This summer, I went to Kenya on a missions trip for 20 days. It was life-changing. I had to write about it. Writing about something like this reminded me about something Saul Bellow once wrote: “A piece of writing is an offering. You bring it to the altar and hope it will be accepted.” This essay is my offering. It started out as a column idea, but, as you will see if you read on, turned into something much, much longer than that. In fact, this essay, with its more than 5,000 words and nine pages of single-space type, is the longest piece of writing I’ve ever written.

Feel free to leave comments in this space or on my website. And thanks for reading.

Here is the introduction:

It’s hard to picture any country you’ve never been to before, much less a country in Africa when you live in relative affluence in a California suburb. What would Kenya look like? All I knew was what you see in National Geographic. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be sleeping among lions and cheetahs ”” but, then again, you never know.

This was the first time I had done anything like this before. I was well traveled inside California ”” for one reason or another, mostly sports and school, I have been to just about every major city in the state ”” but outside it was an entirely different matter. I had left the state three times before this: to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to watch my beloved Packers (the result of the game is better left unsaid); to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, a stone’s throw from Golden State ground; and Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, where I could stand with one foot firmly implanted on Canadian soil, and the other bolted to good ol’ U.S. dirt. So it’s not exactly like I had anything to compare it to. I had tried to Google Earth the cities I would be staying in ”” Nairobi, Kitale, and Mt. Elgon ”” but that can only get you so far. Looking at Grecian ruins and famous buildings on Google Earth? Cool. Trees, grass, dirt, and rows of buildings in Kenya? Not as cool.

This is what was running through my head as I was landing in Nairobi after 20 hours of travel spread out over two days. It was a miracle that I was even going on this trip: about a week before I was scheduled to leave, I still needed to raise $2,000 to go, and when my group arrived at Fresno-Yosemite International Airport, the airline did not even have our tickets. Our pastor’s sense that we would encounter the demonic seemed to be coming to pass even before we’d set foot in the country.

I was going to Kenya, along with 30 others from my church,­Mountain View Community Church, a Mennonite Brethren church on the northeast side of Fresno, on a mission for 20 days. We would be leading a prayer training class for local pastors, a kid’s ministry training class for youth leaders, and a few what we, for lack of a better term, called crusades, where many would be led to Christ. This wasn’t the first time the church had led a team to this part of Kenya ”” in fact, groups from the church, ranging from 60-plus people to less than 10, have gone five times since 2005 ”” but it was my first time joining them. Telling people of my summertime voyage elicited several reactions, ranging from puzzled questions about why I was going and fear that I would be eaten by a lion, to joy that I would experience such adventure and expectations that my entire worldview would be changed. Perhaps the best, at least the most memorable, observation was from a family friend, who offered that it would be a great place to propose to my girlfriend.

Potential for romance aside, as we landed I had no idea what awaited me in Kenya. I would soon find out.

Read the rest here.