Kenya. It looks like The Lion King here.
We have even learned that “Simba” is really just Swahili for “lion” and that the phrase “Hakuna Matata” is truly used here. Antoni, our house keeper, was a little confused when we got so excited after he told us that it was “no problem” – hakuna matata – for us to borrow some laundry detergent.
(We had accidentally bought detergent that was only for handwashing clothes. Silly us, we actually have a washing machine this month! My fingernails will finally stay painted for more than two days.)
Speaking of some of the exciting things we have experienced in Kenya so far (like having a washing machine) here are a few other celebrations that we have been able to thank God for:
Only minutes outside the Nairobi airport our team spotted our first giraffe in Africa.
We have had the fun challenge of cooking for ourselves this month! This means that we have to grocery shop (boo) but it also means that we have had spaghetti, mac n cheese, tacos, and many other delicious this-tastes-like-home-meals!
We have running water this month and an actual western toilet. The shower only has one temperature, not-quite-luke-warm, but it falls on your head from above, so that is just fine with us.
We are staying in a beautiful apartment (that we share with some cranky German neighbors), but our land-lord lives across the yard and he shares our patio with us. Meaning we get to use his cable and his decent sized tv. The tv is usually playing whatever soccer match is on, but it has been nice to catch up on the outside world a little bit through sports, tv shows, and the news. (Praying for you Paris!)
Okay, but back to Mombasa . . .
The stark contrast between Kenya and Rwanda was immediately felt when I stepped out of the van we took from the airport to the bus station. Busy, dirty streets. Cramped, squeezed together shops, restaurants, and grocery stores. I tried to tell myself it was like being in Chicago, and while Nairobi is truly a large city, which therefore brings some trash, business, and un-safe-ish feelings with it, there definitely still was a 3rd world feeling to this bustling hub.
We had passed through a beautiful downtown on the way to the Tahmeed bus station. A green garden, tall skyscrapers, a beautiful golf course . . . but the bus station was not in that part of town.
At 9:00 pm we stacked our bags below the bus, trudged up the steps, and eagerly awaited our departure. The shops were all closed for the night. The lights from their open doors had been replaced by a few trash fires and huddled silhouettes and by the flashing colorful lights that had been wired to the outside of some of the seedier looking buses and all of the matatus (taxis). Their gaudy paint jobs with bright colors, weird slogans, and random logos must not have been enough to draw attention. (I wonder if Adidas, Miami Heat, Spongebob, Air Jordan, Lois Vuitton, Guitar Center, Stars Entertainment, Manchester United, and Hello Kitty know that they sponsor taxi’s and buses here. . .)
(Do not worry mom, our bus was nice, comfy, full of decent looking people, had wifi, and is actually better than any bus I had been on in America)
Our bus TV screens showed a movie that would never have played in public in America, let alone the other African countries we had been in. It had to have been rated R. Language, violence, blood, and killing filled the screen and streamed over the speakers. I am not sure if it would have bothered me if we would have come straight from America, but after the heavily edited TV and radio of Uganda and Rwanda, this was a pretty swift and big change. I closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed for sleep, I prayed for our journey, I prayed for Kenya.
Eventually we awoke to a brighter morning on the outskirts of Mombasa. This coastal town is still a little dirtier and little sketchier than I would have hoped, but we feel safe, we feel protected, and we feel like God is working here in many amazing ways.
Pastor Allen is our main contact here and he and his wife have been a delight. We do not see him often during the week as he has many jobs to do, but Pastor Philip and our driver Alex we see almost daily as they make sure they pick us up and get us to where we need to go. No public transportation for us this month! The tuk-tuks look fun and the decked out Mutatos look like an interesting ride, but we are pretty content with our air conditioned van and Alex’s contagious laugh.
Monday was the first day that Alex picked us up. We headed down the road and over the river. Our van squeezed down a dirt road and brought us up to the gates of the primary school of Manna Worldwide and The Hope Foundation. Good News Academy. We stepped out of the van into the rain and was greeted by the songs of the children who were huddled under and awning across the yard. We got to meet them up close and personal later.
The week had been spent playing games, encouraging the children, and loving on them and the teachers.
We sat down and vision casted with the teachers at one point during the week, and their passion for the Lord and for the children was contagious.
