Radiant

Kenyans are really good at celebrating. When we came, singing and dancing children greeted us. Everywhere we went, people performed, prepared food, and were just so excited to see us. The women especially exuded joy when they sang and danced, and I would just watch in awe and wonder. They’re lives are so hard (see the blog about that), but they are so radiant dancing around in the dirt.

When we turned on the well, they sang songs that said things like “Jesus never changes” and “God can give us water.” In church we sang things like “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord. Jesus, I love you, you are my savior” and “You are Lord, you are Father.” It was always very simple ideas repeated over and over, but to hear it from them and to sing it with them was incredibly powerful.

I just looked through my videos and pictures to try to find something of this, but I don’t have anything. I think I was just too amazed to even think about trying to record it. Oh well, I guess you’ll have to go sometime to see it :).

True Story: Maasai Women

After a few days of being around the Maasai village in Kenya, the true stories of life there started to come out. The first thing I noticed was that when a woman told you how many children she had, she typically used two numbers: how many children total, and how many are still alive. They were numbers like 8 and 5, 14 and 9, 7 and 6.

When I hung out with the young girls (basically teenage girls who are not yet married, which is the Maasai standard for adulthood) it was hard at first to figure out why they grimaced and avoided the subject when I asked if they were going to get married.

In the middle of the week, in a crazy amazing outpouring of the Holy Spirit among the women's cooperative, the women on our team found out why. The women's stories started coming out, and most had the same pattern. Their fathers forced them to get married so they could acquire more cows. In order to get married, they had to get circumcised, which is not a good thing for women. Both forced marriage and female circumcision are against the law in Kenya now, but they still do it secretly.

Most women have also been raped many times, are rarely safe, and are not exactly treated well by their husbands. There are actual witch doctors in Kenya, and the spiritual darkness in the country is more blatant in the West, so the women often also deal with significant spiritual oppression whether they are Christian or not. On top of that, it is their role to do just about everything, including raising the children, getting water, working crops, and feeding everyone. It's hard for them to keep their children alive, let alone send them to school or think about the future.

Some women try to escape from this life, either by running away from home, or, if they're lucky, through higher education. We met a few of them. The girls I worked with had not yet reached this point, but were not looking forward to it. It was actually hard to talk to them at first because basic American conversation is so success, future, and prosperity oriented. After going through names, ages, number of brothers and sisters, and how many years of school they completed, there wasn't a lot more to talk about. "A future" is not really something they think about, and hope, outside the eternal hope of heaven, is not even considered. They try to eat, survive, and avoid pain along the way. Knowing all this made their joy and love all the more spectacular. More about that soon...

You Did For Me

One of my favorite memories of Kenya was simply playing with a little girl. The first few days, I had trouble playing with the kids and loving them, because I was afraid to attach myself to children I may never see again. I hate loving people and then leaving them. One night I realized this and asked God to help me with it.

The next day was Seminar day so they had canceled school and there was not a child to be found. I was a little disappointed, especially since I didn't have anything to do until the youth arrived in the afternoon. Finally I saw one little girl wandering down the hillside. I ran and got one of our children's crafts, went up to her, and just handed it to her (remember I can't verbally communicate with her at all). She looked skeptical, so I sat down, took it out of the bag, and showed her how to do it. Still unsure about me, she sat down and began to do it, but looked up every few seconds to ponder who in the world I was.

After she finished, she held up her work to show it to me, and I indicated that I thought it was great. She immediately lit up with a huge smile and giggled with the cutest laugh I've ever heard. After that we started playing. We began with peek-a-boo esque games that eventually progressed to a stampede of children, who had gathered to watch us, trying to catch and tackle me.

Now, I've played with children a lot before, but this time still stands out in my mind everyday. What was so amazing about this particular instance was what it was like to sit with this girl. It has proven incredibly difficult to put into words, which is why I have avoided posting a blog about it until now. The best I can come up with is that sitting and coloring with this girl was like being with Jesus - like physically. My sudden love for her and connection to her was so intense I barely believed I wasn't dreaming. I couldn't figure out what was going on, so I asked God. Right then, I remembered the parable in Matthew 25 where Jesus says that whatever we do for the least of his brothers and sisters, we do for him. I hung out with her almost all day, and all I can say is that it was one of the best days of my life.

