Email: Blair Moorhead

Dear Friends,

Happy belated Easter! Actually, the nice thing about Easter is that it isn’t constrained to one day each year. So happy Easter!

March has been a tremendously full month. It started with a 100-person-strong planning meeting for the All Africa Conference of Churches’ Ninth General Assembly. It was really exciting to be around so many people thinking so many important thoughts for the future of the continent. The place was humming with faithful brainpower.

Groups discussed how to reduce poverty in Africa and make the church more sensitive to HIV issues. I wished I could sit in on every single session, but instead my colleague and I were running around ensuring all details were taken care of, all meeting rooms were unlocked, and that all participants got their tea. The meeting was quite successful and was one of the most concrete steps we have taken towards the assembly. After the gathering we felt much closer to the gathering in Maputo in December and grateful that experts from around the globe are ensuring that all the most relevant questions will be addressed then.

A week later one of the most extraordinary things in my entire life occurred. One of my friends from Bible study found out that my grandmother passed away and organized for “a few” people from church to come visit my home and pray with me. A few people turned into 12 of us crammed cozily into my living room, talking, joking, singing, praying, eating sandwiches. Can you imagine what it’s like when 11 people who a few months ago were absolute strangers come over to hold hands and pray for you and your family? A month ago I certainly could not have dreamed it would happen, and I am still taken aback by the amount of caring one community can show for its members. To have a person stand in your living room and pray for your family thousands and thousands of miles away simply because your family is related to a member of a Bible study group she met just a couple months ago is extraordinarily powerful. I hope I can show the same kind of love in the future, not just to close friends and family, but to everyone I meet.

My sister lent me Anthem by Ayn Rand this summer (no seriously, this is related); I find her writing and philosophy pretty fascinating, and there was a statement she made in this novella that really stuck with me. To paraphrase, she says just the fact that someone is a human being is not enough to make him deserving of love or respect. Everyday I am finding out in new ways how strongly I disagree with that assertion. Each life deserves to be treated with dignity and the utmost respect. Humanity is precisely what garners my respect.

Of course I fall short of this ideal. I get annoyed or frustrated or simply treat people as if I don’t have time for them. It happens. Daily I think maybe I don’t give enough to people on the street who need help, or even to friends who need a hand. And why haven’t I been active in camps for internally displaced persons who have lost everything in Kenya’s last turbulent months? I sometimes wonder if I’m simply a terrible person just pretending to represent Christ through the YAV program. Then one saving thought keeps me from tumbling down a guilt and self-pity spiral: With every action I can try to show all people respect. Yeah, I fail a lot. And maybe I should be doing more than simply thinking about respecting people, but it is a starting place. It is also a thought that has been influenced greatly by my surroundings in Kenya and the personal philosophies of so many people I have met here.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers,

Blair