Kenya – Marilyn R. Gardner

When Discussions on Evil Don’t Help

Published on September 23, 2013September 23, 2013 by Marilyn19 Comments

It’s late Sunday night and my head and my heart hurt. The death toll rises from a double suicide bomb attack on a vibrant church in Peshawar Pakistan. Those of us with connections in the area are glued to news sources, trying to glean whatever we can from the pitiful western coverage of this event.

I wrote a friend earlier today – her children are in school in Kenya, and though they don’t live in Nairobi, I know this school and I know that they visit Nairobi and probably this shopping mall. I have not heard whether her children were there or not, but the likelihood of her not being affected by the siege on the mall is slim. Another friend whose daughter lives in Kenya posts that she is “safe” and I breathe for her.

At one time I would have wondered “Where is God in all of this?” I no longer wonder in the same way. Instead I scream for mercy to save us from ourselves. To save us from the awful horror that is human on human violence, so much worse than any ‘natural’ disaster. I cry out that God intervene in what St. Augustine describes as the “parasite” of evil.

The problem of evil has been a conundrum for theologians since time began – but when people are in pain, discussions on the problem of evil seriously lack the ability to give substantive comfort. Instead, what people need is empathy, prayers for courage and hope, prayers that they will feel the love and mercy of God in a tangible way. And when I think prayer is not enough – I go back to the words of my son Jonathan this summer: “Mom, when you think about it, prayer is the greatest expression of empathy we can possibly give.”

In April after the Marathon bombings I wrote a piece called In the Midst of Tragedy- A Call to Pray and I leave you with an excerpt from that piece:

“Five times a day a Call to Prayer rings out across the Muslim world. I am fully aware of the differences in truth claims between Christianity and Islam – yet five times a day for much of my life I am reminded to lift my heart in prayer. And the five times stretches to many times in between until I realize I am slowly learning that I can’t make it through this life without prayer; that the exhortation to ‘pray without ceasing’ is life-giving. That in the midst of senseless acts of violence, in the midst of tragedy, I am called to pray. Called to pray to a God who hears and loves, a God who is present in tragedy and accepts our “why’s”, a God who knows no national boundaries or citizenship, a God who took on our human pain and suffering when he ‘willingly endured the cross’……And so I pray the only words I know how: Lord have mercy. Hear our prayer. Free us from our pain.“

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For more information on the church bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan I urge you to go to this post written by a blogging friend who lives in Peshawar: Peshawar church bombing a condensation of horror and loss.

From the article:

“This is a catastrophe for the Christian community of Pakistan,” my secretary Ashbel Taj said to me a few minutes ago. He had just returned from visiting the wounded at Lady Reading Hospital after today’s bombing at All Saints’ Church in the heart of the old city of Peshawar.

Despite having the largest trauma unit in the world, the hospital scene was chaotic, he said, as staff struggled to treat the 200 or more wounded. Information is still emerging, but numerous conversations with colleagues in Peshawar – I’m in the USA at the moment – indicate that 150 or more people were killed.

I’ve tried to reach Bishop Humphrey Sarfaraz Peters, but he is fully occupied in visiting the wounded in hospital. He was on visitation at the parish in Bannu, in Waziristan, but rushed back upon news of the bombing. Read the rest of the article here!

Peshawar church bombings spark protests across Pakistan (thenewstribe.com)
Bomb in Pakistan church kills at least 40 – official – Reuters UK (uk.reuters.com)

Out to Lunch With My Passport

Published on May 14, 2013 by Marilyn16 Comments

The Facebook post was simple. It was on my brother Stan’s page tagged with all his siblings:

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Stan Brown

May 9

Ed, Stan, Tom and Dan are currently abroad. Marilyn? — with Ed Brown and 3 others.

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Marilyn Gardner I hate all of you and now I’m going to go bite my pillow and give in to my state of bright, green tck envy.

