2010. Its here! I can’t believe it. If I try to think back on this past year it just blows my mind where God has taken me. At this time last year if someone said I’d be doing missions all over the world and that I’d celebrate the next year in Africa I would have never believed them. Never in a million years. But here I sit, in the beautiful, friendly country of Kenya. Who gets to spend New Years in Nairobi?! God is so good! Only he could have brought me here.
As great as the Middle East was, if I’m being honest, its a bit of a relief to be out of there. I had no idea how heavy it was to be there spiritually until we got on the Kenyan Air flight and met the sweetest, friendliest, kindest Kenyans. It only got better as we got out of the airport and into the country. People will just come up to you, grab your hand to shake it and say hello. Even as you’re walking along they’ll just take your hand and shake it in passing. Then they give you a smile that could light up a room and you can’t even help but smile back. They’re just so beautiful!
Have you ever noticed that people who have a heart for Africa are completely taken and madly in love with the people there? No matter how short a time they have spent on the continent they have completely and utterly given their heart away and have a special place for them. I’ve always heard people talk about how they love Africans so much and fallen in love with them. I’ve never really understood it. I always thought Oh yeah, thats great! Good for you! and I meant it, but I had no idea what the draw and pull was for them. We haven’t set out to our ministries or made contacts yet, but already, just in passing, these people are catching my attention, and I’m starting to understand what everyone else who has been here before understands. They’re beginning to pull on my heart and I haven’t even really met them yet!
One day the J and K Squads faced off in a few American football games. Me, being a Canadian, thought this was a great opportunity for me to witness American culture at its finest in ways that I’ve only ever heard legends of. I loved it and also though it was kind of hilarious (but only in the most endearing way of course). Football is a really big deal to my brothers and sisters below the border!
Soon we had quite a crowd of locals who were watching the Americans running around across a field, throwing a weird shaped ball and then sliding around through the red dirt and mud. They loved it. I was standing on the side of the field when this little girl in a pink fluffy dress comes up to me. I got down to her level to say hi and ask her what her name is. But before I even got there, she reached out and held my hand. My heart melted in a instant. I looked down at her tiny dark hand in mine and watched as she moved her thumb back and forth across mine. I’d try to ask her some questions. The most I got out of her was her name: Ashley. Or at least, thats what it sounded like. She was just content to stand there, hold my hand and look back and forth between me and the football game. All I could do was stare at her and then sometimes I’d glance at the game just cause I felt a little silly to keep looking at her. I wanted words between us, but they didn’t come. Maybe she didn’t even understand me. I have no idea. I didn’t know what to say. Words failed. So I just smiled and continued to look at her little hand that was wrapped around mine. And it was there that I began to understand, if only a little little bit.
