Thursday, February 22, 2007

Meet Father Lawrence

Rain slammed against my windshield as I slowly piloted my news unit into an East Charlotte neighborhood. Usually I’m looking for flashing blue lights and yellow crime scene tape when driving around neighborhood streets I don’t usually ride through. Tonight I was on a different mission. One with a higher purpose.

I found the familiar house I was looking for and pulled into the driveway. Rain soaked through my jacket as I grabbed my camera and a light kit out of the back of the truck. I ran up the short side walk to the door wishing I had worn my rubber boots today instead of tennis shoes.

Thankfully the front door stood under a porch roof. I rang the door bell and waited for the owner of the modest two story home to peak out and see his camera toting guest standing on his porch with handfuls of electronic equipment. The door swung open to reveal a short stocky man dressed in khaki pants and a shirt unlike any I’ve seen anyone wear around this town. The shirt looked like it was made out of black canvas instead of cotton and every inch of the material was covered with swirling abstract designs. What struck me about the wild designs was that they weren’t printed or died on the heavy material like most shirts I buy at the local department store. The designs were embroidered on the shirt with miles of bright white thread. No matter how many times you put this shirt in the washing machine, the design would never fade or peel off.

My friend noticed me looking at his shirt and said, “I thought I would wear something authentic for the interview.” I felt a grin stretching across my face as I stepped across the threshold of Father Lawrence Mbugua’s home.

As you can tell from Fr. Lawrence’s name, he was not born in America. Fr. Lawrence came to the U.S. from Kenya ten years ago to attend seminary school. In the past ten years he has earned two bachelors degrees from two different seminaries and will earn a PhD soon. A busy man according to American standards. But, education isn’t the only activity taking up his time. He has a family which includes two teenagers and a toddler. He is active in many organizations and fills the role of associate priest at my church. I asked him how he finds time to meet all of the obligations expected of him. “Well, I believe four or five hours of sleep are enough each night,” he tells me. Four or five hours? I hardly function on eight hours of sleep.

Tonight I’m at Fr. Lawrence’s house to interview him about another noble task he has taken upon himself. For the past several weeks Fr. Lawrence has worked diligently to organize a fund raising dinner to raise money for Grace House. Grace House is a rehabilitation center under construction in Kiambu City, Kenya. The dinner will help raise money to complete the construction of the center and furnish the building with furniture and equipment.

At the dinner, Fr Lawrence will give a presentation on why Grace House is so important to the community of Kiambu City. I’m going to help put some zing into his presentation by producing a short video about Grace House. My goal is to draw the attention of diners away from the authentic African cuisine piled high on their plate to focus on the important message Fr. Lawrence has to deliver. Quite a challenge considering how tasty and delightful African food can be.


While interviewing Fr. Lawrence about Grace House I discovered some interesting information I felt I needed to pass along. Above, I mentioned all of the activities and obligations Fr. Lawrence has on his time. I didn’t mention how over the past ten years Fr. Lawrence has worked various different jobs to save up enough money to buy land and build a three story, nine unit apartment building in Kenya. The apartment building Fr. Lawrence built from the money he earned here in America will house Grace House Rehabilitation Center. He built his own building, now he just needs a few dollars to hire employees and purchase equipment.

I asked Fr. Lawrence why he built Grace House. He has many reasons that I will write about later. But one sums up the whole idea behind the center and why he leads a team of missionaries from my church into the suburbs of the capital city of Nairobi every year. He said he wants to give back to community he lived in before coming to America. He has seen so many people from his community leave for the States never to return home. They leave to find jobs and a better life only to forget about the place they came from. The only way to improve the community of his birth is for him and others who have left to return home and share with the community what they have learned from their experiences in America.

The idea of “giving back” inspired Fr. Lawrence to begin recruiting folks from the church to go to Kenya and lend a helping hand. This year the church will embark on its third mission trip to Kenya. Each year a couple of more folks find the inspiration to raise money and take all of their vacation days from work to go with Fr. Lawrence and Fr. Dan on the two week journey. This year will be my year. While I’m there, I will visit Grace House and shoot as much video of the center as time will allow. After the trip I will produce another video on Grace House so Fr. Lawrence can continue to raise money for the Center and fulfill his vision of “giving back” to his community. Maybe I’ll get one of those cool shirts while I’m there.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Welcome Friends



Welcome to my journal chronicling my year long journey on a mission trip to Kiambu City (a suburb of Nairobi) in Kenya. Although I won’t be stepping foot onto a 767 until late in July of this year, my journey to plant my feet on African soil starts here in America right now. For the past two weeks I have written letters to all my family members and friends asking them to participate in my quest by either praying for me or sending me a few dollars for a plane ticket. Below is a copy of the letter.

Dear Family and Friends,

I’m writing to you because I’ve been given the opportunity to go on a mission trip this year to Nairobi, Kenya in Africa. In this letter I would like to share with you my opportunity and how you can help.

We have a minister in our church in Charlotte who is from Kenya, Fr Lawrence Mbugua. He is here in the United States to complete his seminary education before returning to Kenya to establish ministry works in the Nairobi area. Fr. Lawrence has told me about how people in Kenya struggle with much of the same problems we have here in America like poverty, addiction, and crime. But unlike Kenya, citizens of this country have an advantage to overcoming these problems like a strong economy and a just system of government. Fr. Lawrence says he is lead by the Lord to “take back” some of the blessings he has received here in America to his brothers and sisters still struggling in Kenya. I believe I am led by the Lord to help Fr. Lawrence accomplish his mission.

