Yes, there are people in need in Africa as there are on every continent save perhaps Antarctica. Yes, there’s lots of people who live a vastly different lifestyle to our own. Does this make them unhappy? In need of “saving”? Likely not. Please, please, PLEASE take the time to -learn- the area you are in and love it for what it is. Help them with resources if they need it but don’t look at them as a way to make you feel better about what you are and what you have. That’s dehumanizing and lacking grace.
What? What did I just read? Oh my crackers, this is not Christlike. I’m sickened by your attitude and I wanted to defend you but it’s indefensible. First, if you were going on a missions trip, wouldn’t it behoove you to be educated about the area in which you were planning to serve? I went to college with some of the most amazing young men from Kenya. They were gracious and well educated and well spoken and funny and nothing like many of their American counterparts in all of the ways that mattered. I can’t imagine thinking that they should be living in squalor on dirt floors just because they came from Africa. Sadly though, they encountered a lot of that attitude and people assumed Africa = ignorance, poverty, and just a step above jungle animals. So what did you go there for exactly? To feel morally, financially, and spiritually superior and because you couldn’t you felt grief?
A genuine desire and feeling for all human being certainly does not come packaged with disappointment when they discover that the degree of suffering might be less than one imagined. Something is seriously wrong here.
Wow, wow , wow! I can’t believe this post. What a disgusting little human being you are. Oh, you dress yourself as a devout preachy Christian and talk about wanting to “love on ” the people of Kenya … Do you really?? Or is this to fool anyone who will listen into seeing something you are not. Guess what, your true self comes out LOUD and clear in this very telling blog post. You didn’t fall in love with Nairobi because people aren’t suffering as much as you wanted them to be??? Because there are modern conveniences? What IS the purpose of your trip, hon, boosting your own ego and feeling like the Great White Savior?
Silly me, I thought “loving on someone” means wanting the very best for them, not wanting conditions to be so horrible because it may boost your ego to be the one to help them!
My opinion (and totally not bullying…just stating how I feel) You seriously should have just sent the $10,000 or $15,000 you are going to spend (probably more) in a check to the African people if you truly wanted to make a difference. I am shocked that you are touring for 20 days to “prove” to yourself there are poor people in the world. And even more shocked when you visited a lovely city, you were disappointed you didn’t get your photo shoot. There are millions of pictures of poor starving children (from the US also) and you didn’t have to travel 20 hours (and party in Italy) to make a difference. Send your check, copy and paste others pictures and feel good about making a difference. I can name you 10 charities/people that you could have really made a difference with by donating your money, rather than thinking you needed to “see” it first hand to make a difference. You could have traveled to Branson, looked at the tent people and gave them your thousands and made a huge difference. You don’t have to travel to another continent to see the poor. They are in OUR back yard also. I’ll pray you find whatever it is you are looking for.
By the way, you can come “love on” and “take pictures” of my daughters husband who has stage 4 cancer. She has a lovely newborn and a husband who was just diagnosed with a terminal illness. She would have welcomed you to love on, take pictures of, blog about and donate the thousands to them while they try to stay alive and afloat with the bills, travels expenses, deductibles, $25,000 chemo a month plus a newborn. Sorry, you really hit a sore spot to me with your trip.
I’m so sorry for what your family is going through. I wish it were different for you all. You are so right that the money spent on this trip should have gone to something genuinely productive, like helping your family.
just an fyi. $10,000 could have actually sent 200 Kenyan children to school for an entire year v
Yes, but then she wouldn’t have an excuse to change her FB picture.
I’m confused. Did they stop in Italy after their 20 hour layover in Paris?
My bad. I meant to say Paris. I shouldn’t do 3 things at once. 🙂 And BTW, I’m not a hater/meanie/name caller. I have never contacted this blogger before, never contacted her church (I am still confused on what she meant by her part of the trip was canceled?) nor would I ever. What was her original part? What is her husband’s part? Are they with a group? Did someone pay or sponsor their trip? Did they fund raise for it? She said she had no plans, no nothing, just going to “love on” the people. I am curious as to what the mission really is? Suitcases of Bibles or pamphlets? Or **really** just took hugs and words? I mean no ill will, just curious!
While I do know the answers to some of your questions, they aren’t mine to give. But know this: John and Jes are right where they’re supposed to be, and God will be glorified through their works.
I do wish they would answer all those questions, then maybe it would all make more sense. Without answers, it just looks like they are “gawkers” on the brown people. I love the quote “hugs are great, but money pays the bills”. I think that is great she can give a hug, but if she isn’t taking $$ (or Bibles, health supplies, etc) then I do not see why this trip is taking place. There have been many before her document the need in Africa (and in the US) so just to go and take pictures seems like such a waste to me (not to mention being away from their God give blessings of their beautiful children for a month to travel. To me, right where they are supposed to be would be with their children and mailing a check to Africa if they have $15,000 extra.
Why are they being so secretive, though? Can’t you see why that sends up major red flags for a lot of people when they won’t say WHAT they’re doing over there, or WHO they’re working with??
No, because they actually have told us.
But refuse to tell their blog readers?
And if it were your money funding the trip, I could see why you need answers. But if it isn’t, then I don’t understand why anyone *needs* answers.
I don’t “need” answers, like I said I’m just curious. It all seems so “quiet” as to the mission/reason for this trip. A true missionary screams it from the rooftops!! I am going xxx…I am going to do xxxx…. please pray for me while I xxxx…I need your help doing God’s work of xxxx. Christian’s on their **own** mission, give Christians on a real true mission a bad name (and not saying this blogger is either one as I don’t really know the facts because they haven’t been shared!).
Because there is going to be a sales pitch upcoming here. A plea to donate. A monthly monetary pledge, perhaps. If you want my money to go to your cause, the cause better be as transparent and forthcoming as possible.
If the Tidwells don’t try to sell me anything, and just went to take pictures and “love on” Kenyans, then I’m comfortable just stating that they are plain old poverty tourists, and that they wasted every dime they spent on this trip.
Oh please. Did you happen to notice that this blog is set up for the public to read? You cannot have it both ways, if you share your trip with the masses, Its perfectly okay for readers to be curious. Or not see a point of your trip, in this case. So while you go and mock curious readers for having valid doubts, do take a minute to appreciate that without readers like them, this blog is completely pointless. .
Eva, I unfortunately believe you are right. I pray I am wrong! But it really feels like this trip is funded by an organization that paid the blogger and husbands way to take pictures and blog about the trip. Then the readers will be invited to sponsor the village for $30 a month to give them water, etc. If it wasn’t the case, then I believe they would be more transparent about the trip. I also feel like this blog post is a set up to the next one that is a “whoa, just a few hours away from that mall is poor people. Poor brown people. Who live in huts. Who need your money.” It feels like a self serving joy tour that will bring money to an organization. I pray they prove me wrong.
Why would she give answers or even want to, to people who are rude, unkind and meddling? Most of us have never met her or knew anything about Jessica and her husband until last week. Just because we sit, unseen, behind computer screens doesn’t give us the right to degrade someone who we may not agree with. We are seeing just a very tiny sliver of her thoughts through this blog.Where is grace and compassion? It is sickening how people act!
Perhaps because she has chosen to make her trek to Africa so public? Because she writes about her life, invites people to follow her, share her blog and so forth. She will say, of course, that it is all for the glory of God. But I’m thinking just a teensy bit might be for the glory of Jes – or she would just DO good works and not brag about it. So the questions people ask of her are justified and she should be willing to answer any and all of them. If she truly believes in what she is doing, and she truly has zero selfish motivation in any of it, why would she NOT want to answer all questions?
Not to mention there are probably people in the “Little Preacher Man”‘s own congregation in dire need.
Here is a gal trying to share her experience with us, being open and honest about HER feelings. What is so terrible about the things she has written?? Being “disappointed” doesn’t make her any less of a Christian. Not everyone has been exposed to other cultures. This may be an enlightening experience for a young woman that simply is wanting to help her fellow man in some way. Don’t be discouraged, Jessica! GOD BLESS EACH AND EVERYONE ONE OF YOU!!
She’s disappointed that people aren’t naked and starving and covered in bug bites. That they have proper buildings and fully stocked grocery stores. Being an atheist, I’ll take your word that it doesn’t make her a lesser Christian but I have to say it makes her sound like a really shit human being.
What’s wrong? Her mind-boggling ignorance and self absorption.
I’m amazed that any of you on here name-calling, actually think you are better than the person you are pointing fingers at.
Oh yes, “name calling” is SO MUCH WORSE than a woman who is “discouraged” because the city she visited isn’t in extreme poverty and the people aren’t dying from starvation and living in sewage.
Please, enlighten me as to how “name calling” is worse than being disappointed that people aren’t suffering and dying?
Based on this blog post, I totally think I’m a better person than her and will continue to do so. Ritsa said it best. Just throwing in my support for those who think this blog OP is a shit person.
So I guess for us to be better people we need to allow self righteous people to spout their views without rebuttal.
lol you would be
you sound white.
I’ve followed this journey of yours. I’ve read the comments about Jennifer.
I’ve kept quiet…until now.
I am, as you and many others would say “African Born” I am black.
I saved and worked and struggled. As all do.
I came to America for College, I stayed because I found a job I am extremely happy with. I also found love.
Before I moved I researched. I researched the history, the varied cultures, and the state I was moving to; Massachusetts. I no longer live in Massachusetts.
I am angry. I am sad. I am also sickened.
I am angry that you didn’t research where you were going. You have endless resources to do even the most basic reading about the places you are visiting. By doing this, you show that you care about our cultures. That you care enough to know that Africa is a Continent. That you don’t refer to Africa as one place. Africa is a Continent with various countries with deep and vast histories. Peoples of all “colors” and ethnicities.
I am sad that you did not prepare in any way-except to pack your suitcase. I am sad that you didn’t care enough to learn, again, even the basics of the areas and people you will encounter.
I am sickened, so very sickened that you see “Africa” as a “place” that is only filled with “slums.”
I am sickened, angry and sad that you were, as you wrote “disappointed” in Nairobi. And why? Because it isn’t a slum. Because it isn’t your picture of poor.
How dare you? How dare you express “disappointment” that Narobi isn’t a slum? I am nearly speechless. You are actually upset that Nairobi isn’t filled with “shacks” and “rivers of sewage.” That Nairobi has clean running water, that it has resturants. And stores. And people that can work. People that are living in homes… That are relatively safe.
How dare you?
If you are really here to spread the mesage of God. Why can you not spread that message to the people of Nairobi?
I’ve read some of the “reasoning” and it can be summed up by “it’s too hard…because the people are too well off and might not listen…the people are too well off”
Again: How dare you?
If you are truly here to spread the word of God, who and what the people you encounter would not matter.
After reading this, I can say with no doubt that the only reason you are here is to see “the poor brown skinned people.” So you can return to your home, your friends, your church…and say that you “helped the poor.” So you can feel good. So you can feel proud. So people will give you praise for “helping” the “poor brown-skinned people.” So you can tell others how you “survived” the “slums.”
If your message is so important, if bringing Him into the lives of others is paramount… It should never matter who or what the people are. How and where they live. It should not matter at all.
So I am sick. Revolted. By you by the very fact that you are ‘disappointed’ Nairobi isn’t “what you expected”…a slum.
Will you express disappointment if the slums you visit are actually eliminated one day?
I’ve seen people say “poverty tourism” and this post proves that. The only reason you have come is so you can walk amongst the poor. So that you can brag that you “helped” them.
You are here to say that you hope one day that the people you visited, the poor, one day are no longer poor…but that’s obviously not true. Since you are so disappointed by Narobi.
You aren’t here for the poor. You aren’t here for Him. You are here for yourself, so you can brag and boast and get “points” for “helping” the “poor brown skinned people.”
You sicken me.
You’ve done an excellent job at summing up what is wrong with this story.
you have summed it all well Kenya being my country and Nairobi being my city….would really like to know why she comes from in the USA coz am sure in her state there are people who need her help… she should have watched this video that was on the New York Times .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-america.html?_r=0
Tell them Kira. Not only her but to so many who think like her.
Beautifully said.
I am a long time reader of the website that takes issue with JM. I don’t understand your trip, but I have to say I am sorry for the way some people are attacking you, Jes. I think you got lumped in with her by people who are angry that she tricked them and scammed them and is overall a crappy human and now nothing you say can be taken with a grain of salt. I am a non-affiliated Christian (grew up going to church and decided that the church-goers were way too judgemental and I could be close to God without needing a man in a robe to recite bible passages to me every sunday. I don’t like the words “obedient” or “christ-like” because I think people just need to be kind to one another – something very few people are doing for you right now.)
That said, I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate that you felt compelled to go to another continent/country to spread something you feel passionate about. I think your money could have been better spent, but I also just spent $300 at Target last night and there are plenty of people in my town who need help, so – no judging there either. I do what I can, when I can. I don’t believe you are disappointed that people aren’t as poor as you “hoped” – I can see where people have misconstrued your words.
I think maybe God’s purpose here, if you will, may be to teach you a lesson. Don’t get caught up in the “hooplah” of what people think you need to do to be a “good Christian”. Missionary trips and ‘poverty tourism’ as people are calling it, don’t do a world of good when you get to read a couple bible passages and come home to your warm bed, electricity, food on the table, etc. Rethink where your love, funds, etc need to go. Help the homeless in your own town.
Other-Website-“Haterz” ladies – simmer down over here please. Your target is JM and rightly so – thus far, Jes hasn’t hurt a hair on any of your heads. Her heart appears to be on the right path, if not the perfect place.
Just curious, what is JM?
Jennifer Howe Sauls Mckinney. Google her.
She is traveling with Jes. Jennifer forked out God knows how much money to take this trip but owes her own mother in law 60k, has a house she been skipping payments on, and a local mini blinds company she owes hundred to. And she makes her living by photoshopping herself and selling sketchy diet pills.
Yet Jes thinks it’s just dandy to take a lying scam artist with her to “minister” to the poor brown people.
Yes, who is JM?
I beg to differ – Jes sure-as-snow-in-winter has hurt many people. People who moved here from various countries in Africa, people whose ancestors made the same trip, willingly or unwillingly. Because she is perpetuating ignorance and white privilege, Christian privilege – I dare say she’s hurt every single one of us. By us, I mean HUMANS. I’m as white as she is and old enough to be her mother. I am the adoptive mom of a couple of incredible young women of color, and I hatehatehate this kind of nonsense. It’s wrong. It’s embarrassing. It’s dangerous. My girls are not African, but I see the same kind of trips taken to their continent of origin, and it sickens me. The disrespect it shows for ancient cultures and ANYONE DIFFERENT FROM THEMSELVES is blatant and ugly and is indicative of the superiority complex that has turned great swaths of the rest of the planet against Americans. Not against America – but against us, the people that Jes and her ilk insultingly represent.
I totally feel where you are coming from. I think there’s charity and mission work that does more harm than good. It may not be visible harm but you hurt the integrity of the people and how they see themselves in relation to the rest of the world. I read a blog of a young white Americn girl who decided to stop doing these mission trips because she realized as long as she’s the one doing the giving and the helping, the little girls she was volunteering with will always expect a white face at the end of the giving hand. How powerful is that?
who tf is JM?
Jessica, I’m very confused and saddened by your disappointment. Isn’t the whole point of your trips to bring about change with the hopes that there will be fewer and fewer human beings on the planet living in poverty and without the advancement of modern technology? If your intentions are real, shouldn’t seeing a modernized Nairobi, fill your heart with the exact opposite emotion? Happiness, and joy for those people, rather than disappointment that the poverty isn’t as striking as you would have imagined?
I am alarmed and saddened that seeing this Kenyan city thriving as you describe would bring “disappointment” to anyone let alone a Christian woman who claims the purpose of her trip is to bring love to Kenya Because that is what Real Love should feel like, joy that not all are suffering. I don’t know what your purpose on this trip is, but I urge you to search your heart, as it is saying the exact opposite than your fingers.
A missionary “game face” includes false eyelashes? Flabbergasted.
Haaaaha. Ah. That’s funny.
Newsflash: those poor “brown” people have more net worth then Jennifer McKinney. She owes over $700,000 in denied bankruptcy (attempted fraud) not to mention the 60,000 to her mother-in-law and countless other debts.
