Finally...

        Well y'all, I can finally, yes finally, talk about Kenya. A few weeks ago I got to see the missionaries I worked with in Kenya, Bob and Julie Mendonsa. It really hit home for me that I sincerely miss my second home. I thought that all of this time I was just sort of processing it all, however, the case was quite different. I blocked out all of the emotions I could, mostly subconsciously, but sometimes I did it relatively consciously. Satan had won a war in my heart making it nearly impossible for me to feel any emotions. But, the night I saw them, God won the battle of my heart, yet again. That night, all of my emotions came to the surface and I finally let Him back into my heart. That night, I was also reminded of why I am going to school and to persevere through school so I can move back to Kenya. My drive home from that meeting was filled with memories from throughout my trip.

        The reason it is so hard to talk at all about Kenya, is that it's hard for anyone to really know the feelings and everything that I experienced. It's one of those things that you really had to be there to understand how it feels. I could go on and on and talk about it with you, and you will see the passion and exuberance in my eyes and my smile, but it will not do justice to you being there experiencing it with me or for yourself. That's why, when I meet someone who has been anywhere in Africa, I instantaneously feel like we might have experienced some of the same experiences. I guess it's probably the same with anyone who has been to any third-world country. Try to imagine, if you haven't been to a third-world country, going into a place where approximately 15,000 people lived on between 4 and 7 acres. There is no running water, which means no sewage system (so you can maybe understand the stench), and no big elaborate houses but instead, tin/metal huts, teeny tiny little huts where many people sometimes even multiple families live. These people live in extreme poverty and rarely break the cycle of poverty. This is what I saw my first or second Sunday in Kenya in one of the slums of Nairobi. As I walked through the streets of these Kenyans' everyday lives, I realized that I had everything, EVERYTHING in the world compared to these wonderful people, but at the same time, I have absolutely nothing. I do not even have half as much joy as they do when they have hardly any worldly substance. They don’t have computers, they don’t have the latest gadget available out there, they don’t even have running water. We don’t have to worry about if there’s going to be water the next day, we don’t have to worry, too much, about if we’re going to have food in our bellies the next day. Yes, there are some of us who have extreme cases in which we don’t know, but overall, we have it easy. I learned in that first week in Kenya, that we take our lives for granted, we have much more than most people in this world, and yet many of us don’t have one of the most important things, joy through Christ our Savior. Y’all, this was only my first week.

The second week, I was still having trouble figuring out why God really took me to Kenya. I know why I went, because I missed it so much and I knew that that’s exactly what God wanted me to do. But why did God clearly tell me to go? I think it was in this week that I knew why He sent me. We met sweet baby Jacob in this week. Jacob, eight days old, abandoned by his mother at 2 days old in a field where no one would ever find him. Yet, God chose some random guy to walk by the sweet sunburned baby by guiding him to shade on his very hot walk to wherever he was going. We met the sweet baby Jacob only a few short days later and took him to his new home Naomi’s Village (NV). The next two months were filled completely with loving this boy and his many siblings. After we picked up Jacob, somehow, I knew that social work was the degree to pursue when I got home from school. Now I can’t say that it was me, because I actually am not sure I ever knew what a social worker was until I went to Kenya, so it was totally a God thing. He just laid it on my heart, and I knew. Throughout my stay in Kenya, and at NV, the NV kids went on outreaches in the community where I saw some more people who lived in poverty. It wasn’t, however, nearly as bad of a poverty as that in the slums, but it was still not good.

I picked maize (corn) with the kids and with the people of the land, I drank chai (tea) with them, and sometimes I even ate with them. The people were so willing to give even when they had nothing. That is amazing!

Some random stories that might be interesting for you:

One time, we, Hillary, Tim (from Kijabe up the mountain), and I, went to Maai Mahiu (the town in which NV is located right outside of) in order to eat and worship with a group of ladies we met earlier that week. These ladies were working with Adventure in Missions, and let me tell you, the time we had there with them was by far one of the most amazing times I have ever experienced. We were in a basically pitch black room where we worshiped God with all of our hearts and I really felt God’s presence there. Also, the ride there was my first ever piki piki (motorcycle) ride ever. It was way beyond fun. The ride back home to NV was beautiful. It was dark and cold, but I had never ever in my life seen so many stars, and they were all southern hemisphere stars so that was even cooler. It was just one of the many reminders that God showed me to remind me that He was/is there at all times.

