“Full Circle: former Peace Corps volunteer becomes Volunteer in Mission.”

Wesley Christian Advocate, September 7, 2001

by Sheldon Gen

I first became aware of the work of the United Methodist Church long before I became a member of it. In 1990 I graduated from college and was a new Peace Corps volunteer in the east African country of Kenya. I was stationed in a small village called Maua, where I developed engineering projects with a private non-profit development agency in the village.

The village is also the home of the Maua Methodist Hospital, a well-established missionary hospital sponsored by the United Methodist Church and the Methodist churches of Kenya and the United Kingdom.

When I first arrived in the village I stayed in a lodge while I looked for permanent housing. At the same time, I began attending church services at the hospital’s chapel - which offered the only English-language service in town - and met the international staff of the hospital.

The hospital also has a nursing school and I soon discovered that the school boarded its students in its own dormitories. After a few months of a fruitless search for rental housing, I asked the hospital’s administrators if they would rent me a room in the men’s dormitory. They agreed and let me stay in the dormitory in exchange for a modest fee (the equivalent of one US dollar per day) and for occasional engineering services around the hospital compound.

Becoming Methodist

For the next two years I lived on the hospital compound and witnessed the work done in it, and what I saw amazed me. There, without the barest of western necessities such as steady sources of electricity and clean water, Kenyan and international staff provided healing care to their patients in the most basic ways. What impressed me most, however, was not how services were provided in the absence of modern technologies, by how they were provided with the love and humility of Christ. I saw in the hospital staff the embodiment of Christ.

The impression was so strong and positive that I felt I had to be a part that work and support it in any way I can.

After my return to the United States in 1992, I became a member of the United Methodist Church. I had already been a Christian since I was a teenager, but had not joined any specific denomination. As a result of my stay at the Maua Methodist Hospital, I decided to become a United Methodist.

Returning to Kenya

Nine years later I am a member of Druid Hills United Methodist Church in Atlanta, and this summer I led a work team of 14 Volunteers in Mission from my church to the Maua Methodist Hospital. For me it was a wonderful return to Kenya and a special opportunity to share with my church family the impact of one Methodist mission.

Since last January, our work team had been busily preparing for the two-week mission by raising funds for construction projects on the hospital compound, soliciting medical supplies requested by the hospital, and even learning some Swahili and Kenyan culture. On July 7 we left Atlanta for Kenya with over $13,000 in project funds, nearly 1000 pounds of medical supplies, and the excitement of Christian mission service.

The physicians, nurse, and health educator on our team spent most of their time on medical outreach clinics to the outlying villages around Maua. The rest of us worked on several ongoing construction projects around the hospital compound. A special bonus for me was seeing many old friends and co-workers I knew from my two previous years in Kenya.

Perhaps more important than the resources and labor we took to the hospital, however, was the greater awareness and sense of responsibility we took from it. We saw first-hand the work and impact of our connectional church. Our congregation in Atlanta, as well as all other United Methodist churches, has been sponsoring the Maua Methodist Hospital all along, even before we became aware of it. Now we have witnessed its effect for ourselves and come away with a stronger desire to support it.

I continue to be amazed by the work of the United Methodist Church around the world. But now I am also happy to be a part of it and to support its work in any way I can.

Sheldon Gen is a doctoral candidate at Georgia Tech and a member of the Druid Hills United Methodist Church in Atlanta.