If Jessica wanted to minister to a poor person she should have just gone to Jennifer’s house.
lol i am Nigerian who has lived in the US for about 10 years and i am always amused by American “christians” taking offerings to help the poor in Africa. I know many in Africa, including some in my family who could literally buy up the church building. Many of those “giving” live hand to mouth themselves… amusing really.
I don’t understand what disappointed you. Is that the people you encountered in Nairobi don’t need you to save them after all?
But we aren’t called to a ministry of security. A ministry that plays it safe and always uses the lighted sidewalks.
It’s good to spend some time there because it helps prepare us for the dark times.
The times where we rely on the faith we had when it was “easy”.
So, did I fall in love with Nairobi today?
No.
But I fell deeper in love with a God who uses all the things, including the safe and affluent, to change my heart.
As this is a public blog, and you are writing these posts for all to see-than you should have no problem answering the hard questions. As you say you are here for the hard things.
First, why won’t you share the ministry you are with? This should not be held back from those who read your blog. For sharing the ministry gives others a chance to work with that ministry, to spread His word. When working with a ministry I’ve never known one to ask that it be kept hidden. For the more who give their time and money is needed.
But we aren’t called to a ministry of security.
I don’t know what your meaning of “security” is. Staying in furbished housing, having a host escort you to places. That is security. You are in no real danger. Children wouldn’t be allowed if what you are doing posed any danger. Yes, you may contact some stomach upset-but that is if you don’t follow the security you are given: Fresh water, vaccinations, medicine, a variety of protective clothing: The very things that the residents of the slums don’t always have.
You are completly secure. You have that privilege.
If you are speaking of emotional security, again you have overwhelming security and privilege. You are prepared for what you are about to see. And while it may be disheartening? You get to leave. You get to climb on that plane and return to your home and everything your life provides you.
You get to walk away. To drink fresh water. To bathe in clean water. To change your clothing. To wear shoes. To go to a clinic or hospital if you become ill.
Seeing the extreme poverty in its reality is far different than seeing it on television. And yet, you aren’t seeing the reality. In any sense of the word. You are on a pre-packaged tour. You get to stroll past the shacks, the slums.
The children and adults are fully prepared for you-they always are. They always see countless white faces who “love” on them. Who try their best to spread his word. Who take photos.
These countless faces, and cameras, and declarations of “love”… and then walk away. Back to their hosted shelter, their showers and water and food and health.
You have every security. They do not.
So don’t sit and write about “hardship” and “lack of security” when you will never, ever experience it on your ministry trip.
You will become sad. Your heart may hurt. You will be overwhelmed by the smell… but that is not hardship. For at the end of your day, again, you get to leave.
And the people you visit may gift you will smiles and food and perhaps more–because it is what they do, it is what they have done for all those white faces that come and leave.
The people you meet will give you respect and grace.
You haven’t, for the very first thing you do upon meeting your gracious host… is spit in his face over his joy for Nairobi.
I’m just curious, what is considered “mission trip clothes” when one has already admitted that they are not on a mission trip. Are you wearing clothes that need to be dry cleaned? Where they stained by your tears as you cry because Nairobi wasn’t poor enough for you? Tell us again how you’re not just there to gawk at the poor people and to make yourself feel like the great white hope. I’m really enjoying your posts because you just keep digging your hole deeper. Good luck with your redemption, you’re going to need it.
I’m so sorry your poverty tourism isn’t working out for you and you didn’t see enough poor people today. That totally sucks that you aren’t getting your money’s worth of poor people views.
Seems to me that all of the money spent on that trip would have been much better spent donated to the poor and homeless right outside your front door. But you might not get much satisfaction out of that.
Indeed. It’s not like you have to travel far to find poverty, homelessness and illness. Let me suggest this ted talk that so deliciously illustrates how our good intentions can end up doing more damage than good. The speaker is Italian, as am I (although I live in the US). But the moral of the story is the same: well intentioned westerners going to africa without doing their research first, imposing their “methods” on the locals without consulting them
I really suggest everyone on this blog to watch this video:
Yes, but the FB and instagram photos of just helping poor people in your own country aren’t as awesome. And you won’t have exotic stories to tell. Dontcha know that the whole point of going to Africa to “help” the poor people is to get selfies with brown people that look poor in an exotic way and have stories to tell of their weird kind of poor and how the whole country worshipped you as their white savior. These Christians with their “charity” are just typical poverty tourists. They want to gawk at the brown or yellow poor people and then have something to brag about at home. They spend thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars to go and give away a few hundred dollars worth of food and labor (if even that much, often they cost the people they are “helping” rather than leave them with anything tangible and useful).
Also Mario, Great Video!!! I have seen this man speak in person. As soon as I started hearing his hippo story I recalled being at a conference where he spoke. I wish I could remember when. Probably at a Jewish federation conference (or similar). It was really eye opening how we patronize people when we give “charity” and that our “charity” can be worse than doing nothing if we don’t actually get to know the people being helped and actually treat them as equals and not just children who we force help on.
Great video a must share
thank you for sharing
I’m almost at a loss as to what pisses me off more… the arrogant, narcissistic, self righteous selfishness that oozes from every syllable of this blog or the absolute intellectual bankruptcy of some of these comments.
Hehe. Ah.
Of course she is disappointed. It is a hell of a lot easier to convert uneducated people living in squalor than educated, sophisticated, urban dwellers with means and a high quality of life. She is more concerned with her selfish causes than actually wanting people to live with a good quality of life.
I am just astounded that someone could travel to a city and country and completely lack the intellectual curiosity to learn about the place they are going. I am shocked the author could be so ignorant about Nairobi and that the commentor above could possibly be so ignorant about South Africa, but to go to these places and not learn about them first? They should be humiliated to admit this, but clearly they are too ignorant and self-centered to realize they are embarrassing themselves.
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Oh Dear, I rather suspect that this is not what Jessica expected when she posted her blog and she is probably pretty down hearted right now.
I hope that this is a massive learning experience for her and for some of the other contributors here. Having travelled extensively in the US I believe Jessica’s experience comes as a result of the near total isolation of the US from the rest of the world. It goes hand in hand with the expectation of being able to speak English everywhere and use the US dollar.
There is little understanding and almost no respect for other people’s cultures, life experience or indeed where they and their country is on the journey of economic development.
I have great sympathy for the comments suggesting that the cost of the trip would have been better spent in direct aid either in the US or outside it. I personally think a far better action for those in the more economically advantaged parts of the world is to think very hard about how they live their own lives at home and to change that in ways that are more positive for other parts of the world.
– increase trade for example with Africa
– try to consume less
– make a conscious effort to try and learn about other countries and cultures in a non judgemental way.
– try to look at your own country as others do, be self critical and there would be less comments about arrogance and ignorance.
I have many wonderful friends in the US and elsewhere, I know that ignorance (perhaps lack of knowledge is a more polite way of putting it) is an embarrassment when pointed out – well change that – learn, be open to new views and ideas and please don’t assume that the way things are in your church, town, state or country are always the best ways.
I hope that Jessica enjoys the journey.
David, your comment is brilliant. True and helpful and meaningful and hopefully, Jes will really, seriously THINK about what you say here. Yes, ignorance is embarrassing. But it is also curable. God gave us brains for precisely that reason – to learn. Thank you for spelling it out both clearly and kindly.
Excellent
This is literally the most condescending, disgusting, arrogant and narcissistic post I have ever read. In my life.
You Jessica, are one disgusting human being. The idea people, cities, ideas can flourish without your God, without your help. To be saddened to see this? What kind of human are you? Africa, quite frankly, is better off without people like you.
I cannot begin to fathom the mindset of the blogger who wrote this huge steaming pile. Disappointment that there were not the ignorant masses waiting to be sold a false dream? Too educated and not hungry enough to slurp porridge as they are being proselytized to? Those pockets of downtrodden and unlearned people are vanishing, and so is your cult’s future. I guess I can see how that is a real bummer for you.
Oh noes! They didn’t need my useless help ;_;
There are plenty of places to find your poverty pornography if that is what you seek.
Real shame that people in Nairobi are not starving. Maybe they’ll open up a Poverty theme park for guilty westerners soon.
By the way, the “Sponsor a Child” commercials with the white bearded guy, are set in south america.
This pretty much sums up everything I have to say about your post. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/02/04/christian-missionary-disappointed-that-africa-isnt-the-hellhole-she-was-hoping-for/
Jessica,
I am enjoying your blog.
There is so much one could say about this, but I’m stuck on the laundry. Do you honestly believe that people in Kenya are so stupid that they hang up dirty laundry? I don’t know about you, but the laundry on my clothesline is clean. That’s why I hang it up, so it can dry and then be put away. Duh?
I guess she figures without her form of Jesus that they wouldn’t have the sense to know basic stuff like that. That’s why they need this self righteous white christian to come and edumicate them about Jesus and laundry and other things like how to grow food to eat etc…. I cannot imagine being as dumb as this blogger.
And then Jesus came upon his disciples and said, “Brethren, I’ve heard it said among you that I am the Son of God and was sent to die for your sins. Allow me to asketh, who among you is the deranged lunatic that came up with that Neanderthal bullshit!!??
Blood sacrifice!!!?? Are you out of your goddamned minds with that Stone Age fuckery!!!???
Brethren, listen closely as I tell you something of great importance. I would sooner lick the dingleberries off of Judas’ ass crack than be a part of your dying for sins horse shit!!!!!!!!!
Seriously Brethren!! Please, for the love of Baal, stop denigrating and insulting the very idea of love and mercy with the sickening and evil lunacy of forgiveness through blood atonement!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to slide my sausage into Mary Magdalene’s ‘private’ place”
—Jesus Christ, A Memoir
Clearly, from the mouth of a hell-bound believer of nothing.
That is MY Jesus you’re speaking of. And one day, whether you wish to embrace Him or not, you WILL stand before Him and sadly, will be spewed out and tossed into the Lake of Fire for all of eternity. I’d imagine you won’t be making crude blasphemous jokes then.
Yup, there’s that love and forgiveness we hear so much about.
I imagine that you are not well liked.
Lila can’t handle the TRUTH!
Lake of fire? Oh how quaint.
And stupid.
And idiotic.
And absurd.
Typical Christian.
you’re hilarious, keep it up!
People like you make me ashamed of being white. Seriously? Sorry you weren’t satisfied with the level of poverty. Thank the Lord I’m not a CHristian. You further solidify what is wrong with Christians. You all want the world to suffer and then shove your faux idol Jesus down our throats. No thanks silly white lady.
I am angry that you didn’t research where you were going. You have endless resources to do even the most basic reading about the places you are visiting. By doing this, you show that you care about our cultures. That you care enough to know that Africa is a Continent. That you don’t refer to Africa as one place. Africa is a Continent with various countries with deep and vast histories. Peoples of all “colors” and ethnicities.
I am sad that you did not prepare in any way-except to pack your suitcase. I am sad that you didn’t care enough to learn, again, even the basics of the areas and people you will encounter….. also please watch this clip that was in the NyT titled “An Africans message to America?….http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-america.html?_r=0
Isn’t she the usual Christian though? Throughout the past 2000 years they never gave a darn about the cultures, beliefs, or needs of others. Non-Christians or the “wrong” Christians are just there to be massacred, converted, or enslaved. F*** their culture b/c they aren’t really full human beings, they are just things and an means to an end for the holier than thou Christian to achieve his/her goal and meet his/her needs.
Allan-You just quoted part of Kiras comment. I hope you meant to credit her and forgot too(the entirety of her moving comment is above).
yes i forgot to credit her…credit to Kira
..was too mad at her description of my city and country..but Americans should watch that link above from the New York Times..”An Africans Message to Americans” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-america.html?_r=0
Not sure if it’s been mentioned…didn’t read all the comments, but the startling security at the mall…is a result of the terrorist attack on the Westgate mall. May seem shocking to see, but to me not at all surprising.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29299596
Maybe that will make her feel better… Maybe she’ll feel all tingly and warm inside knowing that people got killed in a mall in the “country” (since these dingbats don’t know that it is a continent) of Africa. Maybe that will be enough to make up for the lack of dirty laundry and starving children.
I hope you have good intentions and are open to personal and spiritual growth, yet your statement, “I didn’t fall in love with Kenya” – (in essence because the stereotypes in your mind weren’t validated on a particular day and because you didn’t get to play hero and savior in the movie reel in your mind- wow, this statement and sentiment (albeit paraphrased) sounds extrememy condenscending and self-absorbed! The citizens in Africa should not have to regularly deal with (and even have to console your guilt or need to feel needed and/or superior by downplaying their city’s progress) visitors with mindsets possibly steeped in the “savior complex” (or other forms of neuroses, privilege, entitlement, etc). I believe the best visitors/guests respect the cultures they visit, recognize their own ignorance and biases about local issues, and come with an open mind and heart to learn from a culture. Kenya probably “did not fall in love with” you that day either, yet hopefully the country was a gracious and respectful host nonetheless.
In my years as a study abroad faculty advisor, I’ve had the opportunity to reframe students’ mindsets from savior to respectful guest and learner- esp on trips to Africa. In doing so I’ve witnessed the students’ personal growth and hopefully spared local citizens from condensending actions and statements (whether intentional or not) such as those shared and featured in this blog. Those of us who travel extensively understand that one tends to learn more about “the self” and how we respond to different environments than we do about the local citizens while traveling. Visiting people we have psychologically “othered” often leads to ignorant interactions and perspectives.
I wish more American organizations offered cross-cultural workshops and sessions at the pre-departure stage to help travelers become more self-aware and cross- culturally competent, which helps us become better travelers and people IMHO. Such trainings can also minimize travelers’ “dissapointments” that stem from said travelers projecting their individual psychological needs and expectations onto entire countries and cultures.
Again, as a fellow citizen I truly wish you well and lots of reflection on your blog entries and your mission to Kenya- especially your inner/introspective missions which will help you grow more than traveling in and of itself can. I believe we can give more when we are whole and can meet others in their wholeness. We are all equal in terms of our spiritual potential in spite of material differences. I hope you consider focusing on that truth in your future journeys. Thank you for blogging your truth and continued blessings to you.
She could always try India.
Haaaaha. Ah. That’s funny!
If she wants to help and see poor people, she should just come visit me. Not only am I poor, but I know of quite a few shanty towns and white trash ghettos whose conditions rival those of 3rd world slums. It’d save her a long ass trip and she could throw money at people who actually need it.
When I first read this, I thought this was some kind of joke. Could there really be someone so woefully under-exposed and poorly educated that they thought that all of Kenya was destitute and in desperate need of Christian charity? Well, yes there is and I have just read her blog.
Despite your well meaning intentions, to save the heathens, you were disappointed to find that they had saved themselves and a modern metropolis complete with in door plumbing! Wow!
You were truly upset that your visions of grandeur were not realized. Again, wow!
Christian missionaries have been coming to Africa since the 1400’s looking to save & convert. If you don’t believe me, ask one of their many descendants scattered across the globe. It is 2015 and there are many places that are in desperate need of your type of Christian charity. You could visit one of your local “hoods” for starters, no need to travel overseas there are plenty of poor blacks here in the US that you can save from themselves.
Instead of assuming that nations like Kenya are poverty striken with illiterate citizens in need of the help from someone who didn’t even bother to pick up a book or search the Internet to LEARN more about the place she sought to help, try helping yourself by really expanding your knowledge base and practice charity by starting with yourself. Take the time to learn more about other cultures and places so that you can replace your very blatantly sophomoric views in the trash where they belong.
How very unchristian of you to be disappointed by NO poverty! Your disappointment was so deep that you didn’t share the good word. Instead what you shared was your ego and exposed your lack of knowledge about the word.
I’m personally amused that THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION is being referred to as “Americanized”. AS IF!
Westerners may have pillaged and plundered Africa but you have NOT nor could you EVER have achieved the little you did (via ENSLAVEMENT and IMPERIALISM, btw) without her. Please get completely over yourselves.
Africa was doing JUST FINE before you Western imperialists brought your bibles and your guns through to completely destroy her, and leave her in the perceived doom and gloom she is in now. Then you use your white supremacist mass media to further perpetuate the MYTH that Africa is some desolate place that needs saving.
PLEASE GET OVER YOURSELVES and get OUT of Africa. She NEVER, EVER needed you and for sure would have been far better off WITHOUT you.
Reblogged this on Chardonnay and Beer and commented:
Well color me tickled!
If you ever wondered why many people hate it when white Christian missionaries go to Africa, here is why.
