In Nairobi: sitting here in my Kenyan hostel next to a fire,
drinking a coke, listening to Sarah Bedford’s team. Fairly normal actually.
Yesterday was culture shock. After a couple days of sleep
deprivation and emotional exhaustion for our squad… as we’d come in the middle
of the night and settled into beds around 3 am, we just took the first morning
and slept as long as we could. The morning was spent eating at the hostel’s
restaurant, pancakes and coffee. I likened this outdoor restaurant patio to the
Tiki-Tiki room at Disney. Between that and the many renditions of ‘the Circle
of Life’ that kept being sung, Africa felt as it always has: mysterious and
exotic and far away. Finally in the afternoon my teammate Tracy and I decided
to go exploring. From the inside gate of the hostel it looked like outside the
locked gate was a field and trees. We stepped out and all I could liken it to
was the part in the Wizard of Oz where Dorthy walks out of the house in black
and white and into a world of color. It was an amazing shock. Plants, and
carts, and people, and banana sellers, and dirt roads, and trucks, and small
children. It was all right there out the gate, and I had no idea.
September 11, in Eldoret: We are serving this month with a
Pastor and his family at a small church in Eldoret. ‘Ministry’ will officially
start on Tuesday, though this morning we did attend, preach at, and sing for
Sunday worship. This included getting up at 5:45 for the ‘Morning Glory’ prayer
meeting that turned out to be just us. Since we are still getting to know each
other, and in the freshest places possible as a new team, we used the time to
encourage and pray for each other.
We live with Pastor Patrick, his wife Emmy, and their
amazing and adorable 2 year old Jeremy. So far it makes for a much simpler
life. My dreams of living a Little House on the Prairie life are temporarily
being fulfilled. Our house has mud walls. When it gets dark, people go to bed. We’ve been told that the first 3 days we are guests, after that we
can start to help with chores and learn things like how to make Chapati.
(Score!)
I’m not actually sure what the Lord is doing. He is building
us as a team. There isn’t a whole lot of options about how, when, or who to
hang out with. We spend about 26 hours a day together. Building team should
happen here much faster than it would in a more flexible or more comfortable
setting. This is that forced side of community.
Tonight we played spades and watched Back to the Future with
Patrick and Jeremy.
Mosquito nets sort of make me feel like a princess, sort of
crowd me when I sleep.
We were learning a song in
Swahili at church. Hakuna moongo cama way way. There is no one like You. The
song includes hand motions and one part where you ‘search’ around the whole
world and conclude ‘there is none like You’. For one of these verses, searching
for God everywhere included Pastor Patrick searching for God in my hair. Yeah,
it’s huge… it’s 80s worthy… but no, not even in my hair will you find something
or someone comparable to the Lord.
