Kenya Shenanigans:
This month we are living in a small town called Moi’s Bridge, it’s named after the former president of Kenya. The town has a small supermarket, lots of shoe repair stands, several butcheries, and other miscellaneous small businesses. It also is home to many donkeys, sheep, and churches scattered about.
Our ministry contact is a man named Elijah, a powerful man of God. He lives with his wife, Rebecca, and sons, Elisha and Asaph. Our team actually lives in our own house, similar to Elijah’s, about a five minute walk down the road. We have our own kitchen, living room, and beds. Africa continues to surprise us with the living conditions we are offered.
The running water only works about one day a week, so we continue to shower with buckets of water and we boil and filter our drinking water. Rebecca and the housekeeper cook for us, and we usually have rice, potatoes, avocado, bananas, chapatti, and meat sauce sometimes. There is an abundance of Chai tea (tea with milk and sugar) and instant coffee. I think Luke is going to faint when he tastes real brewed coffee again.
Our month has been unique for many reasons. We began the month with one teammate (Gabe) contracting Malaria, another teammate thinking she had a parasite, and another (Lynsey) flying back to the States for medical treatment of her leg/hamstring. It was very difficult for us to lose Lynsey at this point in the trip, but we know that the Lord was calling her back home to the U.S. to take care of her body. We brought her to the small airport in Kitale, Kenya to say goodbye and WOW! I’ve seen similar air strips in movies like Blood Diamond. The “gate” was a bunch of chairs clustered under a tree, and when the luggage compartment on the airplane wouldn’t open, a man pryed it open with a garden rake. Comforting.
Thankfully Lynsey made it home safely!
Our other teammate tested negative for parasites (Yay!), and Gabe has conquered Malaria, thank you Jesus.
Trust these words: Be thankful for American hospitals and health care. You really become grateful for what you have back home when you see a man in street clothes drawing blood from your friend as the rest of the waiting room watches, and when you have to walk out to the outhouse to provide a stool sample.
Oh, and another thing… you know you are in Africa when your ministry contact brings you to the gynecologist to treat Malaria, a bad hamstring and intestinal parasites. His exact words were, “I’m going to bring you to this doctor my wife sees…He’s really good.”
Our ministry this month is all over the map. Elijah is a very busy man who has planted several churches, a primary school, and is on several committees and boards. Last week we took a drive to a remote village to what we thought was a house church meeting, but what actually ended up being a baby shower. Before we knew it, we were planting trees in dedication of baby Shadrach and singing praise songs with 25 African women while drinking Chai tea.
The vehicle we use for ministry is an old van from the 1970’s, which we’ve named “Sunshine” because it looks like the van in the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Sometimes it won’t start, so one of us has to take a wooden stick and pound it on the battery terminals while Elijah turns the key. Works like a charm! Each time we go to a neighboring town for ministry, he drops us somewhere while he brings Sunshine to get fixed. I wonder if we will make it through the month without her completely dying. The roads here are a quick death sentence for any car. I will never complain again about Minnesota pot holes, they ain’t got nothin’ on Africa!
The next couple of days were spent hauling homemade bricks to the church for the construction of the new church building. We hired a donkey and cart to help with the process, and Drea and I got to ride on the cart through the countryside to the location of the bricks. We enlisted the help of the children onsite (actually they volunteered without us asking) and the process went fairly quickly with their help. Even the 3 and 4 year olds carried a brick and loaded it onto the cart. I’m so encouraged by the tenacity of strangers to help each other here. Our cart and truck got stuck in the mud several times going to and from the church, and each time the neighbors would run out and help push. They didn’t expect anything in return, they just saw a need and wanted to help. The kids are the same. They come running to help us and they never complain. It warms my heart every time.
Other ministry this month has been door-to-door evangelism, preaching at different churches on Sundays, and participating in weekday small group meetings of members from the church. Every day looks different, which is great for distracting us from the temptation to dwell on being home soon.
Speaking of home, it’s just around the corner! We fly from Nairobi, Kenya to New York City on May 29th, and then we hop on a plane to Minneapolis on May 30th. It’s been difficult to remain present at times this month, knowing that we will reunite with America, our family, friends, and comforts of home very soon.
But for now, Kenya calls. The Lord continues to teach us something with each new day. We continue to call each day blessed, because that’s what it is. We are so blessed. Here we are in Kenya, Africa, serving the Lord and people, and really being served so much more ourselves. That’s the funny thing about missions. You think you go to serve people, but really you receive so much more in return. We will return home with an unending list of the mighty things the Lord did, using little ole’ us. We are just regular peeps, who left on this amazing adventure in obedience to an itch that God put inside our hearts.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for your prayers along this journey. We love you all so much.
The Duffneys
