It’s Friday afternoon and I’m walking down a street in
Kakamega with my team after spending some time relaxing in a park, randomly
meeting fellow Christians who work in one of the local churches, eating some
chappati for less than 25 cents, and Skyping with my family. We stopped by a pineapple stand and pick up
freshly cut pineapple to enjoy while we walk to catch the bus back to
Kakamega. When we arrive in Malava
(about a 30 minute walk to our house) our host (and one of the pastor’s son)
decides we should take a boda-boda back.
A boda-boda is bicycle with a seat behind the “driver’s” seat. One broken bike, 3 boda-bodas racing, and
lots of laughter and shrieks later we arrive at home safe and sound.
24 hours later I’m walking with my team again but this time
it is through the Malanava Forest with some youth from the church. We are on a baboon hunt. It starts raining so we duck into a building
that is in the process of being built to play some games. After the rain stops we head back out on our
hunt…which ends at the main road where we surprisingly find our baboons. We’re told they’re by the road because people
feed them sugar cane and bananas.
Regardless of the fact that we’re no longer in the “wilderness” we begin
chasing the baboons to get a few pictures.
We must have been quite the sight…a bunch of white people chasing
baboons with a bunch of Kenyans chasing the white people.
The following morning we’re sitting in church with 100
fellow believers who happen to be Kenyan.
God completely blessed me when Pastor Malanga asked if anyone was at
church for the first time and 2 women stood up.
These 2 women were from 2 of the homes that Leslie and I visited when we
did door to door evangelism the past week.
One of the women shared how we had prayed for her to receive money for
school funds and Praise God, she received them!
What an amazing testament to the power of our God.
Over and over I get the “is this really my life?” feeling
here in Kenya. I’m trying to hold on to
these experiences and not take them for the grain of salt that could so easily
happen. These experiences are once in a
lifetime…having family prayer and worship time every night with the family
we’re staying with, going for a run and having crowds of children and many
adults cheering for me (they’re probably just not used to someone running so
slow in Kenya!), hearing of person after person giving their life to Christ
daily, or eating some of the freshest (and cheapest) fruit I’ve ever had…and I
thank God for each and every one of these experiences that He has given to me.
