“Will You Stay Here Forever?”
I struggle with being in the moment on a nearly daily basis. Even now, as I sit between Jeanne and a Kenyan outside the internet shop, my mind is elsewhere. I spent the morning taking ‘snaps’ (as it is referred to here) or photos of the people in the neighborhood, including my adopted family. I enjoyed getting to know them even more and my new sister Regina even told her youngest son to call me Auntie as I tried to milk her cow and rinse her dishes in between kicking a soccer ball to him. Later, I held a 1-week old and listened to a 92-year old tell me stories about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
While I usually prefer hiking or going on a safari or exploring on my day off, getting to know the Kenyans around me was a new type of ‘exploring.’ I listened to stories of sickness, unemployment, joy at a child’s birth, grief at a parent’s passing, how to care for chickens, when to plant corn, the importance of marriage, the love of God, worries about the rain, and dreams of the future. I held over a dozen hands, smiled and laughed with women my age at my expense (my accent is not normal here), sat in the dirt with older women (without understanding a single word), relaxed in the shade of a hut with children, pulled a cow by its leash (it was blocking the dirt path that leads to my house), watched a teenager apply a mud-and-manure mixture to his hut, and nearly cried as a mother shared about her 2-year old who has malaria. Through all of the emotions—both the joys and the sorrows of life of those who are in rural poverty here in Kenya, I was delighted and humbled when my adopted grandmother asked me, “will you stay here forever?”
Now, “forever” is a long time, but I would be lying if I said I had not previously thought about returning to Kenya to live on a more permanent basis. I have enjoyed loving and knowing the people here and I am grateful for the next 12 days to continue to love and learn from them. It may not be “forever,” but I know that God is faithful and I will be faithful with the remaining days.
