I lay here in bed with a mosquito net hung above my face. For once its not like the college days when the net was my girlish accent to the room. Rather a necessary precaution to not get sick. The raindrops hit the tin roof that the net is strung from as they roll down towards the clay earth. Everything here in Kenya seems so normal. It’s real life…but it seems like it should be shocking, appalling, distant. The bugs outside sing their melodies to The Creator just a classic summer day in The States. The sun shines through the clouds above me as Pastor and I walk back side by side from Church…the beams peeking through from Heaven. Trees, bicycles, kids laughter, smiles, soccer, fruit…its all the same. Yet something within me says there is a difference. Something within me tells me there is a separation, a distance.
Is this true? Is this real? What is it?
My conversation with Pastor on the way home from music practice began to remove the film from my eyes. Things are different. Things are vastly different…at least from the corner of my little world. Life here is slower and from what I can tell, completely unstructured. Life is simpler which takes me back to the real things that matter like laughter, love, and people.
I realized as I walked home with our Pastor friend that somewhere in my walk with God, things have gotten too complicated. And as He pointed out I don’t laugh much anymore. Our walk home is really a symbolic walk in my heart to the home of God. Somewhere in those steps those our house, my heart made steps towards My Father as I began to see that Christianity doesn’t have to be so complicated, so filled with messy that the American church has tried to bless it with. This man of God prays for his church members, his sheep, BY NAME. Beautiful. When was the last time I was focused on praying for sheep by name? He also shared with me that he had been fasting all last month, just taking water. So I asked why, to which he humbly responded, “To pray for the church.� This man in the middle of Kenya…a place I have so often viewed as lacking everything is so full of the things that really matter. This man and his family is winning my heart. (Syd…you’d be so proud…I may actually miss this place too. J) As Pastor and I continued talking, he in his calm, humble voice shared with me that he wasn’t interested in prosperity of the church but for souls to be won. To which tears welled up in my eyes. It’s amazing how such a heart-felt, overflowing comment could produce such conviction within me. Immediately I was shocked yet sobered at how devoted he was to the Kingdom. He truly gave of himself to the King and His Kingdom. It wasn’t tainted, perverted, nor selfish. Rather the natural response to The One he loved. And so I immediately saw my lack of devotion, my lack of vision for the lost. One might think, “Em, you’re OUT ON a mission trip, shouldn’t you care about winning lost souls to Christ?� And I do, but I know that I could give more of myself & my heart to caring for God’s people & sharing the Gospel. And that’s what I was convicted about. I don’t just want the looks and appearances of a good little missionary. I want to really live & love the lost. So that is what I am wrestling through and thinking about.
So yes…there IS a separation. There IS a distance. But its not what we may initially think. We are the ones who are lacking. We are separate from the heart of simplicity that rules over this place for the good. We are separate from the heart of devotion that drives us to our knees to pray for God’s sheep by name. We are distant from the things that really matter. And I say we, because whether you want to admit it or not, this is true of yourself in some degree or another.
