The other day I remembered a really incredible story that I have not been able to share with many people.
Some of you know, others might not, Kenya was an extremely tough month for my team back in July. We actually left our contact in Kenya early because of communication and complex issues. The day before leaving we had to arrange our own transportation and since we were so far outside of town I had to walk to the end of the red dirt road to wave our driver down.
It was an early morning walk, after a very stressful evening. I hadn't slept much in the past few days, but it was a great time to get alone with God. My best and worst moments on the Race came from the times I left to do my own thing.
I got to the end of the road to wait on the man, the only white person around, and I sat with a few of the motorcycle guys who I had talked to other times. They wanted to know if I needed a ride into town, I told them I was just waiting on a matatu.
As I sat there, I noticed all the school children standing around waiting on school to start. There was at least 50 children there but probably more like 75.
Some of them were buying food at the little store and I noticed something, they were all buying these small donut holes (Mandazi).
So, I decided I was going to buy the whole group of kids some of them. A few of them looked like they hadn't eaten that morning and I just wanted to give them some food with my Kenyan Shillings I didn't need anymore.
So I walked over to the small little store and I bought all of his mandazi, it ended up costing me about $10 but I didn't really care. I had a huge bag of donut holes and I started handing them out to the kids.
What started as a very innocent activity quickly turned into a crazy riot.
The 75 kids who had been standing around noticed that I was passing out donuts. As I started passing them out, kids would slowly walk up and I would pass them a donut. A few of them ate theirs instantly and then asked for another one, I laughed at them and moved along to the next kid. These kids have a poverty mindset because of the way they have been raised without knowing when their next meal will be. So they store up as many treats or food as they can, so they wont have to worry about tomorrow.
As more of them started to notice that I was handing all of these out, they started to gather around me and put their hands out.
I was handing out donuts as fast as I could and there were still a ton of hands floating through the air.
At this point, I had the bag above my head because a few of them had tried to steal the whole thing. I was laughing so hard because I was completely crushed by the weight of all the kids circling around me. There was no way for me to escape.
All of the kids who were once standing at the school entrance were now surrounding me. I remember catching glances from the motorcycle guys, all of them were laughing at what was happening.
After a while, I noticed that the kids who were closest to me were just piling donuts in their hands. So I started throwing donuts to the kids who were farther away from me.
I could not stop laughing, it was by far one of the funniest things. A few times I almost fell on the ground as the waves of kids were overwhelming me. It felt like I was being lifted off my feet as the crowd would surge when my hand went into the big bag of mandazi.
For those of you who have been in a "mosh pit" it was very similar to that experience.
Finally after about 10 minutes of passing out the mandazi, I ripped the bag open and just threw all of it as far as I could into the crowd and onto the ground.
The kids quickly scattered off to get the ones that fell to the ground, salvaging as many of them as they could. The weight of the kids lifted off of me and I almost fell to the ground because I had actually been balancing my weight against them.
My abs were hurting because of how much I had been laughing. The whole time I was passing the donuts to the kids I was laughing at how intense the situation had become, over some fried bread.
As soon as all my donuts were gone, I went back to being the out of place muzungu waiting on a matatu.
The kids went back to their school building, the motorcycle guys started talking amongst themselves and the crowd disbursed.
It was just me, laughing with God about what had just happened. Thanking Him for a lasting memory of greatness instead of a bitter taste.
I will still tell you Kenya was my least favorite country, but I sure do have some great memories there.
Kingdom Journeys Update: I am serving in the AIM offices in Gainesville, GA helping to plan and launch a new trip called Kingdom Journeys. I am currently raising support as I work and we are launching the initiative May 10th from Spain with a marathon and 500 mile pilgrimage. It is a truly unique practical learning experience to help raise up the next generation of Kingdom driven leaders. You can learn more about it at KingdomJourneys.org/why/
