Carried by the community

When I began to share with people my plans to travel to Kenya and to Tanzania as part of my sabbatical this fall, the two questions I got asked the most often were, "are you scared?"  and "what is it that you will be doing over there?".  Let me start with the first one.  I am not scared about travelling to such a different world.  There are times I feel nervous or a little anxious about the details of it all, but I am not scared.  I will be spending the majority of time with Tim Wright, who is the director of the Canadian Charity, Sauti Moja.  Tim has lived in Africa for about 30 years - he knows the people, he knows both the Canadian and the African ways of life very well - he will be a very good companion on this journey.  I also am most definitely carried by the community of Sunset United Church, as well as a wide variety of friends and family who will be holding me in their hearts as I travel the world.  In those times when I feel nervous or when I feel lonesome for the familiar, I will close my eyes and picture our "camel-lot" and I will be strengthened.  These are pictures that show the camels around the walls of our sanctuary at Sunset - the aim was to color 200 camels ($5 per camel), representing raising $1000 for the purchase of 2 camels.  In reality, we raised twice that much - a gift that was far beyond our expectations.  Although these girls and others colored MANY camels, we did stop at the 200th camel!  I will answer the 2nd question in my next post....