One time, Hillary and I decided we wanted a day to ourselves so we decided to brave going up the mountain to get pizza from pizza hut, oh the things you’ll do for “American” food in a foreign country. We road piki pikis up this beautiful route to Kijabe, it was more bouncy than riding a horse it was crazy. Then we went to the hospital to get money from the ATM, then we walked to the taxi station. We got to the taxi station and the only taxi that was about to leave was like a four person car, it was strangely tiny. But somehow, we fit 4 adults in the backseat along with a toddler and then there was the driver and another lady and her toddler in the front seat. Don’t ask me how in the world we all fit in that car or how we ever made it up that mountain, but we did. Then we had to catch a mtatu (bus) the long way down the mountain to the pizza shop. After getting pizza we had to find our way all the way down the mountain. Whoo, that’s where it got real fun cause we weren’t sure how to do it. But, we caught a ride with these two highschool guys who were driving their school bus down to their school. They dropped us off at a mtatu station where we had to find the right one into Naivasha, a town closish to NV. I had to sit in between two seats which was painful, yet, entertaining. In Naivasha we were walking to one of the markets and ran into some NV people which was actually quite exciting because it meant we didn’t have to ride a mtatu all the way back to NV. Unfortunately, the driver locked his keys in the car so we actually waited several hours for the next set of keys to come. But it was ok, we got to hang out in town, people watch and get stared out, it was pretty entertaining. But then Hillary and I noticed a guy sort of hiding in the trees staring at us holding a thing of glue. I had never seen anybody who sniffed glue, then I saw him. My heart broke for this poor young man, so desperate and poor that he felt he needed to sniff glue to make his life better. Our key arrived around 5 that evening I think, and Hillary and I sat in the back of the car packed in with the food while the three NV workers were up front, and that ended that very fun adventure.

 I went on a safari while I was in Kenya, actually this was my second but it was so much cooler and nicer than the first one. It was a three day safari and it was absolutely beautiful. We, Ricky, Katie, and I, were unfortunately the only three guests at the camp we stayed at, but it was still beautiful. They had an amazing cook who made us lamb, which I had promised myself never to eat but did. It was delicious. But anyways, on the safari I saw a cheetah, 5 male lions and multiple females, and the very end of the wildebeest migration, and hippos and crocodiles, and giraffes and many vultures as well, oh and of course zebras. This time away from NV was needed, though I missed my babies.

See, the things I’ve seen, they’re hard to explain. They’re hard to understand. I don’t understand them and I saw them. So, it’s hard to talk about them because I don’t know how to explain the pain, the hurt, the hunger, the desperation of the people I saw and met. But I know that many of the people I met had the joy of Christ in their lives, but many of them did not as well. Many of them have no hope because they just see their life full of pain, hunger, and desperate measures to keep themselves alive. The reason I am going to school to be a social worker is to help the people of Kenya. The only reason I am going to school is to help them. I have thought about dropping out of school and just dropping everything and leaving to go back home to Kenya, but God wants me here, right now. It has been the hardest year of my life fighting this battle to go back home, because I want it more than anything. It’s a hard consolation knowing that it will be soon, but not nearly soon enough. But God knows what He’s doing, He has a plan. He has a perfect plan for me, He has a path He chose for me and for every person alive from the beginning of time. That is amazing!! So while I’m focused on passing all these classes, sometimes I forget the big picture. In the middle I just want to drop out and leave to Kenya, but I can’t let Kenya be my escape, because it is a reality. It will be my reality as soon as I board that plane in 2016 as a licensed social worker. So, in the middle of the semester, I have to stop and think, Kenya, Naomi’s Village, Evalyne, Catherine,  Paul, Dennis, John, Mary, Zakayo, Samuel, Julius, Isaac, Mary, Kevin, Kimberly, Kevin, John, Ruth, Tabitha, Jane, Francis, Esther, Joel, Brian, Soni, JoJo, Joseph, Hannah, Naomi, Hannah, Jacob, Moses, Mercy, Mercy, Ann, Essie, Evans, Mary, Laban, James, Willy, Millicent, Stella, Eliza, Kibet, Emily, Muthui, Eric, Quincy, Joshua, Robbie, Chris, Felix, Julia, Virginia, Richie, Nyongesa, Hannah, Rosemary, Nancy, Baraka, Orville, and hundreds more children. They are the reason I will finish school. God gave me a heart to serve overseas, and He’s given me the opportunity to work with an amazing organization. This life I am trying to live for Him, while messy and massed up because of the devil, is beautiful because it has Him in it, and I am trying, I am striving for Him.