​Reflections and Connections

Pamela McLauchlan recalls: I first became involved with Chogoria when the Scouts planned their first visit to Chogoria in 2005.

I was the main contact with David Mbae and got to know him through email. David is such a lynchpin of the community in Chogoria not only the schools where he teaches but also the church. The Scouts, including my son Russell, had a wonderful experience. They found the people in Kenya so friendly and welcoming and so grateful for small offers of help - like painting a water tower. Russell came back and said “Mum we think we are a developed country and have access to anything we want… but people are unhappy and have no time for others. In Chogoria they have no real possessions but they share everything and are so much happier in themselves than we are. They also have a much stronger faith and belief in God than we have and are not concerned about professing their faith”.

This sentiment echoes the experiences of John Carrie and Peter Freeland. Pamela continues: on Russell’s return I continued to email David Mbae and through this as a family we have sponsored a boy called Martin through his secondary education and now his University training as a Nurse. We now also sponsor a girl called Maureen through secondary school.

We believe that this is faith in action and by assisting these two young Kenyans we are assisting their families and friends. We also have developed relationships of shared belief with these families and support each other in times of crisis. Like the Kenyan riots just before the second Scout trip to Chogoria and they pray for us when we have had family crisis in Scotland . I believe this is what Church partnerships are all about.

We need to keep the links developing in so many ways both at a congregation-to-congregation level but also at an organisation-to-organisation level. As a junior church leader we send letters and drawings and pictures from the ARK to children of a similar age in the Chogoria congregation. Also family-to-family as we do with Martin and Maureen’s families.