 ³⁴"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
 ³⁷"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
 ⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Encouragement

As some of you know, mission trips can be exhausting. It's easy to miss the familiar sounds of home and friends when you realize they're located halfway around the world, approximately 8000 miles below your feet. And it's super easy to doubt why you're there, what you're doing, if it's right, or if it's making any difference at all. It can be easy to succumb to discouragement, especially when communication with the other side of the world is completely cut off. But, lucky for me, a little into the trip when discouragement really set in, I had help.

First, one of my bestest friends, Casey (hi Casey!), made me a little picture book with pictures of all my Santa Clara friends (including one of Cyrus, ha ha) and encouraging notes from them. It was great to see all them, remember their love for and belief in me, and read all their encouragement. It literally turned my week around to have that. So thanks so much everyone!

Then later in the week, I was reading along in Jeremiah, trying to diligently pay attention, but I kept wondering whether the talk I had given the day before at Seminar Day was the right thing to say (see blog about Seminar Day). Though it was neat that Eric and I had independently chosen messages that went together, I was still feeling discouraged. As I was pondering all this, I read:"Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands..."

I read this and thought to myself, "Oh, here! This will tell me what I should be proclaiming and affirming in distant places, to all the nations. Whatever it is, maybe that's what I should be saying." So I read on and it said: "Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.'" -Jer 31:10

I was so surprised to find that what I had talked about, that God is our good shepherd, was what this said. It was a small thing that I found very encouraging. It's cool how, though God asks us to live by faith and believe in his leading, he takes care of us, helps us, and knows what we can handle and when we could use just a little nudge of encouragement.

The Good Shepherd

While I was in Nicaragua in the spring, I had one of those vivid dreams I get from malaria pills. In it, I was on a Core retreat and had 3 hours to plan a talk. So, in this dream, I planned a full talk with main points, illustrations, the works. It was about Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

At the time, I also was planning for this trip to Kenya. The leaders had told us we would have a Seminar day where we did a bunch of teaching, and I was asked to prepare one of two talks to give the youth. As I thought about it, all I could think to do was this talk about the Good Shepherd from my dream. I figured it was as good a thing as anything to teach, so I decided to go with it.

Later, I found out that Erik, who was giving the other youth talk, had also chosen to talk about the Good Shepherd, but from a different text (he did Psalm 23, I did John 10). God's pretty cool like that. So, months later, I gave that talk on a Kenyan hillside to girls I would end up building fairly close relationships with. I told them about how Jesus was my shepherd, leading my life, and had led me to them.

I told them about how he lays down his life for the sheep, heals and provides for them, and gathers them all together like he had done there with Kenyans and Americans. As I spoke, some of them really connected, looking surprised, excited, or concerned at different parts of illustrations or stories about my life. As I spoke, I realized the truth of what I was saying as well, more profoundly than I ever had before. Jesus really is a great leader of the world and of my life. That week, I also was able to hear from the girls some of their stories, struggles, and how Jesus was leading them. I'll post some of that soon.

Water from Rock

The Kilgoris Project has been working on a well at one of the schools for a while now. While we were preparing for our trip to Kenya, the team prayed that the project would get a drilling permit without cooperating with corruption and bribery. After a few weeks of praying and waiting, it was finally granted. They drilled and drilled and we prayed and prayed that they would hit water. Yet, after digging down more than 200 meters, they still had not struck water.

But, they then realized that even though they had not hit water at the bottom, this now 200 meter deep rock tank started to just fill with water every night. We essentially now had a giant cistern with enough water everyday for the school.

So, on Sunday, our last day, we all went and christened the well as the Kenyans sang songs about how God doesn't change and he can give us water. It was quite the modern day example of the Old Testament stories of God providing water for his people out of rock.

Here's the awesome video Jon made about it:

New Well at Ntimigom from Jon McCormack on Vimeo.

Parables

Most of our days in Kilgoris were spent going to the different schools, greeting them, and doing various programing. I was involved in youth/teen ministry. So, each day, we gathered all the kids and told a parable, did a craft, played Kenyan games with them, and just hung out.

One thing that really stood out to me was how relevant the parables were to their culture. It's one thing to take about a shepherd going to get a lost sheep in Silicon valley. It's another to tell it to kids who actually are shepherds, all gathered on a green hillside with sheep wandering in the background. It makes so much more sense.

We told and acted out the stories of the lost sheep, coin, and son - which they thought was pretty funny. But, as designed, the stories also communicated the heart God has for lost people and for each person, and we were able to bond over that as well.

Here's a video taken of us telling and acting out the parable of the lost sheep.