Light in the Darkness

This past week we spent working and serving in an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp about 30 minutes from Kijabe. We partnered with a team of doctors and nurses (both African and American) to see and diagnose patients, provide emotional and spiritual counseling, and distribute a variety of medicines. I know what you're probably thinking right now...I am not the least bit trained as a physician, a psychiatrist, or a pharmacist. True. But this past week was excellent proof that with God on our side and by our side, anything is possible! With our combined teams of nearly 40 people, we were able to provide medical services and medicines to over 1,000 people in just 4 days. Praise God!! I spent most of my time in the "pharmaceuticals department" (others from our team did counseling and triage.) The first day we scrambled to understand the different medications, decipher the physicians' abbreviations on the prescription sheets, and figure out how to effectively communicate to each patient the proper way to administer each drug. Luckily, we had an actual pharmacist named Ebo (a jolly, energetic man from Ghana) helping us, and by around day 3, not only were we filling prescriptions practically with our eyes closed, but we were explaining to the patients IN Swahili how to take each medicine. Two days of "medical school" and you're a trained professional - now thats what I call cost and time efficient! (And in the U.S., what you call malpractice...) Anyways, overall working in our little tent pharmacy was a fun and incredibly rewarding experience.

...It was also, though, one of the most sobering and emotionally draining experiences I've had in my life. The IDP camps consist of rows and rows of UN refugee tents and tarps and small concrete cubes that serve as houses for thousands of people who were violently driven out of their homes and off of their land due to tribal conflict resulting from corruption beginning during the 2007 Kenya election and continuing through today. Poverty and desperation hit me like a ton of bricks. The physical pain and problems that troubled each person all of a sudden seemed minor and easily curable after I talked to a 30-year-old man named John who had been separated from his wife and two young children for over a year due to the fact that he and his wife are from feuding tribes. I was feeling pleased and content when providing pain killers to a young mother until she told me her story of how her husband had abandoned her and their four children in the IDP camp and she was left alone to provide and care for all of them...some way and somehow. My heart hurt and my soul cried out over and over as I saw the desperation in many of their faces or the disheartened posture of their bodies as they walked away from our tents holding nothing more than temporary drugs and pain relievers. And while I praise God for what He did these past 4 days in providing for these people and giving us the opportunity to serve in this way, my heart still feels heavy and burdened by the injustice and hopelessness plaguing these people.

(photo credit: Casey Edwards)

While I'm writing this out and feeling this weight, I'm reminded of the lyrics of "My Glorious" - God is bigger than the air we breathe, the world we'll leave / And God will save the day, and all will say "My Glorious, my Glorious"! The light in the midst of all this darkness IS the Lord. He is bigger than our pain, bigger than our problems, bigger than the very air we breathe and the world we live in. He is big enough to comfort us, to provide for us, to carry all our burdens. In Him we find a hope that no one and nothing else can give us. And in that hope I will continue to rest, and will continue to show and exemplify as best I can to these amazing, beautiful Kenyan brothers and sisters I encounter.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - John 1:5

Just a Day in the Life

Yesterday marked the 2 week point from when I took off for training camp on June 3rd. While each day has been packed with crazy awesome stories, ministry moments, and spending time growing as a team and learning more about one another, I still can't quite believe we're already 1/4 of the way through the trip! It's flying by, but at the same time each day I feel more and more excited about being here and more passionate about what the Lord is doing in me and in my teammates and in the lives of so many of the beautiful Kenyans we have encountered thus far. While I would LOVE to share every little detail and every anecdote from the past week's adventures, time and space in this little Internet Cafe is preventing me from doing so, so instead I will attempt to give some highlights from this past week and reflect a bit on my experience in Kenya so far.

Shauna Niequist writes in her book Cold Tangerines that "Africa is nothing if not evocative...and you will never for the rest of your life be able to wash away what you see and hear there." Now that I have spent a bit of time actually living in Africa and not just hearing about what it is like, I can completely understand what she means. I was dying to know before I left exactly what it is about Africa that is so evocative and inexplicable, and what I've come to realize is that it's EVERYTHING. The smells, the tastes, the sounds; the warm, welcoming faces of literally everyone you meet; the expansive, gorgeous views of Kenyan fields and mountains that seem to go on forever and ever into the distance. There absolutely IS something about Africa that seeps into your skin and makes the experience of it difficult to explain words - it's so...unique. colorful. tangible. raw. real. People who have been to different parts of Africa also tend to say that Africa isn't at all what you expect - that you will be completely shocked once you actually experience it. That I have to disagree with. To be honest, Kenya is pretty much exactly how I imagined it would be. It looks how I pictured it, feels how I thought it would feel, and the people act and interact how I expected they might - joyful, warm, and more hospitable than you could even imagine. I don't know if I'm just really good at guessing or if God was preparing my heart for contact with the culture and the people, but either way, I love it here. Praise God for that!

