Kenya Update Numero Tres/Tatu

This week carried a lot of hard experiences, but a lot of God's grace as well.  This is a pretty long post, but I just couldn't leave anything out.  So please, please take a little bit of time and read this.  I really appreciate it.  And continue praying.  God is at work.  He is changing lives.

Tuesday (Feeding Station

Today I stayed at the school later than I normally do.  Something told me “stay a little later today,” even though I had played all morning (there were no breaks today).  Well kids are kids, and in the extra time I was there, one kid got kit in the head with a rock.  So I took him to the clinic to look at it and treat it.  Well, one person quickly turned into an audience and a lieu of people on the waiting bench.  I treated people, adults and kids alike, for an hour and a half, and only then because everyone had to leave.  I don’t know how to describe how this made me feel.  Happy doesn’t seem like the right word.  I guess it gave me joy, but that word is overused.  I just really felt in my element helping all of these people.  It’s one of those emotions you get when you know you are right where you need to be, doing what you need to be doing.  I don’t just physically mean in Kenya, although it was partly it.  I mean that as my position in life.  One day, if it all works out, I will be a doctor and be able to do this every day.  That is an awesome thought.  That I get to be a physical representation of Christ in such a tangible way.  It was like I was literally transformed from the bumbling idiot (in my best Snape voice) trying to jump over a piece of string or kick a rock into a square, to the calm, collected “doctor,” taking exquisite care of patients.  And I know that transformation is only due to Christ.  Once again, I really don’t know how to describe this transformation, but what I do know is that God is slowly revealing the road He wants me to take, and today, He gave me a mile marker.  Praise be to Him.

 

Wednesday (Feeding Station)

Why can’t I fix everything?  Why can’t I snap my fingers and have it all go away?  I’m a guy.  And I’m pretty sure there’s a gene on the Y chromosome for wanting to fix things.  Today, we took a very sick child with malaria to the doctor.  I could do nothing but listen to him cry.  I couldn’t console him because I don’t speak Swahili.  I couldn’t help him because I had not medicine.  All I could do is be there.  It’s in my nature to want to fix things.  I’m OCD about certain things and that comes out here.  It’s extremely difficult for me when something is wrong and I can’t do anything about it.  Can’t is not a word that comes easily to me.  I want to be able to do everything.  I want to be able to help.  I want…  And so today, when we couldn’t console the little boy, God was consoling me.  I felt helpless.  I looked out the window of the Matatu and saw needs all around me.  And I just want to fix it all.  And as I write this now, I just remember the song, “I am restless until I rest in you, God.”  To be super corny, He has the whole world in His hands.  He knows what’s going on.  And He leaves some things unfixed for reasons way above mine.  Maybe to teach hard lessons to people like me.  I don’t like it.  I’m being completely honest.  I want everything to be ok.  But it’s not going to be.  But there is someONE who has been and is always going to be.  He is going to be there.  He is going to be faithful.  And one day, he will fix everything to be perfect as He is perfect.  He brings all people to Him.  And I have to be stretched because I am one of His own.  And so no matter how much I feel helpless and ask “why,” He says, “Because I’m worth it.”  Amen.

 

Thursday (Orphanage)

Tonight, while we were at the orphanage, Mama Hellen got onto the kids for something you wouldn’t normally expect.  A few days ago, a mother visited the school and gave her kid some mandazi.  Well the kids passed it around, and two of the kids from the orphanage took some, and got food poisoning.  She was telling them not to ever take food from the slum.  But this stuck me.  The one time they have food from the slum, they get food poisoning.  I don’t know how to describe it, but it made things real.  This is the place where I am working.  Where the thing they are so longing for is even a curse itself.  I can’t even handle thinking about it.  I see them happy, eating good food, and playing with friends, but forget about where the go after school.  I see them walking, but don’t think about it.  But they are going “home,” where only hunger, pain, sorrow, and fear awaits.  Where they do not know when they will get food and if it will even help them.  Where even living comes with jiggers eating away at their hands and feet, leaving gashes, holes, raw skin, and decaying flesh.  Where sickness like malaria is rampant.  Where sin abounds.  This is a place of literally no hope.  But this knowledge makes the school that much more of a blessing.  They get GOOD food, GOOD teaching, but most importantly, they hear about Christ.  I see it from the outside a lot, but when I look into the lens of one of these kids, I see so much more.  And so I am all the more motivated to be His servant.  To continue to tell these kids of a place where there is NO more pain.  NO more hunger.  NO more sickness.  NO more pain.  NO more thirst.  NO more hurt.  NO more fear.  A place where we will see Christ face to face.  A place where He will hold us close, and we will worship Him forever.  Lord, hasten the day.