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Many of you readers know what I’m talking about. If you’ve been raised overseas and you find out all your siblings are overseas and you are not, you feel life is unfair. It’s not right. You too belong in Kazakhstan and Pakistan, Kenya and Turkey. You too should be enjoying the jet lag, the airline travel, the missed connections, the food, the chaos, the crowds, the miscommunication, the laughter, the food, the relationships, the cultural missteps, the time difference – oh and did I mention the food?

What do you do when you are assaulted with this childish jealousy? I wrote a post some time ago where I go into detail on this ugly, green envy but this time I felt like I had grown exponentially.

Because this time it was funny. I could laugh. Despite the seemingly childish response by me on Facebook, I really did not begrudge them these trips. This, my friends, is a miracle. And I began to do a bit of self reflection, self analysis if you will. I realized that while I still long (and pray) for another opportunity to live overseas, I no longer go into a depression when others who I love get to do this.

Maybe I’ve grown up. Maybe I realize no one can take away my past – it’s a unique stamp on my life and colors my now with memories and understanding that can be used in our multicultural communities. Maybe I’m at a place of peace internally that cannot be dictated by where I live….I’m not sure of the reasons. But this I do know – I could laugh about it and banter over social media.

But I had to one-up them – perhaps not through travel, but certainly through wit and words. They are, after all, my siblings.

So at the suggestion of my husband, I decided to go to lunch with my passport. Because my passport doesn’t just say where I’m from, it tells me where I’ve been. It has those precious stamps from Egypt and Pakistan, Istanbul and Mexico, St. Maarten and London. The passport is the identity card of the third culture kid; the stamp of belonging that tells the world we’re a bit from everywhere and a bit from nowhere. The legal document that tells a story of a life lived between worlds.

What better lunch companion then my passport? What better place to eat than a Pakistani restaurant where chapatis and curry take me miles away?

So next time you feel those waves of envy come over you and you want a humorous response – take your passport out to lunch.

“My Name is Nwabudike and I am from Nigeria….”

Published on March 9, 2012March 9, 2012 by Marilyn18 Comments

Perhaps you’ve received an email like this:

“My name is Nwabudike and I am from Nigeria. Please I would like you to keep this proposal as a top-secret and delete it if you are not interested and get back to me if you are interested for details as regards to the transfer of $24,500,000 to you. this money initially belongs to a client who died and had no next of kin in his account-opening package.”

Or like this:

I am Mrs. Isabel Jose from Spain married to Mr. Joe Armstrong from Sierra Leone for eleven years now, we have three kids … I have a business proposal which I believe that will be a very Good opportunity for both of us so I decided to contact you on this business opportunity in our bank, the business is this I discovered an abandoned sum of 10.500m US dollars (Ten million five hundred thousand united states dollars) in our safety deposit vault that belongs to one of our foreign customer. Who died along with his entire family on 15th April 2005 in a ghastly motor accident along Valencia express way.

Or maybe an email with a more friendly and familiar tone, like this:

Dear friend
I am Dr Raymond Chien Independent Non-executive Director of Hang Seng Bank Hong Kong I have a business transaction of $44.5 million USD to share with you,If interested contact me for more details via my personal email

We’ve all received them. They come from Nigeria and Spain; Kenya and China. They have a name, a promise of more money than most of us could ever dream of, and often a tragedy thrown in for good measure. They are the famous internet business proposals that we know are false. We laugh at them. We “tsk, tsk” at them. We hit delete. But how many of us have secretly thought, just once, that maybe, just maybe we could outsmart the sender. Maybe we could turn the tables on them and receive something for nothing?

A clever playwright in Chicago did just this with an internet business proposal. In 2009, Steve Gadlin received an email from a Kenyan gentleman. The email was an offer to purchase a play that a Mister Victor Gido had written. The price? $30,000. Thus began an email correspondence that one can guess went to and fro until ultimately Mr. Gadlin purchased an original play for $50.

Here’s how it happened:Mr. Gadlin took the most impossible plot line ever developed in the history of man and asked Mr. Gido to write the play. The plot line was this: “A Millionaire named Quack Quack Quimby has forgotten the true meaning of the Jewish Holiday Tu Bishvat. His daughter goes to great lengths to remind him of its meaning and make him happy once again”. The result? The result was “The Nairobi Project“.

