For the past two months on the race, my team and I have been living and working and being sick in Isabania, Kenya. Yes, two months.
We spent the first month, month 7 of our race, there and then because of an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, we were asked to stay in Kenya for our month 8 of the race as well.
Our ministry during month 7 and month 8 looked like this:
- Preaching every Sunday
- Leading Sunday School and Bible Study every Sunday
- Visiting people from the church in their homes
- Preaching at hospitals
- Leading devotions for the police department
- Preaching at the jail
- Leading devotions at local schools
- Playing with street kids
- Speaking to young girls about FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and the choice they have to stand up and fight for their rights
- Living life cooking and talking with the amazing people
So the ministry was great; there was always something to do. And the family we were living with became our own. Pastor Abraham and his wife Jane were our parents for two months. They lived with us and loved us unconditionally through everything. They cared for us and prayed for us when we were sick. They laughed with us. They cooked with us. They served us with incredible hospitality and joy. They had four kids: Ronnie (12), Peace(10), Bella (7), and Victor (2). These kids became like our own siblings. We learned their quirks, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, and their giftings. It was a beautiful family experience to live with.
Pastor Abraham, Jane, and their daughter Peace
The church that Pastor Abraham pastored, was called Deliverance Church of Isabania. It is an incredibly Spirit-filled church with community unlike I’ve ever seen. This’s church was a literal out-pouring of what the “church” is supposed to look like.
Deliverance Church Isabania
However, my first love in Africa is Tanzania. It has been for a few years now, so in the back of my mind, when we got the news that we were going to stay in Kenya, my first thought was, “why don’t we just go back to Tanzania? I mean, I have ministry contacts there…” Well, my first thoughts and my ideas don’t really matter to the Lord when He already has an agenda for you.
Everyone was getting SICK. From typhoid and malaria on the team, to me being in the hospital because of some bleeding amoebic cysts in my stomach. We were not well, and we were all pretty sure is was coming from Kenya.
On top of the sickness, I was struggling with continuing to lead my team. I had led for months now, and all the emotional wear and tear was seriously getting me down. Roots of people pleasing and self-sacrifice were eating away at me.
It seemed as if all of these things were piling up on me and sitting on my shoulders and I was picking them up one by one and adding on the weight of a new burden. It was not ok and I wanted out. Out of leading and out of Kenya.
But God had a different plan in mind. I thought I wasn’t going to lead any more after month 7, but God had a different plan in mind, so I led month 8 too. I was worn out. But the whole time the Lord was whispering to me softly, “Ashley, let me carry that. You can’t carry all this on your own.”
I ignored that soft whisper until I got out of Kenya. I looked back on my two months there and saw from an outsiders perspective how much easier it could have been if I had just listened. If I had taken the words of Jesus seriously when he says, “Ye who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. ”
I was weary and I was crazy amounts of heavy laden, but I didn’t choose to look for rest from the Lord. I thought that I, in my own strength, could muster up enough of myself to pour out. But I got hospitalized, so that didn’t really work out for me…
Looking back on those two months, some of the best and hardest and most full months of the race, I can see what God was trying to teach me then. I’m hoping to learn from those months of being dry and being worn so the trend doesn’t keep repeating itself.
I know that my plans and thoughts of what the World Race would be are designed completely differently because God knew what I needed it to be.
I will end this blog with a verse that I took away from Kenya. Something that I keep trying to tell myself everyday, so I don’t fall into the old habits of trying to operate out of my own strength.
“He must become greater, I must become less.” John 3:30
Be blessed.
sisk
