Jambo! Sopa! Bwana Asifiwe! Misisi Yesu!
My team just spent a month living in the Masaai Mara region of Kenya. While others were hearing Swahili all month, my team was learning to speak Masaai! It is an extremely remote region of the world and definitely the most isolated place my team has lived at thus far. For a taste, after leaving Nairobi, we took a three hour ride to the closest town, Narok. From there, we pretty much took a five hour safari ride off road just to get to our location.
Each day, Tyler, Lizi, and I ran until the sunrise. Each day, we were constantly surrounded by herds of cattle, goats, donkeys, and sheep. Each day, we heard this farting noise outside our pastor's house. We were in hysterics each time, especially when Pastor told us that it was the noise from a bee drilling in wood. Each day, we went to bed under a night sky of endless stars, the Milky Way, and the occasional hyena "laugh." I kid you not.
The town of Oloolaimutia (say that three times) was founded by our pastor, Samuel. He is a born Masaai, turned born again Christian. This guy is legit. He and his brother have killed lions, cheetahs, buffalos, elephants. Our ministry mainly consisted of teaching at the primary school within walking distance of the church and occasionally walking to nearby villages (Manyattas). Ministry wasn't too difficult this month. But there was something amiss about the place.
Being the first World Race team in this location, much less the first missionaries in that town, we spent much of the month setting the groundwork. The area is known for having many tourists, and so we encountered the difficulty of defeating that mindset among the locals and establishing ourselves as missionaries, NOT tourists. NOT Mzungus.
As the month went on, a few of the team members were having trouble sleeping at night, or feeling anxious, etc. I had felt a strange spirit about the town, and the Lord revealed to me over the course of the few weeks that there was a spirit of restlessness there.
There is much to be done in the Masaai Mara, and we felt like the Lord is going to do a great work in the region, bringing people to the creator, instead of worshipping the creation. It was an exciting month to experience such a different lifestyle, and it was a blessing to be the first team there to establish the precedents of the World Race.
Look out for upcoming blogs to see what else God taught us this month!
