I stayed with teams Divine Collision and Uzulu for the month of July in Kitale, Kenya since it wasn’t safe to travel solo. It turned out to be such a blessing to stay in one place for an entire month, without having to travel from city to city, team to team every other week. I was able to actually sink my roots (as much as you can sink roots on the World Race…haha) and invest in a community for the first time in four months.
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My Prayer at the beginning of the month:
“I want to see and feel and touch Your heart, Lord…See the beauty in Your creation…I want to be rooted and grounded in love, the understanding of Your heart for me enabling me to understand Your heart for others.”
Man…did I ever feel His heart for His people and see the beauty in His creation.
I was absolutely captivated by Kenya and its people.
MY FAVORITE MOMENTS:
Being escorted to town by ten high school boys while they rapped for me
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Dance party with the nannies in the kitchen
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Playing soccer with the boys in the front yard
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Learning swahili worship songs and teaching english ones
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Seeing a girl, Liliana, healed
Doubles ping pong tournament using a couple of desks and a yard stick
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Checkers tournament with half the village
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Young man giving his life to the Lord as we talked about the parable of the soils
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Playing soccer inside a classroom, using a basketball, paint cans and rollers
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Ringworm and lice…not exactly “favorite” moments, but significant ones nonetheless. 🙂
While visiting a school during recess, the kids circled around us…so we prayed over them…then we all ran like a herd to church
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Ran into Tyler Beutel, part of my Wind River Ranch family…small world!
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Teaching Kenyans how to floss
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Being around someone else that normally drinks their coffee through a straw 🙂 (Shout out to Daniel Thornhill!)
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Doing workout videos with the kids outside
Killing a turkey in the backyard for Thanksgiving in July
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Throwing a 13th birthday party for our contacts’ daughter Glory
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All of us girls reading a book out loud together….felt like we were 90 🙂
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Meeting the president of Coca Cola
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Touring a Christian radio station during a live broadcast
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Frequent visits to the airstrip to try to hitch a ride on a little crop duster; the closest we got was to talk with the owner of one. haha
Benefited from Jeremiah’s guitar fast; he lent it to me on the three conditions that I learn a song, name his guitar and hug it everyday. 🙂 My fingertips are now calloused from learning my one song, his guitar’s new name is Nancy and her love tank is full. Mission accomplished! 🙂
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God miraculously bringing in funds for the entire squad!
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Memorized Psalms 124 and 125 as a family
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Preached in the slums of Kipsongo
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Threatened to be taken to jail for not wearing seatbelts…even though there weren’t any seatbelts to wear….minor detail
WHAT I LEARNED/PONDERED:
How much of our walk is true relationship with Jesus and how much is tradition and doctrine of man? (Mark 7:6-7)
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No one will ever be able to love me better than the Lord does…He knows how to pursue my heart because He created it.
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To trust and confide in another speaks volumes in demonstrating your love and value for them
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Once again, outer appearance does not define beauty (was tested by a horrible haircut in Thailand…pretty mullet-like…haha)
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I want my outer life to flow from my inner life
I want my public and private worship to be one and the same
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All is permissible, not all is beneficial. (1 Corinthians 6:12)
Love is sacrifice
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Take thoughts of inadequacy captive. He who is in you is more than adequate.
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Becoming a true worshipper
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Listening prayer
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Just as we love to read a good story, we ought to aim to live a good story. (“A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, Donald Miller)
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Be true to your convictions and stand firm in what you know is right, even if you’re all alone in it. (James 4:17)
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Over-communication on the front end, especially when dealing with other cultures, is crucial.
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Don’t let your freedom be someone else’s cage. (Romans 14)
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Words are so powerful…they create new realities! (Romans 4:17)
New vs. Old covenant…which one are we living by? (“New Covenant” sermon series by Andrew Chapman)
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One of Satan’s primary attacks is on our identities…interesting that God so often addresses our identities as His beloved children.
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The power of eating and doing devos together as a family. (Throwing that one in the box for later..haha)
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It’s more blessed to give than to receive. When you receive, you just receive. But when you give, it allows you to experience the joy and freedom of giving while actually receiving abundantly more than you gave in the first place. (Acts 20:35)
The potential witness in hospitality toward strangers
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Leave all you are for all you can become…the Lord wants to do a new thing.
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Eyes truly are a window to the soul…you can tell so much about a person through his/her eyes.
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My ideal form of evangelism would be to build a relationship with someone and live alongside them for awhile so that both my life and my love validate my words.
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Our righteousness lies in our faith, not in our righteous acts.
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Leadership is lonely.
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Jesus’ great commission was to make disciples…not converts.
“God’s greatest glory is in man fully alive.”
Be who you are and do what you love.
I let the pressure of squadleading steal my ‘life’ my first few months of walking out this position.
I stopped just ‘being’ who I was, feeling like I had to fulfill some role instead. Suddenly I felt like I had to be everything to everyone.
Therefore, I no longer had time for the things I love most…intimacy with Jesus., photography, ministry, writing, adventures, working out, etc.
After debrief at the end of May, the three of us squadleaders were toast…on the verge of burnout when God reminded us of the simplicity of life in Him…
‘Just seek me and be…I’ll take care of everything else.’
As He showed me in Peru, the things I need in leadership aren’t born from striving. Instead, they flow out of a heart intimately in tune with the Spirit of the Living God.
So I placed intimacy with the Lord back where it belongs and began once again to do those things that make me come alive.
And I did come alive, and that life is contagious without any striving necessary on my part.
Where we are now: Seeta near Kampala, Uganda. Staying in a member of parliament’s house….with occasional running water, spotty electricity and a slew of GIANT cockroaches. This area is ripe for the harvest…..can’t wait to share some INCREDIBLE stories about our first week here…after Part 2 of course!!