This poor, disillusioned, misguided woman is disappointed (that’s her word) that the people she went to save in Kenya are not in need of her services. She actually laments the fact that they have everything most of us have here in America and waxes poetic about how miserable that makes her. You really have to read it for yourself to appreciate the hilarity of that. It perfectly exposes the pride involved in white saviourism. I laughed from a very deep place! I’m still chuckling.
Thankfully she’s being dragged by her bangs in the comments. Hopefully she will reflect on her privilege and her motivations and come out of this a better Christian.
have you considered converting n blessing those in projects before claiming that Nairobi disappointed you holier than thou woman? The last time you people came with your bible in the name God you raped our women took our land and killed our sons.just because we have new great buildings in Africa doesn’t mean we’re “americanised” it means we’re africanised;remember the pyramids n our beautiful kingdoms before you,yeah that. Your white saviour syndrome is outdated just clean your country before you call us dirty.
lol, americans.
Praying for you, Jessica. Hang in there, sweetie. It would appear that someone shared your blog with a popular atheist blog and so they’re all bringing their wisdom here to spew at you.
Just remember, they don’t know our God. They mock our Jesus. They are not us. They are not of Him. But of the other guy. The one who his vying for our attention and will do anything to get it while taking our minds, our focus off of THE One. Just praise Him all day long. With each comment, just praise Him. For He knows Jessica Tidwell and her heart.
Much love to you.
Spot on advice for all of us, Lila. I sometimes feel my blood pressure rise with each hateful word I read in these comments. But, now I will work to remember your words and just praise Him. And not just when I read the uneducated attacks against my friends, but through other adversities as well.
Yeah um hi hey I’m a Christian and…fun fact…so are a LOT of people in Kenya. Whose national language is English. I think it’s really important for people to be commenting about this disappointment with Africans thriving and what it says about our assumptions from both American/Euro culture and from what we hear people talking about in churches.
I am not mocking my Lord and Savior. But I am deeply deeply concerned that I see you brushing over what should be a wake-up call for Jessica about her assumptions and misconceptions. This “nope, ‘they’ hate us” attitude is why people hate us. Not because of Jesus.
There are some excellent comments about American poverty, about the horrific history of Christian missions in Africa, and if you don’t take those to heart you risk simply repeating the errors of racist and misguided missionaries in the past. This is an opportunity for Jessica to realize how very wrong she was about a lot of things, not God, but a LOT of things…and for her to become a true servant of Christ, not just another western know-it-all. Embrace that. Bless that. Be thankful that Christ the Lord opened her eyes to her own assumptions and expectations. And for the sake of being Jesus’s hands and feet in the world, listen to the actual people. Not just the ones who pet your ego. Not just the ones who speak platitudes while ignoring history.
Excellent
Ruth you articulated it well. I think it’s very dismissive to say that we are against Jesus or Jessica, instead of looking at the history, misinformation and attitudes that brought her to this point. The Bible can’t fix that, only her can stop, listen and change her own attitude about what God is letting her experience and the people she people she intended to serve.
Lila, what an incredibly hateful, disrespectful thing to say. First, I didn’t learn about this blog post from any atheist blog, and second, so what if I had? That in no way invalidates the comments, it just makes them easier for you and Jes to ignore – because you can pretend that those of us who don’t buy into *YOUR VERSION* of Christianity are evil.
I actually learned about it from a devout Christian friend, a woman who has traveled the world and who was horrified and embarrassed by the sentiments Jes shared. And you’ve just called my friend “of the devil,” and I find that despicable. A more compassionate, kind, generous, loving person you’ll never meet, and you owe her and hundreds of thousands of other Christians a huge apology.
Mindy,
You’re sadly mistaken, my friend. I don’t owe anyone an apology.
I do, however, pray that you find and know Jesus.
All the best.
hmm would that be the same Jesus of the Kenyans she just mocked and expected to be wallowing in abject poverty?
Why do we need to go places and spread the word of god? Do people starve until gods word is heard? If there is a god, he created a very cruel planet. But I dont believe there is a god, unless of course that god is called “money”. Because money buys food, prayers dont.
lol
Yes Lila God knows her heart, that’s why he is revealing to her the dark ugly parts of it. The arrogant and ignorant parts of her heart that needed to be brought to the surface. Yes he knows her just like her knows your heart that won’t tell her the truth of her mistake. And the beauty of it is he knows the people of Kenya too and loves them in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. I bet Jesus isn’t disappointed with the lack of dirty laundry or children covered in bug bites.
And who made you the one responsible for telling Jessica of this “mistake” you seem to think she made? Who made you the judge and jury? No one. Certainly not God. And He’s the only One who matters here.
Have you ever spoken directly from the heart, with reckless abandon, with emotion-filled words and not edited yourself beforehand? I’d imagine you have. And when you did, did you also have 300 strangers beating you with a bat over and over and over and over again?
Here’s the thing, Liz. Jessica answers to one person — God. She takes council from two people, I’d gather — God and her husband, John. What does that mean to you? Nothing, just that your opinion simply does not matter in the least.
She felt what she felt. She made herself vulnerable to share those words, as politcally incorrect as they may have seemed to those who care or as uncomfortable as they may have been to witness. But they were her words to feel and share. And she did so honestly. She’ll sort them out without your and everyone else’s help. Between her and God, she’ll sort them out. And I’d venture to say that she’ll be on the winning side of this argument because she’s got God on her side.
If you feel so strongly about Jessica’s failure as a mission in Kenya, might I suggest YOU take up the Cross of Christ and travel to Kenya in His name? Go save the world, Liz. You seem to be the expert in that area. I wish you the best of luck. But don’t trip, because you might find 300 strangers tearing you down.
Yeah..the aethists are so insulted by her words and presence. That’s it. Thanks for clearing that up. Now, i must dash, have a 3’oclock starvation-fly swat session that i can’t be late for.
P
OMG!…”Starvation-fly swat session”😂😂😭😭
You must have misunderstood my intentions, Degwa. I wasn’t trying to insult you. I realize you believe nothing, about nothing. But that doesn’t change who Jesus is and what He’s doing in Jessica’s life. If that makes you uncomfortable, then I’m sure your nothing can help quench that.
JSYK, this blog has been shared by MANY sites, not just some popular atheist one. I happen to be atheist, but I came across it because my facebook friend posted a link to a news story about it, it was not an atheist site and i don’t think he’s an atheist.
I thought her reaction to reality was gross and obnoxious and had to check out her blog for myself to see the entirety of what she posted and just who she is/where she is coming from.
I can tell you, if I were still a christian, I’d be even more grossed out by her reaction because I’d feel like it was somehow a reflection on myself and what I identified with by being a christian. Please do not trick her into thinking that people are only being rude or calling her out for being a dumbass because we must all be atheists who disagree with her lifestyle choice. She posted a lot of rude, obnoxious stuff and offended a lot of people.
But here’s the thing, Kathleenicorn…she didn’t write what she wrote for you. You’ll be alright. Your world won’t end. Someone else will do something to disappoint you in the coming days and you can rip them to shreds. Your supply of people to beat down won’t end, don’t you worry. But as for Jessica, just let her be. She’ll work through her feelings and settle on her truth based on her experiences. And in the end, she’ll be better for it. You, however, will still be chasing people down who believe differently than you so you can beat them down. And that’s just a very sad existence.
*excuse me, please do not trick her into thinking we are all angry atheists here, driven by ~the devil~ ~the devil~ is YOUR crazy idea and not rooted in reality
My dear, if you’re an atheist as you claim…you don’t know Jesus. And if you don’t know Jesus — and outright deny Him — you most certainly DO serve the other guy. The good news is that Jesus died for ALL of our sins, though. But first, you need to recognize the need for a Savior.
Excuse me! I am an atheist. I was not sent here by some atheist blog. And I am indeed angry. I am not angry because I am an atheist. I am angry because someone as self-righteous as you, who believes they are out in the world doing good for others, can be so incredibly ignorant and bigoted. It angers me that others look to people like you for guidance. It angers me that you have the potential to make a difference in the world and you choose to make that difference for bad, instead of good.
This has nothing to do with “knowing YOUR Jesus”. As a theologist, I know Jesus very well. And even HE knew that Kenyans don’t live in mud huts for crying out loud.
Tell HIM why you’re so angry, then. Repent and tell HIM how YOU’RE going to fix Kenya and built them better huts. And then go and do it if you think you have all the answers.
And in case you weren’t aware, knowing Jesus is very different than knowing Him as your Savior. Satan KNOWS Jesus. Satan BELIEVES in Jesus.
You can only serve one master, Mr. Theologist.
You want me to tell some make-belief person about how I’m going to fix Kenya? And also, how arrogant to think that firstly anyone could “fix” Kenya, or that Kenya needs fixing at all. If you have ever been there, I think you will find Kenya is a proud, beautiful country with a fantastic heritage and culture.
Secondly, do not presume I am not doing my parts to help. I have spent the best part of my life working, living and volunteering in Africa, doing practical work because it matters and not so that people would believe in some sort of story book that is less interesting than the fairytales by the Brothers Grimm.
Thirdly, nobody “knows” Jesus. He was an ordinary bloke that was highly unpopular in his own time, if he was a man at all, could’ve been a woman after all (the long hair and the dress are dead giveaways in fairness).
Fourthly, I do not serve anybody. I am not a slave, I am a human being.
Fifthly, “Mr.” theologist? It’s theologian, actually, not theologist. Most importantly, I am a woman, not a man, you presumptuous dimwit.
Feel better now? Good.
Oh, and Jesus wasn’t a nobody. Neither was He a woman. But you want to know what else He is? The decider of where you’ll spend eternity. And, based on your answers, it’s not looking too good. Hot? Yes. Very. Good? No.
No I do not “feel better”. The status quo remains: someone who is completely ignorant continues to try and influence people who do not want influencing.
Jesus was pretty much a nobody, he only had 12 followers. My dog is more popular than that. And how exactly do you know he was a he? Were you there? What is your basis for that decision? But then I suppose you probably think Jesus was white as well. Of course, I should be ever so confident that your knowledge on gender is really good, considering you mistook me for a man. Funny, cause I’m wearing a dress and I have long hair on my Avatar. A bit like Jesus really 🙂
Your threats of hell are also not particularly intimidating. Firstly because there is no such thing as hell, at least not by your definition. If you want to see hell, it’s right here on earth. Like in the ghettos of Detroit for instance. Go be a do-gooder over there and actually make a difference. Secondly, if your definition if hell existed, which is doesn’t, it sure would be a better place than heaven. Spending eternity on your knees worshiping an imaginary person in the sky (you probably believe god is a man, too, don’t you?) doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time at all.
Hi. Detroiter here. Please leave our city out of your descriptions of hell. You and Lila both could use a real wake-up call on that offensive score; many Detroiters are pretty sick of that sort of insulting rhetoric. I’d appreciate at it if you kept my city out of your flame war. Thanks.
My apologies for that Mythicgroup. I was not trying to reflect on Detroiters, rather on the fact that there are places closer to home that could do with support as well. I know where you’re coming from though, I’m in the North East of England, which has been called “desolate” and “the worst place to live” by politicians of our very own country and that is indeed insulting.
Hi Lila. I believe in this blog post, your friend Jessica tells you what she saw in Nairobi. And Jo-LO comments that even God knows Kenyans don’t still live in huts. And your response is: “… Tell HIM how YOU’RE going to fix Kenya and built them better huts.” This is the problem we have with this post & now with you. Nairobi is a city. And if there are people in the villages living in huts, please don’t pinch pennies together to build them better huts. Helping is building them modern houses with basic amenities. Kenya doesn’t need better huts. That you can so casually say this is part of the problem. Think about it. I don’t know what they tell you but I live in a different African city and even my grandparents in the village do not live in huts. A more accurate representation of life here is all we ask of you as visitors and travellers. Christians are not immune to correction, or exempt from being wrong, I should know too. Because I am one. When you’re done being angry and defensive, go over these comments again and hopefully you’ll understand.
i never tore jessica down at all, what i told her, via twitter, was i think she should read more books, more than just the bible, cause that’s an easy way to learn a lot of things about the world, and from her own home even. im assuming she’s not well read, since she didn’t realize a capital city of a country would have buildings and did not have enough sense and curiosity to do a quick google search of a place she’d be visiting that is about as far away from her homeland as she could get
i feel bad for you, living with all those delusions. i guess its your perogative to feel constantly that you need saving and need to fight off some invisible, evil being, but please keep that paranoia to yourself and stop projecting it onto healthy, self-sufficient people. Even when i was a christian, which was most of my life, i never did believe in the devil. its a fucking scare tactic and something people use to avoid responsibility for bad behaviour.
Once can’t truly be a God-fearing, Bible-believing, professing Christian without also believing what the Word says about Satan.
It would appear you, my dear, are the one who is delusional. But that’s simply because you need Jesus in your life. He is the answer, praise God!
Lila.. Who the effing told you we need you and your ilk to “fix” our country Kenya? The sheer arrogance, stupidity, foolishness, utter imbecility in your self righteous attitude needs to be exorcised!
Lila , we don’t need Jess here in Nairobi. Ask her to go back home.
PS: we are building actual houses now, not huts and we don’t need fixing.
I am a Christian. I live in Nairobi. She , Jess, is an ignorant and arrogant woman. Go back to your home and ‘save’ it. That is where you are needed ‘missionary’
you’re a fucking retard
truth!
So, basically you went to Kenya to play white savior, and were disappointed when it didn’t need your saving.
Poor you.
I’m so sorry you couldn’t play the white saviour you planned on being. Please do yourself a favour and start watching something other than Fox News and begin reading things on Facebook such as This is Africa page or other blogs about African countries that don’t just showcase flies on children.
This is a perfect example of white supremacy. wow. Why fly half way across the world to “save” the unfortunate, when you could just go across town where people are hungry and in need? No. You choose a place you think is some jungle full of savages because that’s how you have been indoctrinated. HAHAHAHHA!! your GOD has shown you how rigiculously flawed your thoughts and probably your heart is. This is exactly why “mission trips” are BS. Help your neighbor in YOUR community. Don’t take an exotic trip to “save” some “savages” you bigot.
God did test you. The unbelievably racist undertones of your reaction are proof you failed the test.
You failed the test.
This one she will have to think about. I get you she thinks Obama has been the worst president ever, and she’s not racist. I get you.
This poor young lady doesn’t know why she thinks the way she does. Let her learn, God works miracles.
The more I look at just the title of this blog entry though…….
I don’t know if this has ANYTHING at all to do with Yahweh.
Wooow pple of the Western world always happy to see Africa in despair just go to YouTube the new script song – superheroes song is great but comments take away the greatness well nairobi and Kenya is on the rise oil finds every wea 2030 we will be better
If western Europe and North America didn’t have many black people in it or as u pple say diversity in great depths u will all be like in Ukraine fighting each other because there is black people u keep ur cool for them am happy it took Kenya 50 years to get this far 50 more we will be more further not like Europe that took hundreds of centuries to finally develop AMEN
To the people on the continent of Africa, especially the people of Kenya. I offer you apologies from this one American. Sometimes, often, I am embarrassed to be an American. I am very sorry.
Jessica, I am assuming you want to do good, but went about it the wrong way. There are many ways to help people. One of the commenters provided a link. It is a wonderful link to a Ted Talks. Please listen to it. He has good ideas. I wish you well as I imagine this feedback hurts.
All of this — the blog, the blogger, the comments — is hilarious.
As embarrassing as this is as an American, I agree with you…this is truly hilarious.
First off, there are plenty of poor Africans here in the US thinks to white domination and aggression.
On top of that, you could have helped those poor White people down in Appalachia.
And another thing, stop going to Africa. Haven’t you all done enough damage as it is? Let them rebuild without your meddling and trying to convert people. They don’t need anymore cultural genocide.
Appalachia, the Ozarks, Black Mountains, even Boynton, Oklahoma. She didn’t even have to leave her own state to find abject poverty.
We, the people of Appalachia, don’t want Jessica either. Please don’t sick her and her poverty tourism on us. She would probably just be disappointed that we have shoes and teeth and don’t wear bib-alls without t-shirts underneath them all the time, anyway.
Lmpo! tee hee.. well we dont want her either. Sheit! you have made my morning..
She’d be disappointed that you don’t all play banjos and have folksy stories to tell.
Jessica said: “Wilhelm took us to The Junction {Nairobi’s version of a mall}.”
I’ve looked up images of The Junction. It IS a mall, not a version of a mall. Sorry there is no Abercrombie and Fitch there. But it is a real, modern, western mall.
