Is This Real Life? (Kenya)

 
1. Within our first week of ministry, I knew that this month was going to be different from the others. On our 2^nd day of ministry this month, I had the opportunity to lead someone in the prayer to accept Jesus Christ into her heart for the first time. Her name was Judith, and I couldn’t begin to tell you the words that I said which is evidence enough that the Holy Spirit was speaking through me. It was one of the most incredible experiences in my life to be able to share with her the incredible love of Jesus, and to see her eagerness grow to experience this love for herself. It was also wonderful to be able to see her at church for the 3 weeks that followed and watch her grow in her desire to know Him more fully. It was so beautiful.
 
2. God also revealed His heart for adoption to me this month. Whether that may be overseas or within the States, adoption is something that will without a doubt be a part of my future. I met a sweet baby this month named Precious at one of the orphanages. She stole my heart from the moment I saw her. I pray that in the right time, God will open the door for me to give a family to a child who would not have one otherwise.
 
3. My new team is a bit diverse in age. Liz (our team leader) is 25.,Cassie and I are 24, Adam and Neysa are 22, and Josh is 36. This definitely sets us up for some interesting conversations. Much of the music, TV shows, and pop culture of our youth is quite different from what Josh experienced. One day, Adam was talking about being born in 1990, and Josh responded with “Shew, I’d already been shot at by 1990.” While the statement was not meant as a joke, it made us all laugh at the hilarity of God using all of us uniquely for his purposes.
 
4. This month, we frequented Sisima coffee shop quite a bit. We had made friends with some street vendors outside who we liked to visit every few days, plus it was a good place to get internet and enjoy some peaceful time with God. Cassie and I fell into a passionate love affair with the dark chocolate cake that they sold there, so it was pretty common for us to go there and each order coffee and a piece of cake. Our waiter there was a precious man named Tom. Tom had a heart of gold, but he sure knew how to make a couple American girls feel like fatties. Ha! Every time we would order our cake, he would look us up and down and say “Wooooow!” Obviously, it didn’t affect us enough to make us stop ordering the cake, but it was always a funny and semi-awkward time.
 
5. We visited many different schools and orphanages this month. One school we visited was called Pistis Academy. We got to meet with all of the kids there, pray for them, and then we got to play with them all day. This school was different from all of the others we went to because none of us who visited ever had less than 20 children hanging on us or touching us at any moment throughout that day. While it was quite overwhelming and a bit suffocating, it was so cool to be able to show those kids a love that they may not have otherwise received. They taught us funny songs like “Balance the ball, balance the ball. I do like this, and then like this” and “I want, I want. I want, I want. I want this girl to come and dance for me, like so, like so” which we still like to sing to entertain ourselves and laugh about. Let me tell you, those African kids have swag like you’ve never seen!
 
6. It was very common for us to have no idea what our ministry for the day or week would hold. The common phrase for the month was “Trust in the Lord!!!”  about just about everything. So, it wasn’t too surprising when we arrived at a school one day and were informed that Cassie and I would be teaching English grammar to high schoolers all day. It was definitely an experience for both of us, but it actually opened the door for us to have some amazing conversations with the teenagers about our testimonies and the redemptive powers of Christ. They asked us some amazing questions and God provided some real and powerful answers through us. It was a long and exhausting day, but so very worth it.
 
7. We became great friends with our tuk-tuk driver, Kioko, this month. He was so funny and personable and easy to joke around with. We would often tell him that he needed to marry our house girl, Joyce, and he would just laugh and say “Nice one”. That is now one of our favorite African phrases and we don’t usually go a day or 2 without making a Kioko reference. We miss him and don’t know what in the world we would have done without him when Josh’s backpack was stolen at the end of the month. He was the best!
 
8. Most of our breakfasts this month consisted of sliced bread and butter, so it was really special when a few times this month we were served toasted sandwiches with meat inside. The meat tasted like bologna and we were happy with having a little differentiation, so we didn’t ask questions. It’s a good thing we didn’t because it wasn’t until after we left Kenya that I was informed of what this mystery meat actually was. It seems that my teammate Adam opened the refrigerator near the end of the month and saw the package for our meat. It turns out that our “bologna” was, in fact, cow brains. Nice one.
 
9. Our team has become quite invested in a sweet little television show called  “How I Met Your Mother”. While some of the comments made by the ridiculous Barney Stinson are a little inappropriate at times, the show has become a way that our team can spend time together and laugh even through difficult moments and situations. On one of the episodes, Marshall and Lilly find a creature in their apartment that they named a “cockamouse”, a mixture of a cockroach and a mouse. This month, we were visited by our own cockamouse. This mouse was seen and heard on several unpleasant occasions, but he really made his debut in my airporter where he so kindly ate his way through most of my food stash. Not cool, cockamouse. Not cool.