What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it is all about? by Spencer Cantrell

This #ShareTheJourney pilgrimage has flown by.  I cannot believe that tomorrow we will be venturing out into the nerve-wracking Nairobi traffic for one final time to the airport, to return home after ten days that were amazing, inspiring, and yet tragic in Kenya & Rwanda.  

This trip has been devoted to understanding the plight of people who are refugees.  In order to do so, we have visited Gihembe camp in Rwanda.  We have met with the Resettlement Support Center, UNHCR, IOM, and countless others.  So many professionals have devoted hours of their time to explain to us their work and why they are so devoted to it.  But I am not sure that all of the meetings completely clicked in my brain until today.  

This morning's schedule included a visit to Heshima Kenya.  This amazing enterprise supports women and girls ages 13 to 23 years.  These women and girls are supported by shelter, education, vocational training, case management, and other advocacy efforts.    Most of the women and girls there have survived a host of horrors I cannot comprehend: kidnapping, rape, torture, sex slavery, unlawful detainment, torture, and separation from their families.  

Reading the litany of things the women have survived at this NGO, you could never imagine what we were greeted with when we visited.  After an introduction to the work of Heshima, we were treated to a beautiful dance performed by the women and girls of Heshima.  I could barely keep back tears of joy and tragedy as I danced with these survivors.  I later learned that one of the songs we were dancing to was about their faith in God.  That's right- a group of women from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Somalia were dancing together.  Muslim and Christian women danced together praising God, and I had the privilege of joining in.  

Then we went to visit the classroom attended by the children of these women and girls.  The ravages of war have caused girls as young as 13 to become pregnant and end up at Heshima; this NGO provides schooling for the children so their mothers, often still children themselves, can attend school and gain the skills to be independent.  These children also danced and sung for us, led by an incredibly joyful teacher.  Their performance included a Kenyan rendition of the Hokey Pokey, one of my personal childhood favorites.  

The Hokey Pokey is when many in my group could no longer hold back tears.  For the past several days, we have repeatedly confronted the data of refugees: the high numbers of people stuck in camps; the low percentages of those that will be resettled to the US; the high rate of hunger and disease in the refugee camps; the too low number of liters of water given to refugees in the camps.  

But looking into the faces of these children putting their left and right feet in and out, I could see the possibilities.  I could see their optimism for the future.  I could see the hope.  While the title of this blog post might seem tongue and cheek, it was through the hokey pokey that I could really see what the work of helping refugees was really all about.  

The children of Heshima have the chance for a bright future.  They have the chance for an education, a career, a livelihood that will support them and their families.  It is my hope that Episcopal Migration Ministries can continue its tireless efforts to give these dancing women, girls, and children a chance to succeed.