July 24, 2009

By JERRY HILL
Baylor Bear Insider

Given the choice of destinations for a summer missions trip, Bryan Swindoll would have picked just about anywhere but Africa.

“Since Spanish is my first language and I’ve spent a lot of time in South America, I would just naturally say that maybe I could do something more meaningful in one of these countries where my family has been,” said Swindoll, a sophomore football player from Miami, Fla. “I can speak the language, so I feel like I could be an effective vessel. Africa was just way out there for me. But I’m just glad I went, because it showed me that there’s a lot more need than just the places where I’ve gone.”

Swindoll, part of a 16-member Baylor sports ministry team led by Athletics Chaplain Wes Yeary that went to Kenya in May, also learned that sports and Jesus Christ are part of the international language that can break down any barriers.

“You pull out a soccer ball,” he said, “and they love you more than your parents almost.”

“They find joy in the simplest of things,” said Lindsay Palmer, a sophomore basketball player from Tulsa, Okla. “They’re just so excited when you give them three pieces of bread. Whereas we complain when the buffet is out of macaroni and cheese.”

Crammed into the two-week trip were visits to area orphanages and child care centers; scrimmages with the Kenyan National women’s soccer team; basketball and soccer clinics; a coaches’ clinic; working with local Pastor Boniface Mwalimu to feed the street children in Nairobi, most of whom are addicted to glue, which masks the hunger pains that never go away; an outside worship service at the Nairobi Arboretum, where they were joined by monkeys; a work day at Boniface’s Omega Kids Home, a rehab house for the street ministry; and a safari where they got within five feet of lions.

Lindsay Palmer (from left), Melissa Jones and Andrew Sumpter show some Nairobi children how to do the "Sic 'Em Bears" cheer.

”We’ve all seen the ‘Feed the Children’ commercials and stuff like that,” Swindoll said. “But until you’re actually confronted with it . . . There’s just so much that your mind can’t wrap itself around – the need and the suffering that goes on there. But right along with it is the joy that’s found in Christ.”

Joining Yeary, Swindoll and Palmer on the trip were Kim Scott, director of Campus Recreation and the McLane Student Life Center; Tanna Burge, assistant strength and conditioning coach; soccer players Lindsey Johnson, Amanda McGrath, Lindsay “Lotto” Smith, Nicky Smith and Rachel Stepp; junior Melissa Jones from the women’s basketball team; sophomore Andrew Sumpter from football; athletic training graduate assistant Shellie Spiers; student manager Leah Capps; Baylor club soccer player Laura Smith; and Baylor student Brittany Berg.

Yeary said that two other mission groups from Baylor were in Kenya at the same time, and “they were a little surprised by the pace we kept. And we wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

“It was just confirmation that God’s hand was in it,” Yeary said, “and that he was really leading the whole way. The people that He connected us with and the opportunities that we got through them – that was part of the encouragement while we were there. Every day, you recognized what He had done and what He was doing while we were serving.”

At every orphanage, school and center they visited, the team was met by children starving for food and attention.

“They were telling us that for most of these kids, we were the first Mzungus, or white people, they had ever seen in their lives,” Nicky Smith said. “And maybe they were just super fascinated with that. But they were just so happy all the time. They had this pure joy. They were always singing and dancing and teaching us stuff.”

Everywhere they turned, the glaring needs of children and adults alike hit them in the face. But it was never more apparent than on their 5 a.m. visits with Boniface to feed the street children in Nairobi.

Yeary, who was leading a breakout session one of the days with Melissa Jones, got to witness joy and despair in the same sitting. “One of them was already high on glue. And it was just so sad to see the emptiness in his eyes and the fear in him as well,” Yeary said.

But out of the same small group, two boys named Paul and Peter served as inspiration for the whole group. “One of them (who had tuberculosis) asked us to pray for his chest. . . . And the other guy had a deformed leg that came down to where his knee did on the other leg. Yet those two guys had such a joy in their heart. Even though they lived on those streets, they loved the Lord and they weren’t addicted to glue.”

While it was clearly evident that the sports ministry made a difference and touched hundreds of lives in just the short time they had, the toughest part was not being able to meet every need.

On the second day with Boniface, Spiers was asked to look at an old man who had a knee that was “swollen up twice the size of the other one,” she said.

“But not having x-rays or imaging or anything like that, I’m just like, ‘Well, he’s got to walk around to be able to provide.’ I know that we made a difference by going. But the hard part is the amount of help that they need that we can’t give them ourselves. You want to fix everything.”

That’s apparently for future trips. Walter Machio, a local contact in Kenya who set up some of the clinics and scrimmages, has plans for more of a crusade next year.

“Walter’s already talking about multiple teams coming at the same time. He was saying, ‘I can send one here and another here.’ So instead of us going to one place, we can hit four,” Yeary said. “Lord willing, we can build on these relationships and continue to take teams.”