I do kind of understand what you mean though. Let me put it in language you will understand. When I first moved to Tulsa from the northeast, when I was taken to the Promenade Mall, I did ask if that was Oklahoma’s idea of a real mall. But honestly? The Junction looks a LOT nicer than the Promenade Mall.
“Version of a mall”…. ha ha haaaaa. That was actually the best part of this thing.
Now I’ve heard it all.
What a revolting post.
Ma’am, do you know that you are probably racist? Certainly blind. Please do not even attempt to help “dirty” “filthy” “impoverished” any-part-of-the-continent-of-Africa until you do much more soul-searching and God does change your heart. I know He can, but just WOW.
Rejoice with those who rejoice morn with those who mourn. So totally BIBLICALLY backwards that you would need cheering up when expecting famine but entered into abundance. That’s like going to the doctor and being told that spot on your lung is probably cancer later to find out it was a blemish on the film, then being pissed that it wasn’t cancer. Hero complex- check! Read the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fickert. Also, do me a favor, the next time you decide to hop on a plane to save somebody, before you do, make sure you do your research, (WE HAVE GOOGLE) and connect yourself with a reputable ethnically sensitive (if they all white, it ain’t right) missions organization. Then after you put on your “missionary clothes”, sit down in your living room and stay there! Then, pray to God for guidance, then, go where HE calls you not where your flesh decides to take you! SHEESH! This is what’s wrong with Christianity today. Everybody wanna “do” but nobody wants to put in the spiritual work! I’m so ANGRY!
Sound advice right there. *claps*
White Man’s Burden, White Privilege, Ignorance, Pathetic. Enough Said.
I find your ignorance and arrogance offensive. What did you want it to be. You wanted to make yourself feel better by helping little black children dying of hunger. So you dislike Kenya because it’s not full of suffering. Maybe you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what your true intentions were.
you are truly a horrible person
First of all,i am Kenyan and i live in the beautiful city of Nairobi. Secondly, i am a christian and i love Jesus. Thirdly, i have harsh words for you.
i am ashamed at your character…especially the fact that you are a christian and yet can display such a level of ignorance and pride. you wanted to come to Africa and help people in order to soothe your ego and have stories for your friends. you wanted to see abject poverty so that you could feel superior. That is why you were dissapointed. If you really had a heart of spreading the gospel…you would see the harvest. Nairobi may have it all but people still need Jesus…and that’s why we as christians here remain passionate about sharing Christ in this city. This city needs Jesus,the world needs Jesus. The harvest is plenty but the workers are few. It is such selfishness and pride in christians such as yourself that hinders the work of genuine gospel spreaders.
Kindly, read a little more on Africa,the different countries…come to Kenya and travel. Its so beautiful…unlike anything you will ever see-i guarantee.
Your narcissism is cloaked in your “mission to do God’s work.” Anyone who truly believed in Christ would be ecstatic to see other human begins doing well, being safe and living a healthy life. Your despair that there wasn’t poverty to be sad about shows how little you care for anyone that you claim you want to help. Your mission to provide God’s word to Africa is ridiculous and unnecessary. Provide medicine for the mother whose child has malaria, not prayers. Provide schools that teach medicine, engineering and critical thinking not theology. There is a direct correlation and causation between the use of medicine and recovery from illness. The same cannot be said for prayer alone.
You are a far too common example of Americans who think they are better than everyone else, especially those that are brown and black living in dirt with files. All you provide is false hope for people who need real solutions. Education is the best thing for Africa not missionaries telling them that if they pray their lives will miraculously get better.
the fact that you still do not have an idea why “God” sent you to Kenya is troubling and is a sure sign that your trip is more of an ego boosting vacation than a real move of God. I wonder why God is sending you to a predominantly christian nation when your own nation is in dire need of the same Jesus. I wonder why God would send you on a finite 20-day trip without telling you the motive for the trip. I have read the first 5 of your blogs on this trip… and they are all about me, me and me. I have not read a single name of one person you have met and shared the gospel with. There is nothing on the natives you have met, the churches you have visited, the ministers you have reached out to… nothing except to tell us how God is changing you with this experience. God didn’t send Paul to Corinth to learn a lesson, but to reach the lost. I looked through your facebook page and again its all about you. You openly solicit folks to follow your blog, people are praising you and your husband for going to Africa (gasp! the horrors!). Not a single word about those you allegedly went to “serve”. Sigh.
If you want to find poor living conditions, subpar medical, poor nutrition and education and people who might need your god. Try places like Detroit, rural Louisiana or Mississippi. They have been living under a racist and oppressive government that restricted voting to the minorities cut education, fund the largest prison system by population in the world.
If they spent more on education then people might know that not every where is as poor and downtrodden as propaganda style charity videos portray.
But American minorities are so scary! Seriously, this woman didn’t even have to leave Oklahoma to find abject poverty, racism or oppressive government geared to favor white males. All she had to do was get in her SUV and drive to a reservation, or even North Tulsa.
Yep, guy from Detroit again. We have a Whole Foods. It’s probably even better than the store in Nairobi, in terms of overpriced but delicious organic hipster chow.
Fun fact: Metro Detroit was home to one of the first malls in the U.S.! Also, we really pretty much hate being used as a poster child city for the horrors of urban decay and abject squalor. Really not accurate. There’s good parts and bad parts, remarkably like the rest of the world. I’d enjoy these dueling rhetorical battles much more if you tried to make your points without dragging my city’s name through the mud.
Just one man’s opinion – shared by many.
For a person who’s buried deep in her self righteous, self centered, selfish bubble, you have sure traveled a long way, only to realise that you are even more egocentric than you thought you were…it is “christians” like you that make Jesus not want to come back…i feel bad for your kids, you will raise them ignorant, just like yourself
Did anyone else just think she was dussapinted because she wanted to help people in desperate need, not the well off city folk?
nope, because she should have done her research first, then she would have known where to find people who actually need her help…. Like on skid row or the inner cities in her home country or even the poor areas of Nairobi. But the worst of it all is for her to be disappointed that she found things better than she expected them to be. As a christian she should rejoice about that.
Oooooooops.
So, lesson #1.
Kenyans are proud of Nairobi. Of its noise and traffic and vast slums, of its new-found building spree, of discovering that the Japanese actually build roads they promise to.
They’re proud of these new malls they’re just beginning to understand they have a right to shop in even if just to buy a tomato, you see them in the five-item lines if you look hard enough, though your eye will be drawn to the white woman in slippers pushing the cute black baby in aisle three. They’re proud of these things even as they battle the widening prosperity gap, the ever present corruption. They’re proud of it, at least to foreigners.
Visit the Nairobi national park. We want you to. The Orphanage, the Giraffes, Daphne Sheldricks Elephants – at least once. Take a flight out of Wilson Airport to anywhere, we want you to.
You sound so sincere. Wait till you brush up against the REAL battles-lines for God in Africa, and you’ve come to the right place.
Come see the ‘annointings’. Take the opportunity to ‘seed’ a prayer of your own. Lift the veil and see how the tabernacle has taken in God’s children for the price of an entrance ticket.
Cast your eyes across the border and view the roiling hate whipped up against homosexuals by pastors from Texas, and Indiana and Ohio.
There is much more to do in Nairobi than save the impoverished…. Pretty much they’ve figured out that they’ll have to do that on their own – those statistics sheets that go into policy documents that bring more white, hardship-compensated workers to build a few more lavatories just isn’t doing it.
You have got to rescue God, no less. Whether you eventually find the hardship conditions you seek (and Nairobi is a hardship condition – look under the blanket) or you find God has put you here to contact American evangelism… Baptist, Methodist, Good Shepherds, Pentecostals, the T.D Jake’s and Joyce Meyer’s peddling sound bites and forty minutes of Joy just so long as you’re listening to the twelve step CD and following with the thirty day book, or be in touch with a country desperately in need of recognition for the Democracy they are TRYING to create, or a place where indeed we need to be reminded NOT to tear down the trees for the malls, not to shove the animals right into the sea, not to close our borders because *gasp* the Muslims are coming….
As you can see, it won’t be that easy here. In Kenya, people DO THE INTERNET, and they’re not all in Nairobi. Our battles are being fought on WordPress and on Facebook and on Twitter and on Tumblr – and that’s the OLD paradigm. You will not just pass through, you will be spoken to.
I need for you not to give up. Not to feel threatened by the very forceful and self aware responses you get here.
I need for you to not decide what God brought you here for, before you let God fill you in. You may find you were called to sit in the chauffeured Mercedes you are GOING to have access to, and rectify those weekend bible study groups that are reading the Republicans hate manual. Or the Orchid society, so silent you can’t see the hundred plus years African history behind their terrified colonial past. Or the four that meet every day to try and figure out how to get the government to save the trees lining the airport road that are home to the very last remaining families of the fabulous Heron and Egret and Malibu. They need writers, and they too could use a little help putting God first.
Perhaps yes, you’ll finally get to the slums in Nairobi – just don’t bring bibles to dish out they have thousands left over in every conceivable English dialect. Perhaps you’ll even get out to the villages where God still has a chance to be love, and forgiveness, and hope for ALL of Gods children, Muslim, Gay, Herbal traditionalist, I wish that for you.
And in five years, when you finally have to go, you’ll find you’ll have fallen in love with your husband and this place. And will smile when he says he wants to buy land here. And giggle because your kids won’t mind that at all. And settle in because you will still find land at reasonable prices, Kenyans will still sell land to you, you will be regarded as Kenyan, that we DO still want you here, not so much to save us as to join create something beautiful at last. You will BEAM at the Conference in Washington fifteen years from now, because your articulation of ‘the African problem’ is intelligent and clear and innovative, and everyone wants to give you money to go and make it happen.
I need you to not give up now. To see God in the spaces God is standing – right in the middle of this shiney, new Africa.
I need you at least, to learn to M-pesa. You’ll enjoy it.
I love this!
Love love, love it!
Kenyans DO THE INTERNET, oh, dont we ever!
*slow clap* What kolembo said. Your article is incredibly ignorant. I am a Kenyan christian and I know that God will guide you if you let him. The harvest really is plenty.
Wow. You know….. start with your title. I think, start with the title of your piece and what it says.
I’m glad you’ve had this realization. Now you have the responsibility to go home and start telling true stories of Africa.
I don’t get the gist of your article. I’m Kenyan and need to tell you that you relating Kenya to a Feed The Children commercial is rather stupid. It’s like me thinking you look like that lady in “19 Kids and Counting” and you are currently pregnant.
I know the media want to feed you this ‘picture’ but it is your responsibility to do your own research. This article just shows how uneducated you are. But I mean you have 5 kids who you probably home school so your own mental development might be clearly stunted.
And if you are going to represent God please show your smarts. I would hate a missionary with questionable IQ to come teach me about God. God requires excellence in our lives, you are embarrassing Him.
Thanks. Please pray for wisdom before you hit publish on your wordpress.com blog.
*grin* You sneakily have been influenced by 19 Kids and Counting if you think she homeschools her kids. Then again, you are probably right 😀
Her kids go to public school. Sorry to disappoint.
Oh no!!!!! But it’s ok, that was just God testing me and putting obstacles in my way. I will come across someone who’s kids are homeschooled sooner or later no doubt
kolembo….well said, well said
Ha ha ha. You guys should all calm down and read the rest of this blog to laugh out loud. In an earlier post this lady is surprised to find that an ‘African’ child who isn’t feeling well looks just like one of her own children when they are not feeling well! Come on, guys, we should be used to this type of ignorance born out of a prejudice built by years of disinformation. Somebody, invite the lady out to other places so she discovers that the world is just the world and that bedbugs and dust aren’t geographically limited to this part of the world.
hahaha imagine my surprise when i was told today that there are cockroaches in NY. I thought we only saw that in “Africa”.
🙂 There are also poor people in the US, homeless people, diseased people…and believe it or not, some people leave their small towns in the US straight for places in Africa that have bigger buildings than they do in their home towns. She will go back a much improved version of the one that boarded the flight from Paris to Uchumi.
i’m so happy our tourist got a better view of Nairobi and a bit of Africa by finding modern stores, good food, clean water, security and to say the least clean air that is not polluted. Guess what? God is a God of wonders he brought you to Africa to first minister to you before he uses you. I guess your shock took you to a special place with God where you realised that we are all a work in progress whether in the third world or the first world. Even the rich need Jesus its not only the poor who need him. I hope a new phase of life has started for you and you will discover a new ministry which is not about stife, struggle, poverty or hunger but that of reaching out to lost souls without judging them based on thier social needs or class. In the meantime please take a walk to Kibera where there is ‘slum tourism’ and see the other side of Nairobi where poverty or lack of plenty has not stolen smiles from our people. We are content with what we have. We are hard working and your God is our God and we give thanks for our Daily Bread which we pray for. See souls not situations for a situation does not define my relationship with God. We have national parks, rivers and mountains that people come from far and wide to see and all this is from the same God who brought you here. I think the first purpose of this journey was for God to minister to you before you find your path in Africa. i wish you well and i wish you a period of self discovery and a new and renewed hope and relationship with the God you come to share with us in Kenya.
In the meantime i’d recommend a good trip to a lodge in Kenya with this book “The Lords of Poverty” find it read it and ask yourself how you will make a difference.
Ey…all Kenyans here….shhhhhhhh. Quiet. We shouldn’t be here. We should be dying of hunger in some massive pothole. You uppity 3rdWorlders and ur interwebz.
@Degwa, Hahaha we can’t help it! The fact that she came to a former colony of the English Empire and Expected that we spoke no English proved she may not only had problems picking up any book on African and reading it…but has equal trouble with the internet. Well Now she has met the Kenyans Online as well who speak and write the Queen’s English. I wonder what KOT will do with her once they get hold of her Blog…. LOL Remember how they Made TD Jakes Apologize to the entire Kenyan Nation for his remarks.
@Degwa,hehehe. How dare we come here to comment on her post when we are not even supposed to know what the internet is? Let alone own PCs and tablets and smart phones from which we can read and comment on her blog!#kuishikwinginikuonamengikweli
Jamaneni.. i am beginning to actually wonder if this blog is for real. Maybe some troll just started it to piss Kenyans off? Well she sure has me pissed. Christianity aside. Even Jesus called some fools ‘ye brood of vipers’.. so i reckon its within my christian rights to call out this mujinga (utter fool) and tell it as is.
LMAOO! Youre comments have made my life! but oh well I must also dash, do not want to miss my scheduled starvation-fly-swatting-session at midnight!
Travelling to discover Nairobi as “local version of a mall” and people who can actually speak English and are wearing clothes…you made my day. I have been to lots of places that will make you happy but not sure you will stay long there. Also this some confirmation of the level of eduction of the US that really need to be improved. You may check things on Google prior to get into you jungle clothes. Can’t wait to read your next exotic adventures, maybe a discovery of the middle east and people shooting randomly at each other. ..try dubai. Enjoy gardening at home send us pictures of Walmart and keep writing. I like a good lough in the morning.
One thing I know is that I’m glad we disappointed. I’m not sure if we pray to the same God. Yours must be so modern….poverty disgusts him. Please don’t come back. I live in Kenya. We don’t need your approval. If you don’t want to be disappointed then please stay in Paris or wherever you’re from and don’t come visiting us. That way everybody stays happy…a… 😉
Seriously, people, please read the rest of the blog and then let God use you to change poor Jessica. To teach her the true meaning of love. To show her Africa and how big it really is.
BLOGGING is not for you my dear. I’m sure pre-school children have a better idea of Africa than you have.
Ignorant Americans. Other than what you saw your ‘Christianity’ is also not needed. Most of us have been that since time immemorial. Only now we are opening our eyes and realizing there is no higher power. I guess you met many people who could donate clothes to you and guess what, they are not Christians.
I wish I could say something nice but, seriously! What do you think Africa or Kenya is about? For foreign religious types and NGOs (read non-governmental organizations) this place is for creating pitiful imagery to sell to the self entitled middle class in North America and Europe. These are harsh words I know but we are getting kind of tired of people less literate than most of us assuming the narrative of a forgotten Africa is a truism. Wake up westerners! Like somebody said in one of the comments here…chase those crazy bald heads out of town.