The Hope Foundation is the local organization here that the school and teachers are a part of, Manna Worldwide is the larger organization that has come alongside them and helped to provide a nutritional program, support, donors, and sponsors. The children who go to the Good News Academy are sponsored, as their families could not have afforded to send them to school otherwise.
On the last day we were there we watched as the teachers handed out and helped to read the letters that sponsors had sent to their sponsored kids. We walked into one classroom to see a teacher helping her younger students write their response letters along with drawing pictures. It was adorable.
Most of these children at the school come from Muslim homes. Many of the children end up coming to the Lord and leading their entire families to Christ and to the church that meets at the high school. This school is truly doing wonders for its community. God is truly doing wonders for this community.
The Hope Foundation has a mission to bring hope to one child at a time. The teachers challenged us to encourage the kids to stay in school as the tourism trade lures many kids to the beaches to make easy money off of the wealthy European tourists who come here. The rich older men who come here also lure many of the girls out of school and into the bars and into a life of early pregnancy and broken hearts. The teachers were pretty sure that during the break they have from now until the beginning of January they will lose between 3-5 students (or more) out of their 300 student body population to either pregnancy, early marriage, or to the “beach boy” tourist trade.
They encouraged us to find at least one child, one youth that we could connect with, inspire, and bring hope to. So while we played games like Bata, Bata, Jivu Bata (that is Swahili for Duck, Duck, Gray Duck – Minnesota represent!), 4 corners, Tag, Simon Says, Football, and Volleyball, we were also looking for ways to truly connect. While we served them their lunch we asked their names, we asked how they were, and we looked for the familiar faces that we knew. (They also get breakfast at the school, but we didn’t get their early enough to help them serve that)
I asked many girls what they wanted to be when they grew up. I asked about their favorite subjects, their favorite Bible story, and their favorite songs. When I learned that many wanted to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, bank managers, or to join the Kenya Navy I told them all that they would be wonderful at it and I know they will have great opportunities if they study hard and stay in school.
On Thursday us four girls sat down in a classroom with the 7th and 8th grade girls, and at the request of their teacher Rose, we had a discussion about self-esteem, hygiene, sex, and teen pregnancy. We asked the girls to write down questions anonymously, any questions they wanted to concerning those topics on pieces of paper, and we would answer them to the best of our ability.
We spent the next hour pouring into those girls. We shared our beliefs in who God made us as women. We shared our own self-esteem struggles and victories – most of those fun questions being tackled by Carson and Amanda. We talked about boyfriends, relationships gone wrong, and how we all had come to the conclusion that boys and boyfriends could really wait, and it worked out much better to wait until you were older to start dating.
As the married lady I was given all the questions about sex and with help from Annaka, who is a social worker who has worked specifically with child sexual abuse, we talked through many tough questions about how we are in charge of our bodies, we have the right to say no, we have the right to walk away, and more importantly we have a God who cares for us and who has laid out the best plans for us and our bodies in the Bible.
We think the girls were a little shocked that these scandalous knee-showing-Americans had some of the same views as their fuddy-duddy teachers. We blew a few of their American-girl-stereotypes out of the water and as we did so we tried to challenge them to really focus on who they are as individuals, who they are as daughters of God, and who they are as future world changers.
I am not sure if what we all did this week stuck with everyone. I will never really get to see what effects came out of our games, our talks, and our hugs. But as long as one child felt the love of God, as long as I could help just one child receive a little more hope, then it was all worth it.
Kenya looks like the lion king. Sometimes the images are as beautiful as “pride rock” and other times it looks more like the hyena camp. But I know that as children of the king we own everything the light touches. The bonus? Our guide is not as mystic and crazy as Rafiki (which means “Friend”) Our King is more powerful than Mufasa (which does not actually have a meaning) and when we step past what the light touches, when we step a foot into a place with darkness we do not need to fear, the light will come with us and beat back the darkness.
This kingdom is ours, not because we are mighty, but it is ours because it is and always has been God’s. Long live the King.
Please pray for us, the teachers at Good News Academy, those a part of The Hope Foundation, and for the community here.
Also join us in prayer as we are waiting for the last of our funding to come in. We need to be fully funded by the end of December. God has given me a peace that passes all understanding when it came to our fundraising. A big thank you for everyone who has been a part of God’s work in that. We have felt truly blessed by everyone who has helped us reach out to the great ministries we have been partnered with. Any size donation is truly a blessing. Thank you to everyone who reads our blog, who prays for us, and who has supported!!
