Here is a journal entry from my first week in Kenya, Africa.
I’m excited to use my artistic gifts again to paint the walls of the orphanage here in Kenya. At one of the homes for abandoned, orphaned and some run away children of Katile that Ben has established. Ben the pastor at one of the thirty seven churches and five orphanages he has planted. We are living with him and his family this month.
Today we painted the walls of the school/dinning room at the orphanage and tomorrow I will start drawing pictures that the team will help me paint. I have envisioned numbers, letters, rainbows, bees and bugs with a big golden sun. I’m hopeful it will turn out well and the children will love it.
After the painting we went out to play with the kids. I sat on a pile of wood and a bunch of girls came over and started to braid my hair. They don’t speack much English so I sat still as they talked among themselves while braiding. They were amazed at my hair, which is unlike their own dark thick curly hair. They were chattering excitedly, all I could understand was monzungu, which means white person in Swahili.
One of the youngest children, about two years old, sat on my lap during the church service on our first day there. I love her smile that spreads across her face every time she sees me. Another one of the girls, about seven or eight has attached her self to me. As soon as I get there in the morning she clings on and won’t let go, even long enough for me to go to the bathroom. She is a really sweet girl and I love her to pieces.
One day after some beans and chapatti for lunch one of my teammates, Staci, and I were talking to one of the teachers about our faith and he asked what we thought it meant to “be saved.” I told him my story about how I was saved. He told us he was a Christian but didn’t think he was saved. We explained more about it and I told him about my experiences and then he happy said “now I understand”. He told us that many of the churches around here say that you have to be baptized or go to there church to be “saved.” I explained that all he had to do to be saved was believe in Jesus Christ, confess that he is a sinner and that Jesus died for his sins, and accept Jesus into his heart so that he could have a personal relationship with Him. I don’t think he was ready to do that right then but I told him at he could do it anytime he was ready and that it was between him and God. Then our conversation was interrupted by lunch.
Only the first three days of in Ministry in Africa and already so much has happened. This is what I dreamed the mission field would be like; caring for the orphans and the poor, sharing the true gospel with people and living a abandoned life style. It wasn’t until Africa that I truly felt like I was experiencing these. I’m excited to see how else God is going to use us here this month. I feel like we are making a difference in the lives of the people here and they are making even a bigger difference in my life.
I love them all so much!