I live in Nairobi and I know that the imagery and messages spread about Kenya and Africa as a continent are often misleading and it is easy to not understanding the soci-economic complexities (both positive and negative) of a country you have never been to admire. I admire your honesty and vulnerability and for all the people ranting and raving who are so angry – get over yourself. The lady is giving a perspective on what she expected and how the reality is different and admits herself she needs more perspective. Rather than be so angry give her some info on Kenya, share some pictures with her, invite her over for coffee when she’s next in our lovely country. Be NICE to your fellow humans.
i actually dont understand this article much either… I cant tell what she is talking about…
Just for the record, Jesus said that “It is harder for a rich man to get into heaven”
If we are equating lavish lifestyle with- no need for preaching the gospel, we have everything Upside down…
I am an African, born in Ethiopia, brought up in Kenya.
I am from a Christian background and I am Christian too.
Truth be told, I genuinely worry about being financialy stable and to have a comfortable life, because people in comfortable places are most furthest from Christ because they do not “need” him.
But when you need Him, you turn to Him and you are so loyal to Him!
My dear lovely people, Those in Walmart, those in Junction, those are the people in search of hope love and peace in the things of this world…
The poor and needy know Christ!
And just for the record, America is not the Saviour, and riches are not Salvation…
Christ is here, already working.
The work of a missionary is not to bring salvation and to be the Saviour. It is to get in line with God and join him in the work that he began a very long time ago…
My dear friend, its bigger than you.
Its much bigger than me…
Its bigger than Junction or even your Walmart….
The real task is getting in line with God, The Holy Spirit because He is already at work… And its all about Jesus!
Change the focus…. change the focus…
I am also striving to do the same.
I moved to the US from Kenya in 1999 to study and ended up staying after getting a job. My undergrad school was a private christian college with lots of homeschooled kids. I was asked the most ridiculous questions e.g do people in Africa eat food? I remember once this lady at a church learned that I was from Africa responded with “bless your heart” and handed me a $20 bill… I took it. Some of the professors were surprised at my abilities when grading my papers. It was a 4 year test of my patience. The level of ignorance and self aggrandizement is astounding especially in churches. Most with the same attitude as Jes in this post. It’s been very intersesting interacting with christians here as they cannot reconcile my normal childhood with living in Africa. Similarly, i cannot reconcile their ignorance with the easy access to information in this part of the world.
Go away already! Are you still here Madam Christian? Phu!
This has to be the most self-centered ignorant piece of literal garbage I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading. Do all of us a favour, get back on that plane you came on, go back to wherever you came from, and stay there.
I can only hope you don’t homeschool your five kids because sharing your level of ignorance with them would truly be a crime against humanity.
I remember this one time on my flight to Kenya a white lady spotted this other white lady in the plane and she automatically assumed she was flying to kenya for some mission work. So she sparks a conversation talking about all these things the do for this and that charity, how her mission was to bring hope to the people of Kenya :/, then she finally stopped talking and gave the other white lady a chance to talk, “so what mission brings you to Kenya?” The lady had a disgusted look in her face and answered, “I am Kenyan, Kenya is my home”, and she shut down the conversation… The other white lady looked at her perplexed wondering what thus lady just said to her. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t contain myself. Served!!! The point here is, don’t just assume you will show up and give, contribute, to me this sounds very self serving…”white messiah”.. We do have areas that could use a lil help but the approach should be different, stop, listen and be one of the people. Then maybe you will understand why Kenyans and other Africans react like this to ‘mission’ work.
Thank u mitt
This is hilarious!
Congratulations, you just made my day. ☺
I hope my laugh with not at your comment was as good as yours was.
I am from Nairobi and I find this comment a bit disturbing. Because I believe the author is learned to the point of going for a college education. For sameone to profess this n still call ur self civilized. I guess I am from the dark ages n according to her java hut is not for cavemen like us n still need missionary’s to came n SOS since we don’t know Christ. Pls go back to school n do some research on
Kenya. I love my city n country, with all our problems n challenges. You r a guest in my city please have same
respect. If u decide to stay welcome if not good riddance to bad rubbish.
Hahahahaha! I literally cannot stop laughing at the ignorance of this post! Honestly! “Oh god, why hast thou forsaken me? There are no people living in mud huts in a cosmopolitan city like Nairobi!!! How will I find a new flock to convert and tell them that being poor is ok because God loves you”. Cry!!!!
Such a shocker, isn’t it, that people in deep, dark, Ebola-riddled Africa are actually able to build a life for themselves? It must be ever so disappointing for you that you were unable to come over there and feel superior with your “mission trip clothes”.
Remember, the white man gave Africans a bible in one hand and took their land with the other. That is one hell of a legacy to feel proud of.
Grow up and sort yourself out, please.
Open your eyes and take the good with the bad, make your Africa experience and leave with your memories
This post seems very unthought of…you being a parent shouldn’t depend on seeing other peoples unfortunate condition and suffering…just cause you want to be happy….thats very shallow of you ..and you should go back to where you came…..if inspiration is what you need from suffering. Nairobi is a beautiful place filled with beautiful and vastly knowledgeable individuals. ..and your stereotypes shouldn’t be considered. …our poverty levels uplift us……makes us work harder…..makes us tighter…..improves our love. …..dobt expect to find your personal redemption within our problematic situations. ….cause thats very….very…..very…..very……shallow of a human being
Am I the only one who wonders how she would feel if the roles were reversed? Imagine a Kenyan showing up at her door, in “Westernized clothing”, being shocked at the fact that the streets outside of her house are tarmacked, that people don’t ride horses through town and that there are no tumbleweeds bouncing on the prairies.
Actually, that would be quite funny! I can just picture the same Kenyan showing up with a book with stories of Anansi the Spider, preaching that the word is true bla bla bla and being so disappointed at the fact that these crazy Americans have malls instead of saloons and whorehouses and then being told by Anansi that it’s ok, it was all just a test of their faith.
Ha!!!!
go fuck yourself you racist cracker bitch. i’m sorry that the african country you seem to have picked at random wasn’t run down enough, wasn’t steeped in poverty enough, wasn’t willing to fall at your lily-white feet and kiss your toes for turning up with your toxic religion and trying to save them from themselves. none of the african countries want you. WE DO NOT WANT YOU. get back on your plane and go home to your measles-ridden motherland and leave us the hell alone.
Well said!
LMAO…
Wow, dang Kenya, ease up now, especially your Christian ones out there.
Madam, this week easily be the biggest comment count you get in this blog.
I hope you read all the contents when you get home, and take them in your heart, to God.
The harshest of them don’t mean to be personal – though some of the expression is TRULY VICIOUS, lordy! – they just are very tired.
Christians can be some of the most hateful people out there, I know, I’m gay.
Be that as it may, Good will then this into one of the most amazing trips you’ve ever had.
The internet is the internet. Do not let it color your trip. Write it all down. All of it.
You got the PRIVILEGE to visit Kenya and you were disappointed that people had access to food, clothing, education and were multilingual? Africa is a continent with over 50 countries, it’s far from the monolith. So for you to be [unpleasantly] surprised that people weren’t completely destitute shows that you didn’t take the time to actually research Kenya. You clearly based your presumptions of Kenya off of the Western propagandist portrayal of African countries, that’s first of all. Secondly, how sociopathic and narcissistic are you that you’re disheartened that Kenyans aren’t suffering as much as you expected because YOU wanted to feel charitable? You call yourself a Christian? You’re nothing but a self-serving narcassist who’s more concerned about feeling like a savior than you are with genuinely helping anyone. You needed to see people SUFFERING in order for you to feel like your trip was worthwhile? Do you not see how sadistic your mentality is? People like you shouldn’t get the opportunity to travel because you’re clearly a prejudice, xenophobic, condescending piece of excrement that has no respect for African countries or people. Go home.
I personally think living in ‘mission’ in the US has a totally different meaning to mission in other places. I remember being a member of a Church in the Midwest. I was excited about all the work they were doing in Kenya and other parts of the world, so I joined in one of the groups and wanted to actively get involved with their work coz I believed in their ‘mission’ in Kenya. As I went for meetings and prayers and strategizing, I was buffled by how committed Americans were at throwing money to every mission. At one meeting I started suggesting a different way of doing the ‘mission’ by empowering the locals to set up practical ways they could support themselves. I was surprised when no one cared to listen to my ideas, in fact I was gently left out of the Kenyan mission group 🙂 and all that mattered was the ‘giving’ agenda. It was not about empowering or uplifting it was about ‘handouts’and ‘charity’. When I hear ‘mission’ work, it comes with a lot of uneasiness because it reinforces that stereotype of the poor African. Tell me about business, entrepreneurship and other social innovations then you have my ear. Mission work is left to interpretation.
Dear lady,
Please leave our blessed country ASAP. Ha!!!!! We dont want your nonsense around…… It disgusts me so much that you come to our country with your ignorance and self serving attitude in the name of ‘saving the poor and starving’ . Useless idiot. Abeg go help your brain to some knowledge and have some respect. I am baffled that you thought to broadcast your ignorance and say that u came here for Christianity. We have enough pastors, priests and wellwishers. If this is what you preach then you’re the one that needs guidance. Fool!!!!!!!!!
Regards,
The kenyan patriot
not sure if this should be categorized under “god complex” or “savior complex”.
Make it easy on yourself and just file it under “Great White Dope.”
agreed. that makes it much simpler.
…. wow. It must have been so horrible and discouraging for you to see black and brown people….. not suffering? And not needing your White Colonialist psycho-shit ‘mission work’. I mean, the gall of those children in Kenya! How dare they not be sick, starving, and suffering. Don’t they understand that you need selfies with sick, starving, suffering kids to get all those ‘likes’ for Jesus on Facebook. So sorry for your hardships… How do you get through life? It must be heartbreaking for you.
Also, I love the ‘don’t judge her’ comments. God forbid we judge the white American Christian girl. Judging is only OK when we do it to the brown folk across the pond, ya?
The ones saying not to judge her are judging everyone else in the process. In their minds, we are all questioning “His” will. Yet the entire trip was the will of Jess and her husband. It was what they wanted, so they could feel more important in their church and community. They were more than willing to buy a pack of lies about Nairobi, instead of just visiting the CIA Worldbook and looking at the demographics of the country. Not to mention, looking at the rest of her posts so far, all she is doing is visiting some Baptist music school, not doing any actual missionary work. Just preaching to the choir.
Ms. Tidwell, you are thinking about the conditions in refugee camps. But you can find those same conditions in the migrant worker camps, and alien detention facilities of America. Go tell the undocumented in America how much Christ loves them even though tithe paying Christians have to do their jobs and deport them and break up their families. The rich in every country want poverty out of sight and out of mind. Maybe one day you will get to host a Kenyan Missionary’s wife who is going through culture shock because she thought Oklahoma is all impoverished indian reservations and white trash trailer parks.
Can’t believe what I just read. Someone disappointed that we are not anguishing in poverty as she expected? That we are educated and civilized? Wait, did she call herself a Christian? If that’s a true reflection of a Christian, then I give up on Christianity.
I hope God will save you from your arrogance
I am pretty surprised that
1. You did not bother to do research or a needs assessment about the people you are supposedly trying to help. Shouldn’t that be the first step before you go running off harum scarum to help people?
2. You were not happy that there were at least some people who are doing relatively well?
I don’t doubt that your heart is in the right place and you want to be of use somewhere but this blog post of yours was really disheartening to a lot of us, and unfortunately is an attitude that we encounter far too often.
Africa has a GDP of 2trillion $ cnn and BBC have brain. Washed this white people in the west Africa is bigger literally and economically than Russia or India there are more than 4000cities in Africa.
It is one of my hopes to one day travel to the African continent, it is one I have not had a chance to do yet. From her disappointed attitude I think I might really enjoy a wonderful visit.
“My heart was prepared for dirt floors.
For dirty laundry hanging everywhere.
For [black] kids that were half naked and covered in bug bites….”
….No offence but, that kiiiiinda sounds like Detroit to me! Why didn’t you save you thousands of dollars on flights and fly to Michigan and go save them and “fix” the poverty there, Jessica?
Glad you like our mayonnaise tho! 😉
– Nairobianess.
Aaaaand, heyyyyyy, guys. A proud Detroiter here, again. OK, this is quickly becoming a case of becoming what you hate. Look, seriously, get a new whipping boy besides Detroit. We don’ t have dirt floors, dirty laundry (all of ours has been aired quite publicly, thank you very much), or significantly more half-naked kids covered in bug bites than the rest of your cities or towns, wherever you’re from.
Candidly, I’m starting to think you’re each being pretty jerky to keep bringing us up in this context. Whether you’re Christian or not, it’s pretty tone deaf of you (plural) to keep bringing up Detroit as some sort of nightmarish Hell on Earth. Here’s what I would love: Make your points WITHOUT using Detroit! Stop insulting us while you berate someone for being insulting! Everyone, become a little more aware of what you’re saying before you publish it.
In love,
R.
My final paragraphs for this saviour of our is that currently Kenya is the second largest refugee host country in the world with more than 2million refugees
In Kenya we have schools we are taught swahili i
English chemistry biology physics aviation geography mechanics and there are many more subjects I can’t really start on that we have Co curriculum activities also
I speak 7 languages and at that fluently and av never been out of Kenya swahili English German French my mother tongue Kisii language a little bit of buganda and now Spanish
We do actually have democracy
They keep treating Africa like a lost child wen actually Africa is just 50 years independent in most states America is 200+ years independent there were civil wars in America that lasted longer while half of the African nations have not been through a civil war
Has anyone ever watched a holiwood movie based on an African character they have total disregard for our heritage with the names they give them a person in West Africa has an accent of a person who from the south and has a south African name and ur like do this Pple do even a little bit of research for ur information
There are 200mn Arabs in Africa 7mn whites 2mn Chinese 150mn afro asiatic people and about 700mn blacks but u don’t here us saying we better of America with a few black Pple u might think that they own the diversity medal forever.
U can have a look at nairobi here and the rest of Kenya and nairobi is not the only city in Kenya there are about 40 other decent cities here and am a proud Kenyan
They keep saying African leaders are corrupt whole between the period of 1960-2000 Africa was given – subsaharan Africa was given aids and grant worth 12bn while south Korea alone was given 60bn a country that is the size of a single county in kenya
Now Africans have found the Chinese the white Pple can’t take it
Well if u don’t want to genuinely help Africa please keep out
shared to #KOT
Girl, ignore some nasty comment. And keep faith in God. I love Jesus. God is awesome and is going to give you what you deserve. Thank you for the testimony. If you really want somewhere where there is poorness , just come to Burundi. You’ll se
Give her what she deserves? Some flea bitten, bug infested, childlike Africans she can show the love of Jesus? Welcome to Nairobi sweetheart, and welcome to #KOT. We may be bug infested hut living brown skinned savages but we have WiFi!
i hope god does give her what she deserves – a ticket back home.
Really? So you are a missionary ? Ok #idropthemic.
There is never a shortage of those who go to see the ‘Hollywood Africa”….and how disappointed they get to learn 1)it’s not a country b) it’s not poverty all around. I’ve listened to missionaries in US who ‘edit’ their missionary experience stories in some African country, by never making any mention of the fact that not everyone lives in the huts, with no running water and electricity. They come with their little video clips and photos showing some rugged kids and mothers with heavy loads… They may show a few lions that they saw on their ‘day off’, when they visit the game parks…but nothing of the better parts of the country. And given that most of these missionaries are ‘raising support’ for the work they are involved in, it serves them well to show the poverty and disease – that is what tears at the hearts of would-be donors!
And finally, I have no idea why so call missionaries associate poverty with godlessness! As someone who was born and brought up in Kenya, I can say that some of the most godly people I’ve ever heard the privilege of knowing live in the rural areas; people who struggle to feed their families; have no running water or power. They may be in need of physical amenities, but they will challenge your faith – any day.
‘had’, not ‘heard’…. 🙂
Jesus may have even been in kenya for all we know
Ethiopia has been mentioned more times in the Bible and USA has nt been mentioned and with the current boundaries provided by the white man who knows jesus was in kenya 1995 years ago
Nairobians drive and shop in malls? Oh! The horror!
Why is everyone ambushing you for wanting all Kenyans to be miserable? I mean, isn’t that what your “mission” was about, watching suffering and giving hand-outs to feel better about your life? How else do these people expect you,a child of the Lord to find fulfillment?
