On
our first full day of ministry in Lodwar we spent the morning among a community of the
Turkana people. They live in the desert
of northwest Kenya
in homesteads that consist of a fence of gathered sticks that runs through the
sides of three or four small huts made from similar sticks. Inside the main hut is usually a collection
of goatskins to form a floor. The
community we visited is located about 12 miles outside of Lodwar. They keep herds of goats and camels and their
homesteads are about a quarter of a mile apart at the least.
As
we walked from house to house we greeted the people inside, “Ajocha”, and they
would greet us in return, “Ajoch”. We
met one mother who was seated inside with her five children. We talked with her, through our interpreter,
for about ten minutes. We learned that
she was a Christian and she loved the Lord very much. We offered her a few encouraging words and
prayed with her. As we got ready to
leave she apologized for having no tea to offer us and showed us a small bowl
with a little bit of corn, explaining that was all she had for the
children. Christi reached in her bag to
pull out a small bag of cereal that she gave to the children. They were skeptical at first, but once they
tried it, they could not stop eating.
After
we thanked her for her hospitality we moved on and found the other half of our
group seated under a tree with a woman and a few herdsmen. They were with the pastor of the church that
was set up to serve the area in 1995.
This woman was another believing Christian who attended Pastor Elim’s
church. After we shared with her and
prayed with her she told us that just the morning before she had been praying
that God send her messengers to offer her encouragement and she believed we
were his answer to her prayer.
As
we walked across the white sand, sparsely populated with trees covered in sharp
thorns, I turned to Ian and said, “If this isn’t a romantic life, I don’t know
what is.” The night before we had talked
about how the World Race had often been romanticized as we prepared, but that
it so far feels like we are simply living life.
Still as I walked through the deserts of northern Kenya, helping
to spread the gospel among tribal people through interpreters, I couldn’t help
but call it quite romantic. Quite storybook. The kind of thing you might always dream of,
but never imagine doing. If we can’t
call this romantic, romanticism has lost all meaning.
