Martin, Amariah, Ezriel and Jannekah Guya

Jesus Solutions

It can get disheartening, if not infuriating, to see so many millions of dollars being poured into so many well meaning projects intended to solve the problems of the developing world, which more often than not end up doing way more harm than good.  I spend my life trying to undo the self-esteem destroying, dependency-creating damage done by handout programs.  Unfortunately…or fortunately, to solve a problem you must first understand it at its deepest roots, and from the cultural context in which you’re dealing.  This takes time.  A LOT of it.  Years and years and years.  It takes humility.  A LOT of it.  A willingness to recklessly abandon ones own preconceived ideas and to learn and relearn.  It takes sacrifice.  A LOT of it.  It takes a willingness to leave behind all comfort zones and to live among the people and to do things the way they do them, as one of them.

So often we approach the problems of others with such arrogance, especially when it comes to culture.  We think, “Well that’s silly!  Why in the world would you do it that way?!  That doesn’t make any sense.  Just do it like this and ALLLLLL your problems will be solved! Tah – dah!”  But how often are we willing to lay down our pride and truly try to understand?  To become the student instead of the great, all-knowing “savior”.

In all my Biblical and community development studies over the years, “worldview” is something that has come up extensively, but recently a missionary and dear friend of ours said one brief statement that totally rocked my world…and my worldview!  He said that you can never truly understand a culture or make an impact in it unless you understand the VALUE BEHIND the cultural practices and beliefs.  When you look at it that way, it truly changes everything.  When you understand the WHY behind the things people do and believe that at face value look completely crazy, a whole new world of understanding opens up.  In the end, you might discover that those “crazy” practices and beliefs actually make some sense.  You will definitely discover that most 3rd world problems can NOT be solved with 1st world solutions.  You have to address the value.  You actually have to think entirely outside the box and come up with completely ingenuitive, never-been-done, never-even-been-thought-of ideas and solutions.

That’s one of my favorite things about Jesus.  He is one of the most ingenuitive people I know!  Talk about doing things that have never been done and breaking the mold to solve the world’s problems!  I so desire to be like Him in that way, and every other!  And perhaps that’s why I get so sad and indignant when I see the international community trying to force quick fix “solutions” based on devastatingly limited understanding of the root issues and cultural significance.  It almost always looks fantastic on the surface, but that’s the most dangerous part!

Take the new international push to provide free birth control for all.  Here in Kenya a big issue is helping women access birth control behind their husband’s back because a common cultural belief in Kenya is that the more children that you have, the more of a man you are.  Consequently, husbands often want or require their wives to have as many children as possible – especially sons.  Helping women secretly access birth control seems like a quick and easy solution to the “women’s rights issue,” “population problem,” and “resulting poverty” (hopefully you the reader know it’s SO much more complex than that!).  Even if you completely put aside the religious arguments and perspectives here, I’m wondering what happens when the husband wants a child, or another child, and so the woman goes off the birth control (or doesn’t!) but it takes months, or years for it to leave her system so she can conceive, and because of the horrifying stigma surrounding conception problems in Africa, the husband takes another wife, or leaves his wife altogether, very possibly along with their several children?  Uh oh.  Now you have a much bigger problem!  So the question begs, was secretly providing birth control to women really the solution, or more importantly the PROBLEM, in the first place????

A super hot topic in the U.S. right now is male circumcision.  Regardless of where you personally stand on the issue, the fact is, there is a major push to stop the practice in the West and around the world. Enter Kenya, and her centuries old deep deep cultural ties to circumcision.  My husband’s tribe happens to be one of the only in Kenya which does NOT circumcise neither their men nor their women.  But when our son was born we decided to circumcise him in order to quite possibly save his life.  You see, he was born around the time tribal wars were going on in Kenya and members my husband’s tribe were major targets.  One of the ways they were identified of course was by whether or not they were circumcised.  If they were found to be uncircumcised and therefore of his tribe, many of them were killed with machetes on the spot, no questions asked.  Understanding like this puts a whole new perspective on the issue, doesn’t it?

I could go on and on and on with examples, but the closest to my heart at the moment, not surprisingly, is birth with a midwife versus the push for generalized hospital birth.  Another grim example of the international community working hard and pouring in millions of dollars to solve a 3rd world problem with 1st world solutions…which quite frankly aren’t even suitable for the 1st world!  I’ve been reading a lot about this in the Kenyan media lately, which is probably what has sparked this topic for me today.  One news special was called, “Technology vs Taboo”.  Well my goodness, which would you choose if those are the only supposed options?!  It’s a perfect illustration of how birth with a midwife is viewed as a primitive, dangerous idea that needs to be replaced with more modern, “safer” practices.
 
I recently read an online Kenyan newspaper’s article entitled something like, “Birth in the Bush with a Midwife, BUT…..”  It was accompanied by a video of a pretty uneventful birth on a mat on the dirt floor of a midwife’s hut.  Everything went well and the woman was encouraged to walk and eat and drink throughout her labor and was supported by several midwives and women in the community throughout the whole process.  I thought, “but what?!?!”  Of course the author went on and on, siting the “risks,” “dangers,” “savagery,” and “irresponsibility” of the situation.  While I did disagree with some of the tribal postpartum practices, CLEARLY the author has never seen a hospital birth in Kenya.  Having seen many myself, I would personally deliver my own child on that dirt floor any day over a Kenyan hospital, yet the ignorant international push for across the board “medicalized birth” continues to actually put Kenyan women and their babies in MORE danger in most cases.

It is my prayer that we can change the flow of the tide and help build a highly respectable and respected model of midwifery care in Kenya and around the world.  It is my heart’s desire to maximize the extraordinary resource already available to us of incredibly experienced midwives who have such a strong standing and voice in their communities already.  If we can only address the few unsafe practices at their core and rebuild safe practices upon the same foundational values, things will turn around so quickly, and for the good of all!  And most importantly for the glory of God, Who as well all know is the TRUE root solution to ALL the world’s problems and why we do all we do in the first place.  That’s what I call solving 3rd world problems with JESUS solutions.  Sometimes the answers are surprisingly simple.

  
    Jannekah Guya, 16 weeks