Seriously though,you didn’t research Nairobi? Exactly how were you planning to help if you had NO idea what the people needed? The arrogance,the ignorance,the self-righteousness STINKS!
you, my friend, are an example of why African people dubiously suspicious of the intentions of white missionaries. they expect to find us as heathens living in squalor. that was the narrative used to justify colonialism and the slave trade. yet, if you read the Bible, you would know that one of the first converts to Christianity was an Ethiopian.
there is far more to Africa than the western world wants to believe. the narrative of the godless heathens is profitable, so i’m not surprised that you didn’t see what you expected. however, that doesn’t excuse your ignorance because the internet is a thing. a useful thing. being a missionary to Africa is spiritually disingenuous, self-serving and profiteering of the worst kind. please, leave us alone. if you’re looking for the unfortunate to show the love of Christ, maybe start in your own beloved America. i’ve seen pictures. i now there are plenty of people in need of physical and spiritual sustenance.
Once again, white people and their skewed intentions. Why dont you service and minister to the many poor, homeless, drug addicts, and lost people in your own back yard. Leave Africa alone. You have done enough to muddle the continent for hundreds of years. The money you spend to travel and house yourself for this “adventure trip” could be better spent in the US or by simply sending it to a charity already established in Africa BY Africans. But no, this isn’t about logic. It’s about a need to be able to gather at Starbucks 6 months later and share your Flicker images of the poor, black savages you went and blessed with your white goodness. Right? Well I’m glad your mission failed and you weren’t validated in your self-involved Odyssey in the name of God. Stay in your country.
Utterly obnoxious and almost unforgivably pea-brained. What a condescending, self-righteous wretch.
Do you need some apples for that high horse of yours. I could donate. I’m shockingly affluent
This is why no one usually feels much sympathy for white Pple being beheaded by IS they just go into unknown territories without the slightest clue and next thing u know they are in front of a camera with angered Islamic militant
There are more churches per capita in kenya than USA and for the first 14 years oc education in kenya both Muslim and Christians are forced to read the Bible and understand it in the Christian religious education classes – CRE
Am not a supporter of IS I hate all they do
My god, it’s… it’s almost as if Africa is an enormous and diverse continent that really doesn’t need the “help” of christian missionaries. You’ve done enough harm across the entire planet, so maybe it’s time to pack it in and stop forcing your religion on people you so smugly declare to be savages that live in dirt-floored huts. Africa doesn’t want or need you. Worry about your own people and home.
WP so needs a like button for comments.
they say travel is fatal to bigotry
Atheists, Atheists everywhere! Might be time to hose down your page and turn off comments, Jessica. I can smell a stench welling up around in here.
I can’t find the atheists, but i can find countless Kenyans rightfully upset at being diminished by an ignorant individual. It seems to me that you are not much better.
The only stench here is the willfull ignorance of Americans who have this odd notion that Kenyans need them to come to their country to “love on them” in the guise of a faux mission trip.
Jessica meant well, but she turned herself into an example of the worst kind of American tourist.
Guys and girls, cut her some slack.. Having lived in the US.. I can bet you she doesn’t know her neighbors 4 houses down, cant even pray with them… She cant help the homeless guy she passed on his way to the airport but she has the effrontery to come and spread the ‘love’.. HAHAHAHA!..
I live in America and I will tell you this, start with your own!!!!!!
My family was considering moving to Nairobi for a few years as a chance to live and work outside of our home countries of the US and of Turkey. We were looking at Nairobi because we wanted to have access to good healthcare 🙂 My concern was that I’m not a city person and avoid places like NYC and Chicago–Nairobi would give me the same feeling of business and congestion. I’m also not a fan of Istanbul beyond a few days. So, Nairobi went out the window as a destination! The African continent is home to amazing cities, universities, history, human and cultural diversity, biodiversity…It’s gorgeous and vibrant! We are foster parents in the US and believe me, we see tremendous need and brokenness in our own backyard. Without paying a cent, we offer everything that people want to offer those in developing countries. We are foster parents, we are teachers in Title I schools, we quietly help fill in the gaps when families we know run short on food at the end of the month, provide a place for kids to live when their families fall apart…the US is not short on problems. Here’s the thing–the US has a more comprehensive social welfare system than some countries (less than others, too).The government provides nutrition assistance, daycare and housing assistance to some, etc. If these programs weren’t in place, we would be experiencing a very different America. Personal donations are not broad enough to evenly provide support to everyone who needs it. In countries that don’t do this, more bad stuff happens to good people. Missionaries can’t fix this. The people of a country have to insist on a social welfare system that prevents the worst from happening. There are countries in Africa that do this, to good effect. There are so many other projects that governments undertake that an expensive jaunt to a country on the African continent can’t compare to as far as impact goes–land use and land ownership laws, water use, sanitation, agriculture, refusal to use Monsanto seeds, etc.
We were foster parents to a young boy from Senegal. When he was able to go home to his mother, we helped send him to live with his grandparents in their country. Living in ‘Africa’ was a better option for him than living in America! Not everyone in America has full access to mainstream life–they live on the margins.
Yaani huyu mwanamke hana akili… Baki USA usaidie watu wenu. Invest in educating yourself first before sprewing BS in the name of salvation!!
my comment will be almost entirely devoid of Christian character. Dear Jess Tidwell, I am SORRY that you did not find any poor children with distended bellies lying by the roadside dying of starvation covered in flies and dirt. I am sorry you did not find the people who live on less than a dollar a day so you coul heap your Christian pity at their slum doorstep. I am sorry you did not meet people ravaged by disease and poverty, staring vacantly into the bleak horizon of their short life. I am sorry that my city has disappointed you so greatly by being a city just like any city in the US. One with both affluence and poverty. One with security concerns because of a war on terror that has touched many other international cities. One where English is spoken fluently and which is as diverse in race and culture as any of your major cities, and even more so than many of your smaller ones. I am so sorry that you did not take the time to do some basic research about a country that you were going to save with your Christian goodwill. I am sorry that even using Google images was too much of a chore as certainly you could have found some imagery to contradict your obvious ignorance. I am sorry that you have not bothered watching any international news as we had a massive terror attack that occurred in…wait for it…a MALL. Gasp. A mall did you say? I am sorry for the therefore obvious need to have added security for the safety and comfort of those poor sods wealthy enough to patronise these places. But most of all I am sorry for myself and my country. For having to encounter people like you on a regular basis. People who have judged my country based on a UNICEF add they say in 1986. People who do not know that most Kenyans are bi and even tri-lingual. People who do not know how enterprise most Kenyans are, even those who live lives of relative poverty. People who do not see that behind our smiles, are smiles, because we are a happy and blessed people to live in a country so beautiful. I suggest the person that needs saving is you yourself. Please take a moment to say a prayer to God to apologise for the offence this message will undoubtedly cause any Kenyan who reads it. Because yeah, we also have Internet and computers and stuff. Please ask him to open your eyes, your heart and your mind so you can maybe learn a thing or two from your trip. And please ask him for the wisdom to think before you next write such an ignorant, inflammatory message about a country that you are privileged to have the pleasure of visiting. One last thing. Please ask him to help you get over yourself.
Bravo! I must say though, that Nairobi is far more affluent than a few American cities. Detroit has become a wasteland. If she wanted to see abject poverty and try to help, she didn’t have to drive more than 30 miles in her home state of Oklahoma. Where racism is massive. The state that started an ammunition shortage, because the instant President Obama was elected, Oklahoma had a run on ammo, because they were afraid it would cause black people to get “uppity.” (I spent three years in that hellhole of a state and that was what I heard over and over after the 2008 elections.) See, black people should know their place in the minds of these Okie missionaries. And that place is a dirt floor hut in deepest, darkest Africa. Where they can be viewed as exotic, instead of a blight on the face of white America. If she wanted to actually do something to make a difference, instead of just being a poverty tourist, she could volunteer at the local food pantry, as people in Oklahoma are so poor that they rely on churches to help them eat, or even volunteer at a homeless shelter. But hey, do something like that and you’re facing reality, instead of living the tourist dream.
That’s it. Listen, Detroit is not some wasteland. None of you are any better than the rest of you. Want some advice from Detroit? No? Well, you’re going to get it anyway.
We’re here, right in the heart of the Midwestern United States. We have plenty of churches and black people. We’ve had plenty of people try to save us. Here’s what we need saving from:
– Sanctimonious would-be “missionaries” coming to Detroit with a vision of saving us from our desolation and despair.
– “Ruin porn”, cultural-fetishist tourists who want to regale their social media followers with amateur photojournalism and tales of decay and survival.
– Sanctimonious would-be “avengers” admonishing the missionaries and tourists on the Internet so they can gain the moral high-ground and the social capital that comes from joining a mob calling others out on their guilt or privilege.
– Apologists for the missionaries and tourists who are tired of “their kind” being put upon by those who just don’t understand, and who are so unaware or uncaring of their own hypocrisy that they represent the worst America has to offer in dim ignorance of their nation, their history, and themselves.
– More news about Slows BBQ. Yeah, dude did a great job building a brand. Let’s turn the lens on some other people from the city doing great things already, OK? Like, seriously, we are at our limit of hipsters and average smoked meat products.
Thank you from Detroit, home of an actual city with lots of good people in it.
I’m a missionary as well. And this is a non-sense article. Jes Tidwell, God absolutely loves you. But you are the definition of ignorance. You really are the authenticating the stereotype of ignorant white America. As a Kenyan I am offended at the enormous audacity of your ignorance. You really do owe an apology to your brothers and sisters in Christ in Kenya. PS. The call of Jesus is NOT for you to feel good! You are selfish. And in case you didn’t know, your very own country, and probably your whole street is a huge mission field! God bless.
still around??? can take you around Mathare slums, you’ll get first hand account, bet you wont be disappointed.
Junction, the Nairobi version of a mall. Hmm I’m not sure you know that that city has over 30 malls. And for the resident missionary to say that nairobi is city state is plain condescension. Yah, our English is probably is more polished than you’d love to think. My advice as a born again Christian,enjoy the country like any other tourist, get to meet Kenyans personally and don’t view kenya from the warped lens of you missionary friend.
Found this blog post today. Thank you for pointing that out. I found it soo disturbing!! ‘VERSION OF A MALL!’
Jessica… your need to help others is good but a little more use of resources in your hands could have helped.
In addition. .. please. ..let’s stop it with the age old “white person savior” mentality. We may have poor people amongst us but what you need to focus on more is not aid but empowerment.
Watch this message by one of our younger activists : http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/opinion/an-africans-message-for-america.html?referrer=&_r=0
Disappointment that God’s children are thriving? It is not my place to judge, but im not sure which God it is you serve that says his good work can only be done in places where people are suffering. Nairobi still needs God’s work and the fact that you are so narrow minded and think God’s work can only be done with the poor, shows me that your ignorance needs prayers.
And no, I will not be following this blog
As a Kenyan Christian all i can say is your superiority complex combined with a messiah complex disgusts me. Would i be disappointed if i landed in whichever US city and did not find it inundated with drug addicts and hookers of all shades? No i would be so glad. But you.. nah you are “disappointed”. Now i begin to truly understand the breadth of Mathew 7: 23
This is the most self indulgent piece of writing I’ve read in a long time to the extent that bile rose up my throat. Kindly do not come back to Kenya or any part of Africa with a Saivour Complex that is rooted in the indignification, infantilisation and oversimplification of an entire continent. Kindly go help your fellow Americans in the USA. You’re needed there, not here.
Excellent comment. “a Saivour Complex that is rooted in the indignification, infantilisation and oversimplification of an entire continent” is an excellent summation of the major problems with mission work.
I’m sorry man, but I still don’t get why u think only the poor, sick and the rest u mention…need Jesus?? Everybody needs Jesus, even the rich and well off.
I’m sorry man, but I still don’t get why u think only the poor, sick and the rest u mention…need Jesus?? Everybody needs Jesus, regardless of their social status or personality.
Well, your post has certainly made the rounds on the internet. Congrats on that.
You are part of the worst type of “christians” who do their work simply to be recognized. You should be ashamed of yourself, just as your god would be if he existed.
What is even more hilarious about this blog than the fact that this selfish, morally decrepit missionary WANTED to see suffering people, is that Kenya is a primarily CHRISTIAN NATION! Haha! What a waste of money and time! Not just morally bankrupt but willfully ignorant as well in an age of easily accessible information.
Jessica … You might as well just shut down this blog. The ignorance you potray does more harm than good.
I am from Kenya and I must say that this was the ddumbest blog post I have ever read. And to use God to relay all this?? I am appalled!!
You make both Americans and Christians look incredibly stupid… Seriously, what were you thinking writing this blog?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Sincerely,
An American Christian that doesn’t think Africa is a one country slum
…. ???? Sssoooooo you were disappointed that you were not able to save any little poverty stricken distraught African babies that day? Please don’t put your ignorance on God.
Are you seriously saying your disappointed with the reality check that places in Africa are actually modern and safe and not filled with little kids and protruding starving bellies and infestations of flies. Are you really asking for some sort of slum scenario in which you get to flex saviour complexes.
Sorry about the attack its just I am so tired of people giving into the poverty porn of western media and all those big charity adverts that go out of their way to show Africa in such a negative light to the extent a person would be disappointed to find out that actually life is going on as usual here. Maybe next time do a little homework and don’t believe everything you see on tv…..it would save us all a disappointment
I almost wish she’d board a plane and come on home as not to be there as another biased, misguided, self-righteous representative of American Christians. Sheesh!
What is blatant in this blog entry is that tge author does not have a genuine interest in Africans well being. I mean, you have to be completely aloof and seriously disconnected from the African continent and its people not know what to expect when you visit Nairobi, Kenya. Seriously? Just come back to the states.
You are going to get one hell of a shock when you come back online and read all of these comments. I’m sorry people are being harsh with you, but you kind of need the wake up call. Maybe now would be a good time to read up on some of the countries in Africa a little bit. Not all of Africa is poor, like what they try to show you on tv. There are some areas that are well off and completely modernized. Sure, there are poor parts, but there are poor parts of Europe and America too. The point is, it’s not good to see Africa as some giant place that is the same throughout, because that’s just not the case. Some countries in Africa are doing better than others.
Fuck you and your god. And please get the fuck out of my continent.
Kenyan Christian here. I will stay clear of the obvious and say that we need to rethink what being a missionary means in this century. For me it means improving the life of a community while instilling in them the values of Christ.
Clean up operations and playing with half naked kids is not what any suffering community needs.
We need people with creative strategies on how to improve people’s living standards. we need funding for those with ideas of doing so but without the money. At least in your local community you can feed the homeless every other day but what do you plan on doing for that African kid to have a better life after you hop into your plane and get back home.
Please don’t come back here
Jessica, before your respond to *any* of these comments:
Please, take some time with God. Ask Him about these hundreds of comments that virtually all say the same thing – that you should check your motives here, that you made this trip and wrote this post from a place of ignorance and privilege, that you made the mistake of not educating yourself about your destination before the trip, that you’re writing conveys an unchristian selfishness in your disappointment at the lack of people’s suffering, and that you should probably take time to learn about “white savior complex” and how to rid yourself of it. As Him to show you *not* the insults in some of these comments, but for Him to highlight the substance of what this maelstrom of correction is telling you.
Ask God if the fact that hundreds of people are all calling you out for the same thing directly to you, is that actually God driving home a lesson to your heart. Ask Him about your motives and your thought life. Ask Him for the righteous conviction of His Holy Spirit. Please, Jessica, take the time to humble yourself before our Lord and say,
“Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)
And then, once you’ve asked God all these things… Listen to Him. Be still, and listen for Him to tell you what you already knew, but couldn’t comprehend because you were angry and offended by these comments. Then, if you don’t fight it, you *can* learn from this.
Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean its any more socially appropriate for you to broadcast every ignorant, ridiculous, uninformed and insensitive thought that passes through your mind.
If you stepped into the home of a person you knew was poor, and was surprised by the cleanliness and attention to detail to be found there, would you then proclaim loudly, “But I thought your house would be dirty and smell badly!”? I would hope not, truly. However, this blog post is the social media equivalent of that.
SHAME on you for disrespecting what Im sure Kenyan’s have worked hard to establish through a history of social and political upheaval.
SHAME on you and your white privilege.
If you were half the Christian you claimed to be, you’d get your nose into the big Book and strive desperately to bring yourself back to that place where you are a servant of Jesus, not a servant of your American trappings.
This is such an ignorant post about Africa! Wow. Maybe you should do your research about the rest of the world before you decide to go there. You make white people look stupid and if i didn’t know any better i would say you are racist. You have a white savoir attitude. (And this is coming from a white person myself). This blog is also a shame to Christians as i saw this posted by an atheist on facebook who was totally mocking it. You should be ashamed of your attitude.