 

Friday (Feeding Station)

I don’t even know how to begin this entry.  To put into words what I’ve seen and heard today doesn’t even do it justice.  There are many times I’m left speechless here, but this is far above the others.  I’ve been sitting here for 5 minutes now trying to figure out how to write the next sentence.  Nothing I can say will really paint the true picture of what I saw.  Today I watched a school kid run off the boundary of the school and go to a pile of burning trash that had just been set aflame.  He reached into the fire and dirt, pulled out a small piece of food and ate it.  And now I can’t even look at food the same.  I’ve seen people searching through trash plenty of times, but this was different.  This was something more.  Not just trash, but burning trash.  The image has been burning in my head and replaying over and over all day.  This is not a story.  This is not a picture.  This is real.  This is personal.  I have touched that child’s hand.  I have spent time with him.  He’s not a face.  He’s not a statistic.  He’s my friend.  How can I eat like a king even in Africa when 3 miles away, many of my friends are suffering?  How is this ok?  For me to live a luxurious life at a great college with amazing friends while these kids live a life of hunger, abuse, and neglect.  Why is life like this?  Why was I born in America and nor Africa?  Why do I get to live this life?  WHY?!  I’m frustrated and I’m upset.  My eyes are beginning to tear as I think of my friends surrounded by drunkards who could possibly be beating them this very instant.  I think of what they are witnessing people do.  And I don’t know how to reply.  I just don’t know.  I am blessed and am an American for a reason.  I know this.  I have a purpose as an American, and I came to grips with that long ago.  But that still doesn’t make their life ok.  It’s ok when they’re a statistic.  A number.  But when they call you “rafiki,” everything changes.  When they hold your hand for all it’s worth, something is different.  Their so called parents have lost all hope and don’t even care.  All of these people live with literally no hope.  And that’s not just an expression.  It’s reality.  So with that image in my head, I went to dinner.  Somehow the conversation turned to the slum.  How the slum used be all plastic huts.  Richard told a story of guy who had died because his hut had collapsed in the rain and trapped him.  And no one cared.  They just left him there.  How the kids learn one thing at school and are shown the complete opposite at home.  How the people have just given up.  As he spoke more and more, my heart dropped lower and lower.  I couldn’t believe some of the things I heard.  But then he talked about how the ministry began.  How they couldn’t do everything, but had to do something.  And how time after time, God provided what they needed at the last moment.  Story after story of provision and grace.  I’ve heard many stories here, but tonight I heard Hellen’s story.  How she never knew her real father, but how she was tortured and abused by her mom’s husband.  Because of this, she is fueled to be the modern day Mama Theresa that she is.  She tells them if she can make it, so can they.  So at the end of the day after hearing and seeing so much, there is still hope.  I’m frustrated, I’m mad, I’m upset, but I’m rejoicing in the restoration that’s still happening.  Grace is a process.  It takes time.  But God is slowly restoring Kipsongo.  He is sufficient.  He is working.  But my eyes will never see things the same again.  It’s hard to live life knowing what’s going on a few miles away.  But we do what we can.  He is a healer.  He is all we need.  And He is more than enough for me, and all my buddies in Kipsongo.  HE alone sustains and is all we need.

 

Sunday (Tent Church)

Safari.  The Swahili word for journey.  My figurative safari here in Kenya is just like a physical safari.  Sometimes you’re going very fast.  Sometimes the road is full of potholes.  Sometimes you spend more time off the road than on the road.  This week had a lot of potholes.  A lot of hard experiences.  A lot to handle psychologically and emotionally.  This I saw.  Things I heard.  I’ve experienced some of these things before.  Africa is not a new experience for me.  Culture shock was gone long ago.  But this week, things became personal.  I watched people I’ve grown to love suffer.  I saw pain, disease, and hunger like never before.  But the fact is, this is normal life.  This is Africa.  This is His people.  Yes, they suffer, but that drives them to praise God even more.  To give their all in worship.  To sing and dance like David, becoming even more undignified than this (cue middle school camp song).  Because no matter what, they realize that what they have comes from Him and Him alone.  But there are still those without Christ, with no hope.  In all that I do, I must show Christ’s love, in whatever way possible, whether it be food, drink, or even a black on white handshake.  Why?  Because I carry Christ, who not only brings hope, but is THE hope of glory.  I’m still upset by the sights I’ve seen, and I don’t think that will go away.  This is my mission.  The Gospel on earth.  So I continue resting in my Creator, and in order to carry His will, become even more undignified than this, so at the end of the day, it all goes to Him.

God is good.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.  It means more than you know for you to have things to specifically pray for.  This place has become home.  I love it more and more each day.  But I love and miss all of you SO, SO much.  Please continue to keep me in your prayers.  As a good friend of mine says, your prayers are my fuel.

-Sam