He’s a living breathing Pied Piper. Everywhere he goes, children trail after him. In a Kenyan man called Pastor Karau, the legend becomes visible in real time, albeit with a happy ending. In his home culture, Pastor Karau walks the winding, muddy lanes of the second largest slum in East Africa, seeking out the last…Read more World Children’s Day
social justice
An Open Letter to the Government of Zimbabwe
Dear Government of Zimbabwe, I want you to see the faces of children whose lives you’ve destroyed. Through mismanagement and corruption, you’ve deprived them of basic human needs. I met them not so long ago - shook their hands, laughed with them. I looked into Sylvia's eyes... When Sylvia’s (named changed) parents, aunts, and uncles…Read more An Open Letter to the Government of Zimbabwe
When One is Oppressed…
When one is oppressed, we are all oppressed. It's time to stand up for what is right.
The Day I Became A Protester
I was scared to go, and I didn’t have the faintest idea how to be a protester. As my patient husband can attest, I’ve certainly ranted and raved at home about issues. But the most radical political act I’ve committed up until this week was to vote. Except for maybe when I adopted a Black…Read more The Day I Became A Protester
Who Is My Neighbor?
I’m about as far from my Colorado Springs downtown neighborhood as possible. The organized streets and neon lights of a modern city fade far away as asphalt yields to a rutted, mountainside-hugging dirt road, and then to a slice in the forest where men on motorcycles cluster. I straddle a bike behind a smiling Vietnamese…Read more Who Is My Neighbor?
Above All, Keep Your Heart Free
When Mugabe, thirty-plus-year year dictator of Zimbabwe, bulldozed neighborhoods who didn’t vote for him and committed other horrendous human rights abuses, my friends took international journalists to witness his crimes. And paid for it by ending up on the government hit list. L describes how she and her husband, a pastor, fell asleep at night…Read more Above All, Keep Your Heart Free
Creating a photo essay
This past summer I enjoyed the incredible privilege of taking an on-line class with photographer and blogger Otto von Münchow. My learning curve felt like a ride up a roller coaster hill: rapid, challenging, thrilling. I shot some of the workshop while in Kenya and then photographed images back in the US to add in, with…Read more Creating a photo essay
How Great is our God – Kenya Connection Team 2017
They were just exploring the wonders of being in a family, home less than a year. Some were learning to use utensils for the first time, riding in cars for the first time, trying to figure out why it was “raining” in the house and their new parents wanted them to stand in the “rain.”…Read more How Great is our God – Kenya Connection Team 2017
In the Cracks (2)
The earth hurtles through space in all its breathtaking wonder; and yet, if you dare to look closer, you will find terribly brittle cracks. There, rivers of misery erode human existence into ever deeper, darker canyons. Children ooze out of one of these cracks, known as Mathare Valley slum in Kenya. These little ones are…Read more In the Cracks (2)
Why do slums exist in Kenya?
One of the greatest joys of my recent trip to Kenya was sharing the experience with two of my children, Justin age 17 and Jacob age 20. I tried to capture some of the wonder I felt in a previous blog entry: Meeting Myself There. Because of Justin's most unexpected surgery, Tommy John to repair…Read more Why do slums exist in Kenya?
Colleen Briggs Art & Writing 