If you wanted to hide your ignorance in the name of Christianity, sorry, you failed miserably. Yes, Kenya isn’t a first world economy. But we aren’t as miserable as you believe us to be. I mean, when you boarded your flight from Paris, where exactly did you expect to land? In a patch of grass littered with cow dung and naked kids running up and down at the excitement of seeing a plane for the first time? Please. Smh. I know of places in those so called first world economies that are 100 times worse than our worst slums.
I wonder why you had to travel so many miles to Nairobi if all you needed was to see dirty laundry. There are thousands of Americans walking the streets of your majestic cities homeless and begging for food. Americans have made a trip to the moon but have such shocking knowledge of the world around them
Another ignorant mzungu. Go save your own. Nairobi doesn’t need you. Smh.
This is exactly why Africans shouldnt trust whites. You guys just have this negative mindset of all of us and then become disappointed because we didn’t disappoint you? Please stay out of Africa; we do not need ignoramuses like you in the continent.
I think God wanted you to see the error of your prejudice and ignorant thoughts. The fact you went to Kenya looking for desolation and black souls to evangelize shows the false sense of your moral compass. If you were looking for unsafe places to go you could have stayed right here in the USA. You could have gone to a few small towns in GA and preached to the white meth addicts. I’m sorry that Africa failed you and your need to be a savior to a poor and desolate bunch of “dark” and lost people. Find consolation in the fact that God showed you that not everything black is cracked and broken. I hope you were able to get to the dirt and grime of Kenya but again you could have stayed in the US for that.
O hail the saviours of Africa! Its funny how she turns her conceitedness into a lesson on God’s sovereignty! The nerve! Here is an idea, why don’t you go save you inner city blocks and your structurally under-served urban communities? Oh shoot! I hope I didn’t come off as suggesting that you ought to first demonstrate your Christian service to the the black people closest to you? But that’s not such a bad idea come to think about it. But if that’s too hard you could work yourself ‘up’ (or ‘down’ depending on how you see things) by starting out with the poor white folk in Detroit! And while you are at it, why don’t you crack open you Bible and take a lesson from the master Himself, >>> Philippians 2:6-8
America needs more missionaries than Kenya.
Please go back home and save your own lost flock. How hypocritical to imagine God can remove you from the “pits of hell” that is most in need of salvation and your missionary “services”, and send you to one of the most religious places in the world. To do what, pray tell?? Go back home please ASAP, nobody in Kenya needs you to “save” them.
Reblogged this on Ian Cox and commented:
I’ve got no words for this woman’s ignorance. It’s beyond the pale. Google much?
“My heart was prepared for dirt floors.
For dirty laundry hanging everywhere.
For kids that were half naked and covered in bug bites.
People who couldn’t speak English.
not this”
As someone who grew up in Nairobi i am irritated and disgusted by this. Firstly it’s clear just how selfish you are hoping for the suffering of others so you look like a hero. How very Christian of you. you’re not out to help anybody but yourself. If you really cared about people and God you could still go on spreading the gospel or whatever. what difference does it make how rich or poor people are? don’t we all need God?
It would do you a world of good if you can educate yourself about a place before you visit. This will spare you from sounding so ignorant. You are exactly what is wrong with this world and if Nairobi was such a disappointment you should have turned around right there and gone back to where you came from.
i am ashamed for you.
This Wilhem fellow could have spared this lady a whole of angst and drama by simply taking her to Dagoretti corner or Kawangare. which are both near by ..i mean she woke up, prayed to the good Lord to find her a few poverty stricken folks and what does Wilhem do? take her to a “version” of a mall………..presumably this didn’t fit into the savior complex she had carefully cultivated….before she came to Africa……
A little Youtube or Google about Nairobi would have changed your expectations, instead of depending on what you see on those late night Poverty commercials or wherever else you get your information about Africa from.
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So ignorant, a quick internet search would have shown you all you needed to know. There are many people you can help in America.
I am absolutely very disappointed that a so called Christian can boldly share such levels of ignorance. Why did you expect Kenya to be in abject poverty? Do you not think there was a thriving Africa before you? Our entire history is filled with wonderful, rich kingdoms and you are here thinking that you would have been met with dirt roads and mud houses? You my dear need to re evaluate yourself. You should be ashamed that you heart harboured such evil against people just so that you can feed you messiah complex. If you were looking to help people so badly, you did not need to travel all the way to Kenya. America has problems too. Why didn’t you stay home and fix those? I would honestly like for you to explain to me your thought process in writing this? Did you feel bad for wishing such things on people. This makes you come off as a hypocrite. Do you know of the levels of poverty in Detroit? or rising levels of child homelessness in America? Why do you not try yo fix those but you were more than ready to buy a plane ticket and fly all the way to Kenya in hopes of being met with repulsive living conditions. May God help you and rid you of this ignorance. I don’t think you are in Kenya to redeem the people but to redeem yourself. To get rid of your disgusting perspective of what an African country should look like. In the same way you have openly insulted the people of Kenya, I believe you should openly apologize to them for your words and ignorance and your rather evil hopes of them not being able to build a beautiful home for themselves.
I couldn’t wait to read this blogpost and the comments it generated after reading a scathing article about it being passed around on social media. Was not disappointed.
Where can i meet this lady?i would be massively interested in browsing her ignorance
Did you also think people still sleep in trees? “The place where business men and women spend $30 for lunch and shop at their version of Wal-Mart.”
“Wilhelm took us to The Junction {Nairobi’s version of a mall}.”
Do you actually read your blogs before you post them? You might consider that so you don’t go on offending Africa. Or to be specific, Kenya!
Do you know what Kenya has plenty of? Churches. Walk into any of these ‘poor’ villages you describe and you will find a church that has been made by the labor of its faithful parishioners. What on earth do you think your white-washed, middle-class version of Christianity is going to bring? Do you not think that Kenyan Christians can share their view of god with their own people? An American brings ‘christianity’ to Christian people when that American doesn’t want them to know god, but wants to be god. If your actual goal was to bring your god to people in Kenya, you would have done some research, found a group of Kenyan missionaries whose work you admired, and donated the money you spent on plane tickets to them. They would have done more with it. If you wanted to help people, you would have donated that money to buy school books, medical supplies – literally anything other than that plane ticket. You are a poverty tourist and absolutely nothing more. We should be hard on you, I feel no pity for you because these response are strongly worded. You, and others that share your perspective on the world, are nothing better than neocolonialists and its time the rest of the world pushed back against the assumption that mediocrity is somehow worth spreading around the world, simply because it comes in a white, American body.
All American missionaries should start their charity at home….they should speak against racism and police brutality against their black citizens first, second preach against gun violence, third help their veterans who are homeless and in dire need of housing..why spend thousands of OPM(other peoples money) a.k.a poor peoples donations to fly to a country that is 80% Christian??..Fourth this couple should expend all their energy testifying at their state capitals urging their REPUBLICAN Governors and REPs who call themselves christians and who by they way play god every election cycle to expand Medcaid and Medcare under obamacare which they have rejected because of their hatred for a black President.The Medcaid and Medcare money is supposed to help the poor…whats more Christian than helping the poor???
I have to say that, to begin with, I understood where the author was coming from in this post. And I understood the reactions to it, as well, when I started reading those. The internet happened, you know? And suddenly everyone knows something about the author and where her heart is and what her words meant and what she’s trying to do and whether or not she’s right to do so.
This – this white American evangelical culture, which privileges “mission work” and “listening to God’s will” and “stepping out in faith” – this is my culture. I speak this language; I understand this self-reflection, this interpretation of personal experience as a ‘humbling moment’. When I read this post at first, what I saw was a woman who had mentally and emotionally psyched herself up to be ready for anything. And when it turned out all that effort and preparation had been, in a sense, “wasted” – of course it was a let-down. An anticlimax. An adrenaline rush leading… nowhere. And, knowing evangelical culture, probably a bit of questioning ensued about what she was really supposed to be doing there – when she realized her expectations had failed to anticipate reality. And all of that is simply human. (Oh, beware the internet commentators, all ye who blog, for they will not allow you to be human. The idols we create as our online selves must be perfect and immaculate. 😛 ) It’s the same feeling I imagine a nurse might get upon rushing to a room only to find out that an emergency signal had been set off by mistake – a moment of frustration, even disappointment, that she had come running for nothing… followed (one hopes) by the relief that she had, after all, not been needed. Or at least, not in that way – as kolembo pointed out in what I think has been the best comment in this entire string ( https://jestidwell.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/it-didnt-happen-like-i-thought-it-would/#comment-1098 )
And so I hope that those who are posting in righteous anger will take a moment to consider whether this is an individual’s problem, a religious problem, or something including both which is bigger than either.
Because this tugs at all the right strings of anger for people: colonialism, dominionist/imperialist Christianity, American ignorance, American notions of our own superiority (that there’s nothing that needs straightening up in our house), racism and ‘othering’, and so on. And so, so many of these things are issues that desperately need to be addressed. But I think this unfortunate blogger has been singled out as if she were a terrible person, when – to the extent that her expectations were insulting and ignorant, as clearly they were to many – she is simply another victim of the whitewashing of American (and especially white Protestant American) history and society. We are taught in our schools and told over and over by our elected officials and media talking heads that our country is wonderful and that questioning that idea is unpatriotic. That we are a nation of extraordinary wealth (true, if rather too simplistic given our ever-growing divides in both riches and opportunities to make them) and that our problems are nothing (untrue) compared to the hellhole (also untrue) that is the entirety of the rest of the world. And so when people like this woman and her husband go to Africa, they are responding to a felt need that has been created and fed in them by the well-oiled media, political, educational, and yes, religious machinery of a society allergic to self-examination. Because we have been taught that poverty and despair and sickness and ignorance are problems in Those Other Places, and not right next door. Well-intentioned people who have fallen for that lie will naturally respond in the way this couple did: by going to where they believe the greatest and most desperate need exists.
To paraphrase a song I love – poverty is so hard to see when it’s not on your TV, but twenty miles across town. Because that kind of poverty, if you truly see it, challenges you to rethink the way you live *every day* and the things you think are true or good and the policies and causes you work for and support, without the benefit of a thousand-mile journey to a foreign country to serve as an automatic shake-up of your preconceptions.
And while, yes, it is insulting to find that someone thinks you need saving, I find it hard to object to the saving impulse, at least, in others. It is, after all, a desire to help, and I would rather have more people in this world who honestly want to help than people who couldn’t care less about anyone other than themselves. Even if misguided, that impulse of compassion should be cultivated and gently nudged towards more fruitful paths, not stomped on and lambasted as the sin of self-righteousness or egotism. Not all missionary work, just like not all charity work, is done so that one can feel better about oneself. Feeling better about oneself is simply the natural result of giving in to the nagging of your conscience. 😛 Similarly, the right thing to do does not cease to be the right thing to do just because it gains you attention or praise. (What a dark world we would live in if no good action ever met with approbation!) But there was this guy a few thousand years ago who warned us that when we give, we shouldn’t let our left hand know what our right hand is doing – probably for just this reason. When you publicize the things you do, people will always suspect that you’re looking for attention and approval rather than acting from genuine concern and compassion. And receiving that attention and approval can, in fact, become a kind of addiction if you do not guard against it; it is a serious moral danger. The greatest challenge, always, is to become a person who serves with humility and not just to assuage a sense of guilt or to be found worthy in the eyes of others. To, as C.S. Lewis put it, be the kind of person who does not think less of oneself, but who thinks of oneself less.
For many people in America, short-term missions work is their primary or only exposure to the world outside our borders. And if we might wish that they were more informed about that world before they left, still they buy their plane tickets in order to try to help others; we don’t condemn other international travelers simply for flying somewhere, or NGO workers for sometimes visiting the countries where they wish to distribute aid. Surely it is a better practice to go and to get a sense of a place and its people and what they really need than to write a check at random. Is this only true for organizational officials? Can we not extend the same license to individuals who are representing larger communities back home?
Ultimately, the immeasurable value of seeing for yourself is the reason why people who have been on mission trips keep encouraging others who haven’t been yet to go. Despite the fact that you are not materially helping people in the same way that sending them a check would be, what you are doing is building a bridge between two parts of the world. You are taking people who would never have met otherwise, and establishing an understanding, a brief moment of commonality and shared humanity, between them. You are in fact being challenged to put aside your stereotypes and encounter the world in all its complexity, instead of seeing those people over there as perpetually foreign and in need of assistance. When this couple thinks of Kenya, now, they will think of it in a way that simply looking at Google maps or images could never have done for them. It will have become familiar. It will have ceased, at least to some degree, to be “Other”. And when they take their stories back to Oklahoma, perhaps their friends and neighbors will hear a more nuanced portrayal of the continent of Africa than they would have ever learned about otherwise. They will know that the people of Kenya are busy in their own country doing their own mission work, and that those who they thought needed to be served are in fact hard at work serving others. And, in the best case scenario, perhaps that will make them refocus on whether or not we in America are really serving those around us as we are called to.
I suppose my thought, in the end, is that God rarely calls Americans to foreign countries these days so that we can help the “poor natives” (with all the neocolonial implications of that term), even if that’s how most people interpret the impulse to go. He calls us there to shake us up, to confront us with our ignorance and prejudice, to humble us by giving us a glimpse of how he is moving in others without any input or assistance from us. He is showing us that he is so much bigger than we thought, and that we are not him. And for many American Christians, that is a lesson that desperately needs to be learned.
She must have fainted when she found out about something called M-pesa….M stands for mobile and PESA is Swahili word for money…the Kenyans use their phones to shop and pay for everything at ” JUNCTION MALL” THEIR VERSION OF WALMART according to her…..no need for a bank account….and shes from OKLOHOMA where the republicans have refused to expand MEDCAID to help the poor in their own backyard and where their Republican Gov signed a law making it illegal to agitate for minimum wage increase…CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME…
Spoken like white trash. So basically you’re disappointed that Nairobi is not full of starving kids and illiterate black men who can worship you as our fucking white messiah who saved us? You’re a couple of centuries late, white trash. Fuck off.
Why don’t you go help the white trash in your country first mscheeeew. I hope they tested you for ebola and measles on your way in, please stay with your diseases and white saviour complex, ‘Murica.
Maybe you got to see the happy and content people of my country who do not need ‘saving’ from hunger and disease as you expected. This is maybe so that you can look back at your city and ‘save’ the people there. The disease and dirt could be in their hearts and they need it more….
You’re an ignorant, pretensious and arrogant and you purpote to be christian.
Jessica,
I will not use ‘God’ in any of this. I refuse to. It has absolutely nothing to do with ‘God’, and everything to do with a woman with an agenda that stems from her insecurities.
How I know:
a) You couldn’t help but mention that you had just come from Paris (a short stopover perhaps, not that big of a deal…unless you’ve never been there before).
b) You also mention that you were wearing your ‘mission trip clothes’ to imply that you were special, you stood out from the crowd. I bet you’d still have made heads turn without the ‘mission trip clothes’ going by the looks of John there–that shirt he wore in ‘their version of Walmart’ is no doubt a Versace, right? I digress.
c) You keep repeating the statement ‘their version of’ as if to say that whatever it is you’re referring to at the time cannot possibly be equal or even better than what you have in America.
Please allow me to correct you on a comment you made about guards having sticks–yet another of your falsely drawn picture of Nairobi. There’s a big difference between a STICK and a BATTON.
d) Your failed attempt at redeeming yourself by saying–and I quote, “That He wanted us to see the affluent parts so I could gain perspective.”
e) …and what in the world is a ‘Ministry of security’, Jessica?!
Jessica, I found your post to be very inaccurate, teetering dangerously between being written in bad taste and being truly offensive, especially to those of us who call ‘Kenya’ home.
I shall leave you to ponder on my words — our words, for others before me have spoken — with this quote:
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
I wish you nothing but light.
Nyambura
YOU are the reason these stereotypes persist, because your too ignorant/lazy to do some simple research on a country before traveling there, literally going on trip advisor would of dissolved all your idiotic expectation. Seriously, what a sad religious life you live to think we here in Kenya can’t solve our problems and for some reason need your religiously infested aid to become a materialistic, disconnected culture like the one you are from in the West.