For the past two years I have given my talents as a videographer to the Kenya mission trips by taking the photographs and home video, church members collect while in Africa, and producing various DVD’s for the church. This year I feel led to accompany Fr. Lawrence and the church team on a two week visit to Kenya so I can use my talents to document the work our church is doing and collect all the elements I need to produce a full length, broadcast quality documentary.

This year’s mission team will include two priests and their families, a group of teenagers, and me and my camera. Here are some of the things they hope to do and I hope to document:
• We will be conducting an evangelistic and healing crusade in Kitikiti, a village near Nairobi where Fr. Lawrence will be establishing a new outreach and ministry.
• We will do a pastor’s conference, mainly about how to pastor and what God says about finances. We hope we can do this conference in two different areas to two different groups of pastors.
• The musician and teenagers will do some market crusades, dramas, and youth outreach – all to support and build a church in the Nairobi area.
• And, of course, we will be visiting in many homes doing personal ministry.

For this trip to be possible, I am trusting God to supply prayer partners and financial supporters who will participate with me in this ministry. I know that the Lord is calling us to invest in Kenya, and, most importantly, I am asking for your prayers. So would you consider being a prayer partner with me for this mission trip?

The following are some prayers needs:
• Financial – raising the needed funds by June 1st as well as having the funds necessary for my family while I am away.
• Paperwork – for all the necessary papers to be approved in both the USA and Kenya.
• Physical – for strength, health and safety for the trip.
• Spiritual – for my preparation spiritually and that many lives will be touched by our Lord Jesus and that the local church there will be blessed!

Also, would you consider being a financial partner with me for this mission trip? I need to raise $2,500 by June 1st to cover travel and basic expenses for the trip. Should God lead you to help financially, your contribution is tax deductible through our church and can be returned with the enclosed form and envelope.

I am very excited about this opportunity to serve the Lord in Kenya! As I said before, I believe I am led to use my God given talents as a professional videographer to help bring the word of the Lord to those all over the world who need to hear a message of hope. Thank you so much for your kind consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Although the letter explains why I am going and why I need financial support, I believe it only scratches the surface of why this trip is so important to me, the members of our church, and the folks we are going over to Africa to help. I decided starting this blog would be the best way to report to the entire world our mission to reach out to those in need.

In the following post I will write about all the tasks that I and other missionaries have to complete before we can pack our bags. Then in the last week of July, I hope to post pictures and reports from Africa so folks can follow along with us on our journey. When we return, the blog continues with posts on how I produce a documentary from all the raw video and photographs I and other missionaries shoot while working in Kenya. I promise to write about a ton of interesting stuff that will keep you coming back to this blog for updates. Besides, where else are you going to see all of these great pictures from Nairobi, Kiambu City, and Kitikiti? Wikipedia? I don’t think so.

Please join me as we prepare for Mission to Kenya 2007.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Kenya Mission


No, I didn’t just step off a plane from Africa with a memory stick full of pictures from the bush. I wished I had gone on the mission trip members of my church took last October. Our brothers in Kenya desperately need our help. Have you seen the news lately about the prolonged drought plaguing the country? Just to today I read the headline “U.N. facing severe food shortage in Kenya” (A.P.). News like that makes me realize how important my new video project here in the states is to those who need a miracle.

My priest handed me two DVD’s loaded with raw video from the church’s first mission trip to Kenya. “Can you make us a video to show our supporters how their contributions were used? We also want to use the video to recruit new supporters and participants for the next mission trip.” This would not be an easy task. All I have is a DVD full of amateur video and a CD packed with photographs. No problem.

I am an artist. Nothing in this world gives me as much joy as taking raw materials and working them into a beautiful creation for everyone to enjoy. I started my task by watching every frame of hand held video on the two hour DVD. The events on tape gave me an idea of how I should formulate a begging, middle, and ending to the story. Next, I needed sound to glue the video together and move the viewer through the story. Most producers write a script and have a voice talent track the story. I believed I had a better idea. Why not have the people in the video tell the story of why they went and why they need to go again? I devised a list of questions fitting my script outline to ask the folks I saw doing God’s work in the raw video. Now I’m in the process of editing the raw video together with the interviews to make a final product.

I’m enjoying playing the role of Producer and Editor. I wished I could have been on the ground in Kenya to gather the images too, but hopefully that addition to my job titles will come soon enough. The video I have has lots of good natural sound and we all know the other stuff can be fixed in the computer. For now I am happy God blessed me with a talent my church can use to help those in need. Someday I hope to leave news behind to travel the world documenting Christians working in the mission field. Imagine using my God given talent to work for the big man himself. Could there be a better job than that?



These pictures are of the Massai men the mission team visited on the trip. The Massai are nomadic cattlemen who are natives of western Africa. The Massai man in the top photo had six wives, forty to fifty children and several hundred head of cattle. A wealthy fellow by Massai standards. The man in black below is Father Dan Whitt. He is my priest and the leader of the mission trips. If you are interested in the work I or my church is doing in Kenya, please send me an e-mail and I can send you a copy of the video and a newsletter about our work.

This post was previously posted on Colonel Corn's Camera in March of 2006.