This past week, for 8 days, we lived in the town of Rare (rah-reh), among a village of people of primarily the Turkana tribe (and some Kikuyu and Maasai as well). It's about a 45-minute drive from Kijabe, and Pastor Simon is currently planting a church in this area, so we set up our tents in the church building and traveled (either walked or took a Matatu - Kenyan bus/taxi) into the village each day to spend time with the people, get to know them and hear their stories, pray for them, and build relationships with them. I was consistently struck as we went house to house by how grateful and optimistic the people we encountered were - even though many of their situations included hardships - sickness, a meager source of income, more children than they could provide for - the vast majority possessed a hope and a joy in the Lord that I had never before witnessed. Many had prayer requests and rarely turned down prayer or the company we offered, but they often stressed how they trusted in God to provide and recounted how He blesses them constantly in their daily lives. I have already learned and gained so much from these people - their hope in the Lord is inspiring and their joy is absolutely contagious.

What day-to-day life looked like this past week: We woke up each morning around 7:30, ate breakfast together at 8, studied a chapter from Ephesians each morning in our smaller ministry teams (our group is split up into 3 smaller groups), and headed out into the village around 9, returning home anywhere from 3-5. At night we would eat dinner and have group discussion on a chapter of the book Radical by David Platt (a must-read!), and then just talk and hang out until bed. A couple of the days we also spent time at 2 different primary schools, playing with the children, singing songs, and teaching them Bible stories. I have to tangent briefly to talk a little about the children. Each and every child I have met - and let me tell you, there are TONS of them - is absolutely filled with pure and unabashed joy, and is overflowing with excitement and energy. Their eyes and smiles radiate, and you can't help but catch their contagious laughter. They'll see you walking towards them from 50 ft away and start sprinting towards you, shouting and laughing, and when they finally reach you they jump into your arms (which you better hold open for them to jump into, otherwise they'll knock you over!) to greet and embrace you. If this isn't the most beautiful picture of God's overwhelming, unconditional, crazy love, then I don't know what is!

Overall, I saw God move in incredible ways this past week. I wish I could tell you all every individual story, but I promise when I get home I will share details and specifics with each and every one of you if you would like :) Until then, here are some highlights from this past week living in Rare!

• playing games with the kids at the schools - "paca paca pana" (cat cat mouse) and having the girls play with my hair and singing songs with them - in English and Kiswahili!
• hiking up the mountain behind the place where we stayed - absolutely breathtaking view from the top
• meeting Regina and Jackson - an elderly Kenyan couple whose joy and trust in the Lord brought me to tears
• the food - basically, it's amazing and I want to eat it for the rest of my life! - some staples are fried dough (taste like doughnuts, we eat them pretty much every morning!), pancakes with butter and jam, all different kinds of fresh fruit, rice and stew and veggies (also, on our last night there, we actually got to slaughter a sheep and make a FEAST of stew, curry, ribs, rice, etc...it was TO DIE FOR)
• using squattie potties, a.k.a. a hole in the ground...very rustic :)
• bonding with my team - we're already a family and I love them all so much!
• smiling and dancing with Sylvia (7 yrs old) at the worship services on Friday and Saturday - she touched my heart so much
• learning phrases of Kiswahili! Some of my favorites: Wewe ni rafiki yangu = you are my friend; Mungu anakupenda = God loves you! Tutaonana = see you later!
• helping Maria (an older Turkana woman) build a mud hut! We would pick up handfuls of mud and slap it right on there...if that doesn't make you feel like a legit African, I don't know what will!)
• praying and praying and praying for RAIN for this village which hasn't had sufficient rain for their crops in weeks (maybe even months) and then seeing it come, and not just sprinkle, but POUR every afternoon or evening for the next four days. PRAISE GOD! (ask me about this story later because it's way cool but I can't type all the details right now :))
• meeting and building a relationship with an elderly man named Awillo - it was amazing to see how he slowly opened his heart to us and let us into his life.

Well, that's all I have time for right now...we're back in Kijabe until Thursday and then heading out to live in a Maasai village for the following week! Prayers for that would be wonderful...we'll be living it rough and diving even further into ministry and relationship with each other and with the people!
Much love and tutaonana!
Bethany

Karibu Kenya - Welcome to Kenya!

Hello friends!
This will be my personal blog for the next 8 weeks as I live and serve in Kijabe, Kenya with a team of 13 college students and 2 leaders through the Real Life program of the organization Adventures in Missions. I hope you enjoy reading about this journey, our team's experiences, and my life over the next 2 months!

After a whirlwind four days at training camp, 11 hours spent driving and waiting in airports, and a whopping 17 hours in the air, our whole team (and all our luggage!) made it safely to Kenya last night. After about an hour drive to Kijabe, we were all shocked to find out that we will NOT be sleeping in tents the whole time, as we expected, but rather we are staying in a huge church building with BEDS and MATTRESSES! Not only that, but we have an actual bathroom and even a shower! (still cold, of course). What a wonderful surprise, to say the least. We will, however, still be traveling often to surrounding villages and different tribal areas, where for a week or so at a time we will be camping using our tents and all our gear :)

Our hosts are the wonderful Pastor Simon and his wife Margaret. Their niece, Vicki, has been cooking for us and the food is seriously AMAZING! Today we spent the day walking around Kijabe and Pastor Simon showed us all the various hospitals and schools that we will be working at during the next 2 months. Kijabe is in the mountains and the views are spectacular, the people so welcoming and kind, and the children full of excitement and joy. I could not be more thrilled to now call this wonderful place home! I will likely only have internet about once a week (possibly even less) so check back every week or so for new posts/updates. Tomorrow we are traveling to a nearby village so I definitely won't be posting again for the next week.

Love to all!
Bethany