I heard of this play through my son and daughter in law, Lauren. Lauren, an actor in Chicago, played the role of one of Mr. Quimby’s daughter’s, Avital. Much to my disappointment, I never saw the play but the idea is outrageously funny and clever. The business proposal ultimately entertained audiences in Chicago by providing an unusual and completely original play at the cost of a mere $50.

There are critics who claim that Mr. Gadlin is exploiting our Kenyan friend. To this accusation Mr. Gadlin brings up a fair argument – just who was exploiting who? One can assume that this was not the first email that Mr. Gido had sent to solicit customers for his writing skills. Mr. Gadlin paid a man who willingly jumped at the opportunity (in fact, suggested the idea himself) a mutually agreed upon fee. In return Mr. Gido received name recognition for a play that was put up in Chicago, a major city of the United States and described as “America’s most flourishing independent theater hub” For an aspiring playwright this is amazing. How many people wait for years to get their big break – to have their plays noticed by producers?

An anonymous ‘someone’ is behind every one of these internet proposals. They are not created out of thin air. Someone writes them, casting a net out into a world-wide pool of potentially desperate takers. So what if most of us delete them? All they need is one and the anonymous someone walks away happy while the desperate kick themselves as they go through the nightmare of trying to replenish their now empty bank accounts

So next time you get one of those emails, take a look! If Mr. Gadlin could turn it into a real-live money-making opportunity, there may be some hope!

What are some of the business proposals you’ve received via email? Share your favorites in the comment section!

A Tree Grows in Kenya

Published on December 5, 2011December 5, 2011 by Marilyn2 Comments

‘Tis the season of wrapping paper, ribbons, and gift cards. It is a season marked by 450 Billion dollars in spending, rum infused eggnog, and massive returns the day after Christmas. It is a season of glittering lights that bring a sense of magic, and deep depression as demonstrated by the increased number of therapy visits during holiday seasons.

This is Christmas. Advent is a different story altogether. Advent is expectation and longing, hope and joy. In the spirit of Advent I want to highlight a way to give that may not reflect the material things of Christmas but reflects Advent beautifully.

It’s bigger than a breadbasket, costs less money than a gift card, and is longer lasting and more valuable than a diamond ring. It is half a world away, but you see one every day. It is simultaneously exotic and practical. It is giving at it’s best. It’s a tree in Kenya!

In my post In Praise of Green Space I contrasted the beautiful green space of London with the absence of green space in Cairo or Karachi. I highlighted my brother Ed’s work at Care of Creation and his love and promotion of green space. It is in the country of Kenya where the work of Care of Creation began, through the vision of a man name Craig Sorley and my brother, Ed Brown. Sorley is an environmentalist and was featured in Time Magazine in 2008 as a hero of the environment. Both Craig and Ed have an urgent and compelling message, that of caring for our earth, our world. They believe there is a direct call to care for creation based on God’s clear love of creation as evidenced in the Bible. Once people catch a vision of caring for the earth, the call is for direct action around planting trees, harvesting water, and farming land. You can read a far better description of the work of Care of Creation here but I want to highlight the planting trees part of the action.

Ten trees can be given for only $12.50. So little for so much. $12.50 for a legacy of trees, a solution to what is described by Care of Creation as “rampant deforestation, leading to droughts, floods, soil erosion and increased human poverty and hardship, as well as loss of habitat for animals and birds.” And planting trees is part of the solution to what has become a huge problem.

A tree grows in Kenya – a tree grows and a forest is rebuilt. A tree grows and land is replenished. A tree grows and a family has an occupation. A tree grows and a world is changed.

So this Advent season, if you want to do something a little different, remember that a tree grows in Kenya.

Here is information on how to give trees this Advent season: PLANT TREES IN KENYA. Remember: 10 trees for $12.50! You can even add a gift card! For some remarkable pictures take a look here.