Hi, dear friends!
It has been a very long time since I wrote anything here.
I haven’t exactly stopped sharing our life – those of you who follow me on Snapchat know that I more or less “blog” there every day – but there is something different about actually sitting down to write. Snapchat gives you little glimpses of our life, the projects, the family and all the chaos that tends to fill our days, but some thoughts need a little more space than that.
And perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that I feel the need to start writing again right now, because we are actually approaching ten years in Kenya.
That feels a little crazy to say.
Ten years of missions, aid work, family, projects, people, relationships, work, a whole lot of trial and error, some incredible breakthroughs – and quite a few things that did not turn out anything like we thought they would.
When I go back and read some of my old blog posts, in many ways I meet a younger version of myself. She had a lot on her heart, a lot of ideas, enormous faith in what was possible – and apparently quite a bit more time to sit down and write about all of it too. 😅
I still recognize her very well. There is a lot of what I wrote back then that I still wholeheartedly believe, and some things I probably believe even more strongly today. But there are also things I would word differently now, things I see with more nuance, and some things I simply think I was wrong about.
I suppose it is almost impossible to spend nearly ten years living closely alongside people, culture, poverty, families, missions, work, conflict and aid without having some of the theories you started with challenged along the way.
So that is part of what I want to use this blog for again.
Not primarily to tell you how much we are doing, but to share some of the things we have learned while doing it. What has worked, what hasn’t, and perhaps especially the things that have forced me to take a more critical look at myself and the way I help.
Because one thing I have discovered along the way is that helping people well is actually incredibly difficult.
When we first came here, we saw needs everywhere. And when you come from Norway and encounter poverty up close, the immediate reaction is quite natural: you want to do something.
Someone can’t afford school fees – pay the school fees. Someone doesn’t have food – buy food. Someone needs a job – try to find them one. Someone is living in terrible conditions – start thinking about how you can help them get a better house.
You see a problem, and you try to find a solution.
And sometimes that is exactly what is needed.
There are acute situations where people simply need help, full stop, and I have no problem with that. I also have no interest in becoming so focused on “sustainable aid” that we lose ordinary human compassion along the way.
It is when help continues over time that things become more complicated.
How do you help someone move forward without making yourself a necessary part of their life forever? How do you create opportunities without also creating an expectation that opportunities will always come from someone else? And how do you help someone stand on their own feet without, almost without realizing it, ending up standing for them?
I think I found those questions easier ten years ago than I do today.
From the beginning, we wanted our work to be about more than simply giving things away. We wanted to help people access education, work and practical skills so they could provide for themselves and their families. The dream has always been that the person who needs help today might one day become the person helping someone else. That is also a big part of the thinking behind what has eventually become Neema Collective.
But there is one thing these years have taught me very clearly:
It is much easier to create an opportunity than it is to create the hunger to use it.
And that is where I have had to learn quite a lot about myself too.
I am very good at seeing potential in people. Perhaps a little too good. 😅
I can meet a young man and very quickly start imagining what he could become. He is smart, good with his hands, learns quickly – and before he has even had time to think about it himself, my mind is already working.
Who could train him? Could he learn construction? Welding? Mechanics? Cooking? Could we give him a job? Is there a course somewhere? How can we make this happen?
Over the years, there have been many young people I have genuinely believed in and wanted to help move forward. I have found people who could train them, created work opportunities, paid for things, followed up, encouraged them and tried to help them see the potential that seemed so obvious to me.
And often, they start.
Usually it goes really well in the beginning too. Everything is new and exciting, and I think, This is it. Something is happening.
Then some time passes.
It gets harder. Someone corrects them. The job turns out to include quite a few completely ordinary, boring working days. Becoming good at something requires repetition and discipline, including on the days when you don’t feel like doing it, and eventually the excitement of something new begins to disappear.
Then they quit.
And I have this rather annoying tendency to think, Okay, maybe this just wasn’t the right thing. What about something else?
So we try something else.
And sometimes something else again.
Until suddenly I find myself spending more energy trying to figure out what another person should do with their life than they are spending on it themselves.
It has taken me a surprisingly long time to recognize what is actually happening when we reach that point.
I am the one who is hungry for it.
I am the one thinking five years ahead and imagining where this person could be. I am the one searching for opportunities, following up, reminding, encouraging and feeling disappointed when it doesn’t work out.
Somehow, I have started carrying a future that isn’t actually mine to carry.
And you cannot build another person’s future on borrowed motivation.
That does not mean I have stopped believing in people, or that I think we should simply sit back and expect everyone to figure everything out on their own. Absolutely not.
Sometimes we need someone to believe in us before we are able to believe in ourselves. Some people need a door opened that they could never have opened alone. Some need financial help, training, another chance, or simply someone willing to walk alongside them for a while.
But at some point, ownership has to change hands.
I cannot continue to be the person who wants it most.
Because every job becomes boring sometimes. Every education has days when you want to quit. Everyone learning a skill eventually reaches the point where talent is no longer enough and you simply have to do the same thing over and over again until you become good at it.
If all the drive comes from another person, it becomes very difficult to continue when that person is no longer standing beside you pulling you forward.
I think one of the things that has changed in me over the last few years is that I have become less focused on simply asking, “How can I create an opportunity for this person?” and more interested in looking at what is already there.
What do you actually want?
What have you already started?
What do you do when nobody follows up with you?
Do you come back after you fail? Do you ask questions? Do you learn? Do you try again?
Because there is a big difference between trying to manufacture motivation in another person and investing in motivation that is already there.
If someone is knocking on the door because they want to learn, I would love to help open it. If someone tries, fails and comes back to try again, I want to invest in that. If someone is already using the little they have, I become very interested in what might happen if they are given a little more.
But perhaps it is not my job to make everyone want something.
And that sentence is harder for me than it may sound, because I think that for many years I have confused seeing potential in someone with being responsible for making sure that potential is actually fulfilled.
Those are not the same thing.
I can believe in your future. I can cheer you on, teach you what I know, open a door, give you an opportunity and walk part of the road with you. And I sincerely hope we will continue doing exactly that for many people in the years ahead.
But I cannot take ownership of something that ultimately belongs to you.
I cannot want your future more than you want it yourself.
That is one of the things nearly ten years here has taught me.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize that it connects to another question: What actually counts as an opportunity, and how often do we walk straight past opportunities because we are waiting for someone else to present them to us?
But that will have to be the next post. 😊
This post is also available in Norsk bokmål
