The wheels are moving, but the bus is not.
The wheels spin faster, spinning the mud from the morning shower into the air like a fountain. The driver is alone. Pastor Zach, Kayla and I see him struggling from down the road. We're looking for the lost, but we decide to take a break for the broken-down. We let our shoes sink into the mud, grip the rusting white hood and together shove it out of the mud embankment and onto the slightly drier road.
He smiles, says thanks (many Kenyans speak English), and drives off to start his day. As the van moves, it reveals a young woman named Esther, who had watched all of this unfold. She talked to us on the road for a few minutes before inviting us in for tea. Her friend Joseph met us on the way out and decided to come back in.
She had been planning to walk to town to shop, but hadn't; he had been planning to get to work early but didn't. Instead, the five of us found each other and began a friendship.
***
Their struggles are the same.
In Kenya, children are taught to read and write — in Swahili and English — before they are four. They are pushed to specialize in high school and to attend a university already knowing what they want to do. By the time they've graduated, they're expected to have found jobs.
Joseph has a good job, but he works on the weekends, and he doesn't have time to go to church on Sundays. He wants to give up more for God, but he doesn't have a family who supports him. "If I go to church on Sundays," he says, "I don't eat."
He is also watching all of his friends get married and wondering why he hasn't found his wife yet. The temptations surround him just like they surround us — just like they surround me.
Esther is stuck at a job she doesn't care for and feels like she can't get out because she isn't supported either. She believes in Jesus and has a relationship with Him, but she doesn't feel like she has a community — a church — that supports her. She wants a mentor. She wants to be discipled. She, too, wants a spouse and hasn't found him yet.
Halfway around the world, people my age have the same big questions, the same struggles and the same hurt. This is a lesson I've learned many times, but, for Joseph and Esther, it was their first encounter with that truth.
***
We don't want to, but we need to leave for lunch. We're an hour late, but that's practically on time in Africa. Joseph and Esther lead us back to the dirt road, take a picture with us, take our emails and ask to see us again.
As we walk back toward the church, I turn back for one last look. They're standing in the very place the bus was stalling, smiling. All they needed was a hand to help them out of the mud.
