Women at the Center: Preview of the Evening

Schedule

7 pm        Arrive punctually for a guided meditation (further information below); or else arrive at...

8 pm        Dave Saunders introduces Red Rhino Orphanage in Kenya; further reflections on our theme.

8.45 pm   Potluck and conversations continue (please bring a small dish or beverage to share).

If you'd like to attend, you can RSVP here.

Guided meditation at 7 pm

While this meditation is preliminary and optional, we think it will be very helpful. Its intent is to help us recollect moments in our lives when we've felt loved and accepted, particularly in a maternal sense—but maternal in a general way since it's not only our mothers who could have given us this sense of being loved and accepted.

If you have a moment to recollect someone who has helped you feel this way—and want to send us a photo— we'll include it in a round of images we'll show as part of our meditation. You'd have the opportunity to say a few words about this person—but only if you wanted to.

For example, above is a photo of Debi with Mother Miriam from San Vincenzo al Volturno in Italy. She's a person Debi might choose to talk about.

Dave Saunders on Red Rhino Orphanage in Kenya at 8 pm

We're grateful to have our good friend Dave here with us from Kenya. He'll introduce us to Red Rhino and also give us a sense of the need and challenges of doing this kind of work in Africa. For more information about Red Rhino, follow this link to Dave's own blog.

The evening will also feature the art of Nairobi artist Joseph Cartoon. The theme of Joseph's work is the centrality of women in keeping family, culture, and community alive. You can find out more about Joseph's work here. Joseph's paintings will be available for purchase at Women at the Center.

Red Egg prayer beads will also be available—as will notecards featuring the children of Red Rhino. All purchases will benefit Red Rhino Orphanage.

Recent news from Red Rhino

As we prepare for our upcoming Red Egg gathering on October 2—Women at the Center: Keeping Tradition and Community Alive—there is important news from our dear friends at Red Rhino Orphanage in Kenya.

The first news is deeply painful and tragic. And the second important news—the children's first day of school—is not only delightful, but shows all the good reasons why so many people have worked and prayed so long and hard for such a day to happen.

Read both stories in Dave Saunders' images and words. They're linked above. Start with the hard news first.

Dave returned to Kenya when the emergency struck—and that has enabled him not to miss the kids' first day at school. But he'll return to California in time for our October 2 gathering, which will make Women at the Center that much more full of hope and grit.

"The kids are here!"

Maybe you're already aware of Red Rhino Orphanage in Kenya on your own.

Or maybe you remember Red Rhino from our visit with Dave Saunders at the orphanage-in-progress last April. However, our blog from then only gives the smallest inkling of all the work, prayer, planning, "sweat-equity," and love that has gone into this project.

Or maybe you're only learning about Red Rhino right now.

But no matter what path you've taken to get right here, right now, you'll find yourself deeply moved at Dave's account of the first children arriving at Red Rhino just a couple weeks ago.

Red Rhino Orphanage, Kenya.

This is a contemporaneous blog. That is, right now, we’re right where we say we are: in Kenya.

Specifically, we are in Lukenya, Kenya – about 45 minutes outside of Nairobi -- with our dear friend Dave Saunders.

Dave is the on-the-ground lead person for creating Red Rhino Orphanage here.

The mission of Red Rhino Orphanage is to create a sanctuary for orphans that provides children with the safety, housing, medical care, and education that they need “in a loving, structured environment on a long term, permanent basis.”

The west often presents itself with a face of Africa that is the face of a suffering child.

There is truth in this image

...but no more truth than the face of beauty and promise and strength.

Dave has been a close friend for 25+ years. Chris and Dave taught together at Bellarmine in San José. Our sons Matt and Nate virtually grew up with Amy and Allison, Dave (and Pearl’s) daughters.

And there are layers and layers to our friendship.

And yet as well as we know Dave, we are amazed to see in person the dimensions of the work he is directing here…through all the bureaucracy and corruption and colonialist history – and through the sheer weight of the need.

Dave has been here working on this project for 3+ years now.

There has been an amazingly intelligent and industrious base of leadership and support back home – specifically in the community of Stockton. We can’t adequately describe that whole matrix here.

But we heartily recommend to you Red Rhino’s own website and Dave’s blog. It is perceptive, sharp, witty, literary, hip.

http://www.rrop.org/

Brit Stockert is also here, volunteering for four months. Brit was formerly in the Air Force, but has been moving from that experience towards pacifism. Here in Kenya she is working towards achieving NGO status for Red Rhino, and she has also been volunteering in an existing children's home.

Today on Good Friday we prayed the Stations of the Cross through the streets of Nairobi

...and spilled into the basilica until it was filled with several thousand people.

We remembered and venerated Christ's passion and death

...and prayed that by accepting suffering ourselves

...we might grow into a community

...who would serve one another more lovingly.

We are connected with the Red Rhino orphanage project not just because of our friendship with Dave and other friends at Red Rhino, but because of this shared belief that we need to build communities in which we each support one another more lovingly.

We have been traveling for 6 months now. From the very conception of this trip, no single place on our map has been as earmarked and dog-eared as being here with Dave and the Red Rhino Orphanage has been.

God willing, nothing else was going to stop us from getting at least this far.