More on July in Kenya…
OUR MINISTRY:
Door to door evangelism and prayer in the slums
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Preaching, singing and testimonies at church
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Painting a church/orphanage/school
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Orphanage ministry
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Children’s program at school
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Street children
THINGS THAT BECAME THE NORM:
African Chai
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Chapati
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Fresh popcorn
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Random strangers filling the empty seats of your table at restaurants
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Ice cold showers
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Women’s handshakes…extremely ghetto…surprisingly hearty and robust.
Being lost on matatus (public vans)
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Being called “Madame”
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Little kids chanting “Howa you, Howa you!!”
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No matter what you say to a Kenyan, their response will almost always be “I’m fine”.
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Boda bodas (bicycles with an extra seat on the back…I never rode one because they were all driven by rail-thin men and I felt guilty having them haul my carb-loaded self around…haha)
Being called ‘mzungu’ (white person) and being charged ‘mzungu’ prices. I’m shocked at how young some children are that yell that to us as we pass them on the street….Sometimes I wonder if ‘mzungu’ was their first word after popping out of the womb. 🙂
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Latrines…if everyone else who’d gone before me hadn’t missed the hole, it miiiiiiight have a chance at being bearable. But that’s yet to happen. (gag)
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Daily power outages
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Every single person, stranger or not, wanting your e-mail address
Men hold hands as a sign of friendship…I think it’s still a little awkward for our guys. 🙂
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Men having many wives/girlfriends
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Maiz (corn) fields everywhere…therefore eating it in every form imaginable
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Ugali (tasteless corn mush)
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CARBS…bluh
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Large groups of Kenyans singing is how I imagine heaven sounding
Dancing in church..I. Love. It.
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Moto rides in the rain, sitting three deep with no helmets…and how about the time our driver got arrested… 🙂
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Having random schoolgirls and men on bikes joining us on our runs
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Beggars
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Police traffic checkpoints about every 100 yards, waiting to rip you off
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Waiting
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Body odor…I actually got used to it…(disclaimer: not my own) 🙂
THREE THINGS THAT DESERVE MORE THAN A BULLET POINT:
THE TREE
Stumbled upon this tree on the tail-end of a run on one of our first days in Kitale. For the first week or two it was my own little sanctuary where I could go and pray and soak up the presence of the Lord with no one around.
Exception: One day, Liliana and I were chatting under the tree when 1,400 high school boys came running by us on all sides; it sounded like a stampede of buffalo. 🙂
BISHOP BIRECH BIBLE COLLEGE
After letting the secret out about ‘The Tree’, I had to seek out a different place for my alone time. And that is how I stumbled upon Bishop Birech Bible College. I asked one man if I could sit on their property and read, and before I knew it they had brought me lunch, tea, water and I’d met every single person there. They all quickly became like family and I went back to visit every chance I got. From volleyball tournaments, to watching a wedding show with a bunch of guys over dinner, to praying for our families, to convos with the students about the Lord and their perceptions of Americans, I felt more at home there than I have in months.
HEALING
I received this message from my friend and mentor, Becky Ball, one evening:
“I believe I had a word from the Lord for you this morning: Don’t be discouraged about what you have prayed for in the past that didn’t happen as you were expecting or hoping but continue in what you know to be the heart of The Father and His Word. Your faith will only increase as you continue to pray and operate your authority He has given you. I love you.”
God’s timing was perfect, because the very next morning was quite the test for me. We were in the slums of Kipsongo, going throughout the community to pray and minister to people.
The first family we visited, we prayed over a child that was mute and deaf.
The next family we visited, we prayed over a child with a huge deformity on her stomach.
The next family we visited, we prayed over a child who was lame from the waste down.
The next family we visited, we prayed for a child with a flesh-eating bacteria on his face.
Jesus taught us to pray “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10) He teaches us to pray the will of heaven and the kingdom of heaven down to earth.
In heaven there is no sickness, no disease.
So we prayed with complete faith in our God as Healer…
But from what we could see, nothing changed.
And it was heart-wrenching. We wept.
Not because we needed God to work a miracle in order to solidify our faith. In fact, that wouldn’t be faith at all, because it would be seen, not unseen. (Heb. 11:1) He has absolutely nothing to prove to us.
We wept because we were experiencing the heart of our Father and His deep love and affection for His children.
I realized that my prayer at the beginning of the month had already been answered:
“I want to see and feel and touch Your heart, Lord.”
Kenya stole a piece of my heart.
I don’t know what the Lord has in store, but I have a feeling I’ll be returning for more than a month sometime. Maybe it’ll have something to do with orphaned and abandoned children…or discipling women…or training believers that are so hungry for more of God…who knows! 🙂
