So I know that I have not done a great job blogging this month, and I wanted to apologize. We weren't able to use the internet very often, but I definitely used this more as an excuse to not have to blog. I have succumbed to the lack of motivation for blogging.
When things got hard this month, the last thing I wanted to do was keep updating everyone through writing about everything that was going on. So I am going to do my best to describe how my month was here in Kenya. There isn't going to be much "fluff" but I want to give you as much info as I can…
To start we arrived in Nairobi and tented at a place called Backpacker's. This is a cheap place for us to stay, and it is where people who are backpacking across Africa or the world come to stay.
After two nights in Nairobi we traveled to Malava, Kenya where we stayed for the month with Pastor Dickson and his wife Evelyn. They had two children living at the house, their names were Favor (8 years old) and Collins (26 years old). Collins went with us most days we did ministry and we were able to build a good friendship with him. Collins is in the blue shirt.
The first week of ministry we did door-to-door evangelism. When we go door-to-door we walk a lot! What ends up happening is we walk for about a half an hour and are actually talking to people for only about an hour total. This month most of the houses we went to were people who already believed in Christ. When we talk to them it's a great opportunity to ask if we can pray with them, or encourage them in any life issues they may be having. One thing about being in a different country is the believer's are not shy with prayer requests. If you ask them if there is anything they need prayer for, be prepared for an answer like this, "Please pray for me, my husband does not know Jesus and he is an alcoholic and beats me every night." or "Please pray that my husband will come to know Christ, he is having an affair and doesn't come home anymore." People are very open and honest, which is good but also hard at times to hear some stories.
We also went to a secondary school this month (high school) and talked with the students about staying in school and pursuing their dreams. The students loved asking us questions about college and careers in America. We did our best to encourage them! I really enjoyed the atmosphere at the school. We went to an all girl's boarding school and got to sit and talk with them more of a family style setting where they could ask questions and we could all get to know each other. I wish we would have had the opportunity to do this more often and have more time at the school, but I'm thankful for the day we had.
This month (like in Uganda) we traveled to a health clinic and got to meet and pray with some of the patients. This is always a great experience, although it can be hard too. A ton of the patients we see have malaria, but This time we talked to two burn patients, both were burned from spilling boiling water on themselves, we talked to a woman who had been in there for almost 3 years and looked very thin and frail and we prayed with a couple kids who had either a broken leg or some tests being done.
We had a great time getting to know the people who went to ministry with us. Most of them were youths (youth overseas means anyone not married above 12 or 13) who helped translate and took us to all the different places we traveled.
We also preached on Sundays. We would split off and travel to different churches in the area on Sundays to be able to visit more churches since we were only there for 4 Sundays. Church services in Africa look like this:
8 am- First service starts with prayer and then a "short" message
9:30 am- Second service starts with worship and is followed by a message
1:30 pm- Church ends and usually they will cook us a meal or have soda's and crackers for us
Some of the out-of-the-ordinary things I got to do this month were milk a cow, get water from the well to wash my hands take a shower or do laundry, watch a chicken's head be slowly sliced off (I have video don't worry), and as you saw in the picture above play a drum in one of the village churches.
Outside of ministry, like I hit on in one of my blogs this month, I was being pressed quite a bit. Looking back, I realized a lot of it has to do with who God says I am. I was feeling pressure to look or act a certain way just because I want to please our ministry contacts or the people I am ministering to. I wanted them to see joy in me and love on them as best as I could. But with it being month 8, I just had nothing left in me. I couldn't foster any fake emotions and I felt awful, like I was letting people down or making a bad impression. What I had to realize, and am still working on, is that God has to do this through me. That joy has to be a genuine emotion from the heart. An overflow from Him because of the joy I find in being in love with my Heavenly Father.
It is not my responsibility to look or even act a certain way. I am responsible for pursuing and seeking out my Father and letting Him work and be glorified through me. Not so much focusing on joy or other fruits that I want to be seen bearing, but focusing on Him, who He is and who He says I am and the rest will flow naturally.
As time goes by I continue to see my utter dependence upon my Creator and Sustainer. I see my brokenness and His beauty in the midst of that.
