Intern Commissioning

Today is my day off, which I spent going for a swim and hanging out with Njeri (fellow intern and service manager). This is also when I get to catch up on blog-writing, because I still have not written about the historical event of intern commissioning on March 17th!
Last Sunday but one (as Kenyans say), the interns were officially introduced and commissioned (“eingesetzt”) in church. There are 23 interns, 18 Kenyans, one Indian-Ethiopian, one Armenian, two Germans and one Swiss (two of the interns were missing on Sunday). Dressed in black pants or skirts and with a Kanga (Kenyan piece of fabric used as clothing by coastal tribes) around our shoulders, we walked up on stage – barefoot! The bare feet were in order that we could receive African sandals as a symbol of those who go out to bring good news (“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” Isaiah 52:7). In that sense we are now sent and enabled to do our work for the church and for God.
I was happy to receive new sandals (the ones I bought in 2005 broke shortly after I got here), but I have only worn them twice for a very short time. They are still very hard and stiff, not like my comfortable old ones, and after the first ten minutes of wearing them I already had a blister. I have worn them once since the first day, trying to break them in slowly (“einlaufen”). I guess it is the same with the internship and the work I am doing here. I am still in the process of being broken in, getting used to the culture, the expectations and the kind of work I am doing.
You can take a look at the pictures from the commissioning as soon as I put the link up on the right. I have also gotten some pictures from the German couple of our relief work in January which you might want to take a look at.


Intern Work
The last week I have been very busy, often working until six in the evenings and continuing at home. I now have specific jobs: being in the service planning team, being service manager (I am still a bit fuzzy on what exactly this entails), putting together the bulletin (“Mitteilungsblatt”) and teaching baptism class. I started baptism class last Sunday and will be doing that every Sunday until Easter. There are only five people in the class (in a church of 1200 people), but I have enjoyed preparing the material and teaching last Sunday. I am getting a slow start on the bulletin because there were special bulletins last Sunday and the coming Sunday, so I only had to do an insert with the announcements. In the future, putting together the bulletin will also mean ghost-writing the main article for the pastors!
This week, some of us are able to go to a seminar on counseling for rape victims. I am looking forward to it, even though it will mean catching up on all the work on Thursday and getting up very early tomorrow morning (latest by 5:30am) to get through the traffic and across town by 8am.