"Far Away There in the Sunshine Are My Highest Aspirations. I May Not Reach Them But I Can Look up and See Their Beauty, Believe in Them, and Try to Follow Them." ~Louisa May Alcott

As of this morning, I'm on my way to Kenya.  Normally I wouldn't post that here, but for two reasons: 1.) I've also sent out my fundraising letters for working at Pomona Hope this morning, prompting people to come here to find out what's going on, and 2.) Kenya is actually the reason I ever started going to Pomona Hope.

That first trip to Kenya changed my life in ways that I cannot explain.  Before I went, before I even considered going, I was far less patient, far more selfish, and far more likely to get sucked into petty arguments.  I had never really thought about leaving the country, and I definitely had no intentions of going to any third world countries.  But when Stephen Githumbi stood up in front of our church and told us he was leading a team of people to his homeland of Kenya to help out at the orphanage that our church had helped establish, I couldn't resist the call.

Going to Kenya, meeting those girls, seeing that kind of poverty, and in some cases, hopelessness, that changed my life.  And when I got back home, all I wanted to do was return to Kenya and spend more time with our kids out there.  But I also knew it wasn't feasible.  It wasn't (and still isn't) safe for them or for me if I did that.  Nevertheless, I still had this urge to do something for someone, no longer just to remain in my same circle of friends that was pretty much made up of people just like me.

And that's when my old Sunday School teacher told me about Pomona Hope and asked if I wanted to volunteer.  I had quit my job to go to Kenya and was entering my last year of college, so I didn't have a whole lot keep me from saying yes.  And once I got there, and learned about those kids, I couldn't believe what kids so physically close to me were going through!  I drove home almost every week crying because of what some of the kids told me they were going through.

The program has changed a lot since then, and I've gotten to know more kids and their families and I love them all and am endlessly excited at the prospect of doing it every day and doing what I can to make a difference in their lives.  But I also like going back to where it all started, and remembering how that change came about. 

So I'll be back from Kenya by July 1.  And I'll still have something to tell you about Pomona Hope because I'm setting up a video postcard lesson between the girls in Kenya and the middle schoolers at Pomona Hope so that they can learn about and from each other.  This is going to be awesome!