The reason missionaries never have, nor ever will provide real powerful innovation and advancement to developing nations is because they have conflicting interests. We (young int. entrepreneurs) create the real change because we are not constricted to a certain type of ideals or beliefs. We don’t come into a culture and act as if we know how to solve their problems, instead we listen, learn, and ask questions at every opportunity.
I’m sorry but religion, at least monotheistically, is dead. We are gods, we have powers and abilities that 100 years ago, heck even 30 years ago would have been never imaginable. And we as new generation understand that it isn’t god that will bring the still billions out of poverty, but instead its the innovative technologies, ideas, and communication connecting everyone that will make the real change.
I agree and thanks for saying all that.
You stupid fuckwit!! Please stay at home and look after your 5 children (that’s too many, by the way, do you need coupons to feed them?) and learn about the world.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” -Gandhi
I pray you have come to see that no matter where you are, God can use you. I have served Kenya for years. Most of the childrenin my school speak English. Many of their families do as well. This is the thing… it’s important to research before serving. Also as a missionary it’s important to lose expectations and bloom where you are planted. As a missionary we don’t need to come in with a Savior mentality. I learned that the hard way. Go in as a learner and build relationships. Don’t go to do. Go to be.
When white people come to Africa,they expect to see naked kids running about,militias branding their AK-47 that were sold by the same white persons and countries on the verge of collapse by civil wars funded by the West and First world countries. Well,we speak English even better and more intelligent than all First world was fifty years into civilisation. And your God should tell you its wrong to extort Africa. I am so disgusted by you. Missionary work my foot. Religion has corrupted your mind
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Africa is not a forest, neither a village nor a desert. Its a continent with 53 Countries, over 1000 different language speaking people. Its over 30 million square kilometers and filled with flora and fauna. Even-though some live in poverty, majority live happily with their families. Africans are educated and at the bare minimum, they can speak two languages fluently if not three.
However, if someone deliberately refuses to seek information online at this digital age, he/she cannot feign of being unaware.
As much as the missionaries were ignorant, am curious. Isnt 60% of Nairobi living under the poverty line. Also those malls and high affluent places serve only a small population. While majority in slums all over Nairobi cant afford to shop in such places or live in Runda or Karen. Equally there are people who sleep hungry in Nairobi, all over. Maybe some Kenyans should take a walk outside and begin counting. I also agree that Nairobi doesn’t represent the whole of KENYA. If you truly moved all around the country, majority of the population are like the the ads on poverty all over the tv. Kenyans are very ignorant and blind to the fact that the middle class in the country is a very small percentage, majority are struggling and there quality of life isn’t up to standards. Just look at healthcare as an example, if tomorrow you were diagnosed with cancer, how many of you will afford on your own, the total amount for chemotherapy and medication? Also, are the hospitals equipped and ready to handle your problem at once? Or you’ll end up running to another country. Also look at the HIV rates and compare them to the globe, Kenya ranks in the top 5. Just because i live in Runda and i built my expansive mansion through your taxes, doesn’t translate to the majority living there. Just because i can afford a 30,000 shillings shopping each month doesn’t mean its the majority shopping. Majority Kenyans are again under the poverty line, let a visitor get to see the whole picture of Kenya. Not the 1%’s luxury houses and malls so as to prove some childish fact of how you are so affluent ahhahahahaha
Oh i am so sorry sir that I as a kenyan has not been observant enough to see what is truly going on in our country; what you as a foreigner can see very clearly. My grandmother is one of the people you mention are under the poverty line, and trust me she ia not malnourished and dying but rather happy, hardworking and probably healthier than 50% of your population. So just because of some statistic you read doesn’t mean you know anything about my country. We were perfectly fine before you westerners came with your guns and colonised us. Where was the US 50 years after independence…… Yeah so don’t judge people you haven’t met or seen
As Chimamanda Adichie said ‘don’t be a victim of a single story’ that’s where ignorance starts. So yeah we’re not saying that our country is perfect but you of all people calling us ignorant yet you haven’t experienced our country is beyond foolish…… Its madness
Ooh My God!! Just how ignorant are you people? I have never been more insulted in my life!! Exactly what were you coming to minister you judgmental hag? You were disappointed we were not as poor as you thought we would be? So were you coming to rub your gross obesity in our ‘hungry’ faces? he he Americans are so full of it!! Did you really think you put a patent on building brick buildings or what? “Americanized!!!” That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard and I hope you burn in hell for it. What you see on your TV’s are the extremes!! Just like I don’t expect everyone there is gay, a murderer, in a gang or a perverted creep!! Maybe you should start with America, we don’t need you here in Kenya. Seriously, for a mother of five to hope that you will come find hungry under clothed is sick!! Would you have rather not had security, get gunned down like what happened in West gate? (which I really do think was the white people’s fault coz they were the target) We are a peaceful, educated country and we do not need anything from stupid americans like you!! We are doing super fine without you.
And I will have you know, contrary to what many think, a dollar a day is fine in Kenya. One can but ugali meal(our staple food) half a kg for ksh.30, kale for ksh.30 and that is just about enough to feed a family of two or three for a meal. Just because we do not buy overpriced processed food filled with corn syrup doesn’t mean we are all sleeping hungry. Of course there are poor people in Kenya, but they are also there in America, and what is worse, for most of them its out of choice( they either don’t want to work or are on drugs)
And those who think Nairobi is the only affluent place Kenya, well you are about to get disappointed yet AGAIN!! Because we have other great cities with beautiful scenary.
We are a blessed country, full of a diverse, interesting, educated, interesting AND christian people. We minister to ourselves, we don’t need you. GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM
I think you might find this article gives you some perspective:
https://brooksbaumgartner.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/the-lies-we-believe-about-poverty/
“But this girl from the states expected Nairobi to be like what you see in the movies. Or on Feed the Children commercials.”
Um. It’s a wonderful thing that Nairobi apparently ISN’T like that. Wonderful for the people, wonderful for the infrastructure of the city, wonderful for the local economy, wonderful for the future generations of Nairobi’s children. I’m not really grasping the apparent point of this post.
They made this funny website…. a website with an odd name! gogol… goggle… Google… yeah Google! It does something extraordinary – you type in words about a subject you would like to know about on a textfield and it returns many articles about that subject. if you want images – hit the ‘images’ link and you will see for yourself just how Nairobi looks like. While it’s a bit too late to urge you to use it on Nairobi now – think about using it on future trips to random African countries.
P.s. That whole thing white folks are taken through – is a well orchestrated get money out of your pocket and into our pocket scam. By the way – it seems like the kibera visit seems like pilgrimage for most white people who step into kenya – makes me wonder why?
Dont bother coming back, we in Kenya don’t need you….am sure you noticed that
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As a Kenyan who was raised in Nairobi with all the luxuries, education and more money than you’ve probably ever seen, and as a woman who has dedicated her life to eradicating hunger in Kenya, I extend an invitation to you to burn your mission clothes. This is the most offensive thing I have read in a long time. Perhaps you should try jeans and volunteering at the salvation army maybe a soup kitchen. Kenya is not the place for you. Your ignorance is beyond my comprehension.
Reblogged this on Mwalimu.
We took Africa our oppressors and went on made something nice out of it. There’s no limit to what we can achieve as Kenyans and a people with a moral conscience founded on our diverse but interlinked beliefs. This is just too much for Americans and the West to stuff down their throat. The West give us Aid to fund their interests in Kenya like The War against terror, when it’s we who pay the price; we are the only stable state in this region. We represent their interests right from the Horn of Africa to congo far up to South Sudan and Central Republic; So not Even for a Second do i think we need the U.S or their Western allies all they do is impose on us their Secularism culture. On this matter i better prefer China who have a better understanding of culture and what this means to a people. Few of the American Aid goes into funding the poor in the society, For decades aid is granted to an african countries when they go right into the dip pockets of the corrupt regimes which the West maintain in such countries in order to exploit their oil and natural resource interests in Africa thereby enhancing corruption and inequality while feeding their citizens Lies one after the other. As Kenya we’re building a Country; it’s only years now before we come into the lime light.
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Jessica, you went out, you learned lessons, you had your perspective changed, period. This is what short-term missions does for us.
Honestly, as a fellow blogger, I think you would be well served to eliminate all or most of these comments. This page is thick with trolls. As a missionary to a place where there is poverty, I was ashamed to see how people were piling on you.
There is a lot you can do if you really want to help people. Spreading your mind virus in name of your imaginary friend is not one of them.
“Jessica, you went out, you learned lessons, you had your perspective changed, period. This is what short-term missions does for us.”
umm if i remember correctly from my time in christianity, the mission was not about the frigging missionary but those you were witnessing to. you are self righteous and pompous.
FYI I’m circulating this ignorant post all over the Kenyan blogs so that they can tell you what they think of your GROSS ignorance
I am staggered by how stupid and ignorant this woman is. She thinks the only way you an be Christian in Africa is to find some poor black people to patronise. Typical home schooled White American Fundies…and I say that as an an American now living in Europe who grew up around people like this
Hello, I came across your blog and read your story. I am a black American and I’m happy that you were able to realize that this experience gave you perspective. I wish more white Americans would look at black people in general and realize that we are not that different from you and want the same things out of life; good food, safe public spaces for our families and God’s love to unite us all. I hope your perspective flows over into other areas of your life and you continue see more of yourself in all of God’s children.
God’s love to you and yours!
As a person you are nothing but SHIT!
“oh, my african experience is not filled with disease and hunger and pain. It is instead a nice thing with nice people who turns out, don’t need me or my fucking silly faith AT ALL!!!!”
You, ma’am, are just despicable!
lets cut these ignorant Americans some slack, while Africa and Nairobi is not all poverty, some extreme poverty does exist. The more we pretend it does not exist the longer it will take to eradicate it. http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/2232fe77-8f9d-4e74-ba52-e511baecde74/C421AY.jpg
Wow. What a cunt
One year later (thanks FB) are you still as delusional and non-Christian-like as you were back then; by being mad that a nation is thriving and people are doing well? I hope you’ve since learned what being a Christian actually is, beyond just the pompous title you chose to make it.
OMG how did I even land here??! Well I’m Kenyan and I must have followed this link from people ,,crucifying” your article and ignorance….sorry about that.But this is enough internet for me today and I shall not leave my personal views here because none of you ,,Jessica -supporters” would like it.
As a kenyan reading this was challenging. I think its good for people to be educated about Africs so that they dont bring a savior mentality or try to uphold a superiority complex when they get to see positive side of Africa and feel challenged about that. Thats why I get curious when people here in the States say they are going for missions in Africa.. I always wonder what expectations and judgement they carry because people dont know that it does more damage than good to the local people of that country.
hope you learn something from this mess jus remembered you anf chkd in to lmao again
The best thing you can do for poor, poor Nairobi is get on a plane and GO HOME. Seriously. White Christians have done quite enough damage in Africa. Leave. Go find some other hobby. Rescue dogs…or something. Leave Africa to the Africans. Jeez.
Oh you poor thing. How sad that you couldn”t get your photo opportunity of holding a water bottle up to a malnourished kids mouth.
She failed to fall in love with it because she realised they might not need her. Wow, the arrogance.
Poor thing, god didn’t give you what you wanted? Don’t worry, approximately 20,000 children under the age of 5 will die in agony in the next 24 hours, maybe you’ll find a couple of them to feel better about yourself. What about the millions of people that won’t have insurance here in America? They will die, in debt and forgotten by society and its government.
Child, please!
Thanks for reaffirming the reality that Christians are superficial tw**s.
sad to see not once has she tried to apologize for any of this, unless i missed it somewhere in the hundreds of comments.
In all my visits to the Junction or any other mall, I’ve never seen security guards with machine guns.
One of The greatest disservice done to KEnya and many other countries is the global south is skewed narratives.
If you did see guns, those could have been handled by trained police accompanying the armored vehicles that bring cash to the ATMs.
Please ask the locals to clarify what you might be perceiving so that you write correctly about the beautiful land you have been privileged to walk on.
Remember that the people know what they need so asking them will go farther than you fostering your own solutions on them.
RACIST MISSIONARY TRASH, I WISH MY PEOPLE WOULD WAKE UP TO THE POISON YOU SPREAD, AND OPEN THEIR EYES TO ALL THE CHILDREN YOU RAPE WITH A BIBLE IN ONE HAND.
I’m so sorry that it didn’t live up to the fantasy you had in your head where you ride in on your white horse and save the poor Africans from their horrific lives! What an awful, smug post. It’s truly awful that you would be disappointed that their lives aren’t horrible and that thy don’t need you or your fake religion. Shame on you.
The criticism here, I mean obviously this is pretty clear white savior complex. But that is pretty standard for an 18-19 year old. So good that this young person ventured out into the world.
Since she is a Mother of 5, she is older than 18-19 years old.
great article https://africansoulgems.com/
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lol another racist white lady disappointed with the fact that nairobi is thriving.Kenyans need to understand that most of these missionaries arent here to spread the word of God but more to satisfy their need for approval.We dont need these type of people in our country.Instead of coming to fix africa,fix your problems first world problems in the US (mass shootings,obesity,unemployment etc).I think you should pray for your country first then come to us for guidance.
and yes,l wrote this as a hater.
Most of us Kenyan citizens have a better quality of life than you. Please rid yourself off the white savior mentality.
Seriously, what is this garbage? White people are just so extra. Just stay in your country with your religion and your opinions and expectations.
We don’t give a fanta whether you fall in love with Nairobi or Not. God did not use you when Nairobi was developing, neither will he use you. You are not a missionary. This isn’t Christianity.
You are the hypocrite Jesus spoke about. You think you are better than everyone else. First preach to your countrymen on gun violence and LGBTQ. You are probably looking for minors to take advantage of them in the name of God.
Rudi Kwenu. We are a blessed Nation.
What a truly disgusting way to view a situation. “I was hoping to go to some shithole to satiate my superiority complex and be a savior to those who are beneath me”. How very Christian of you. You are genuinely pathetic
What vile human wrote this.
So, does Nairobi no longer need deliverance because it is not poverty stricken? Are you called to the ministry of “feed the children” or to do God’s will on earth? Maybe He sent you to Nairobi to show you the Laodicean spirit in you, “we are wealthy and therefore we do not need God”.
I’m a blogger from Nairobi, a fully fledged christian and in as much as I appreciate your unique perspective on things, I feel like a missionary like you could use your platform to actually show a more positive side to things. Sure you were disappointed, but did you love it? Sure it’s not what you expected, but was it impressive? Sending our lord and savior love and light to you. Karibu Kenya Tena!
Holy crap you sound racist
Are you serious? You felt discouraged because Kenya is starting to modernize and grow? Kenya is my birthplace, and I’ll let you know that I saw Nairobi when the streets were filled will crippled beggars and small hungry children begging for a shilling.
As a missionary, isn’t your job to spread the word of god? Why do you need to do it on dirt roads in front of malnourished children? What difference does it make if it’s in a barren wasteland or a shopping mall? Or is your main goal to be able to tell people how you suffered in the midst of disease and poverty, and bravely converted savages to Christianity?
There are still parts of Kenya that are extremely poor. You should have gone to Kibara, one of the largest shanty towns in the world. There are over a million poor souls crammed into about one square mile waiting for you to save them. If you spent just an hour walking around there trying to talk to people, then I’d respect you. But as far as I can tell from your blog, your main goal is having other people know you’re a missionary going to third world counties to save natives. I learned about your post from Reddit, so I guess you’re succeeding in that respect.
This is not a missionary thinking, rather a first world versus 3rd world thinking. The saviours of Africa mentality. Poor and rich people are worldwide. Maybe you could have started your charity at home, America. What is mission work here btw, spreading the gospel or saving the poor? Watch less biased Hollywood movies and read books. You will know the world better.
How can you claim to be christian if you want poor people to stay poor and suffering so that you can get your fix of ‘helping’ and ‘saving’ them!???? How do you justify this to yourself? I’m from Kenya and from the western part of the country and while it’s very different from USA but there is so much success and resilience than you’ll ever know.
You owe Kenyans an apology for expecting us to be poor and famished.
Shame on you.
Cringe.
The White Saviour Complex is strong with you..
Bytheway we send missionaries over to your countries too, to save y’all from your capitalistic sins😂😂😂
Wild 😂😂😂 You found that the country wasn’t a hovel, that Kenyans had worked to improve their quality of life…and it made you sad??
You need to re-think what loving your neighbor means. Cos it looks like you only want to love your neighbor as long as they’re doing really badly.
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