Since we got back to Kijabe at the beginning of this month, we have been doing different service projects each day of the week that we'll continue for the rest of our time here. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays we work at Kijabe Hospital, cooking food and delivering tea and meals, doing visitations with the patients, and working with kids in pediatrics and newborns in the maternity ward. On Thursdays we hike about an hour to an area called 'Kijabe-town', which is a very small and quiet area of Kijabe - it seemed so unpopulated at first glance that it reminded me of an old western ghost town. We do ministry in the morning and have been hanging out with a bunch of local guys in their teens and twenties at the pool hall in the middle of town, and in the afternoon we go to a nearby school and play games with the kids. On Fridays we teach at a primary school (K-5) very close to where we are staying - Kate and I have been working with the 2nd grade class, which is SUCH a fun age group - this morning they greeted us excitedly and eagerly showed us the work they had been doing. And then on Saturdays, we drive down to the IDP camp that we worked at last month and we hand out packages of food and spend time talking with the families.
This whole past week has been especially eye-opening and challenging for me. The two days we spent at the hospital were particularly tough. To be completely honest, hospitals make me a bit tense. I've known for most of my life that my calling is NOT in the medical professional, and I'm quite honestly okay with that. Sickness makes me nervous, and blood makes me just plain uncomfortable. And some of the situations we witnessed at the hospital were just so horrific and extreme that it was all I could do not to both throw up and cry at the same time. It is difficult to accurately explain or convey what I saw or the emotions I felt as I walked through the different wards and saw baby after baby with Spina Bifida or Hydroencephalitis, and countless other patients with severe burns or other deformities or illnesses. It was sobering, to say the least, but even more than that it was irreversible what I saw. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Shauna Niequist writes that it is impossible to ever "un-see" what you see in Africa. And I get it now. The images I saw while in the hospital, and the things I will continue to see, are now permanently drawn in my mind and imprinted onto my heart.
It was equally sobering the experience we had and the stories we heard while in the IDP camp last Saturday. The families we talked to shared with us about the persecution and pain they had been through as people from one tribe violently attacked them and burned down their homes solely because they were from a different tribe. I couldn't stop thinking about how the beautiful old grandmother I hugged and the family of 9 we shared tea with were actual victims of a form of genocide. It's been a week since we listened to some of their stories and I still haven't been able to fully wrap my mind around everything we've heard. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to actually. And I'm not sure I ever want to stop remembering what I've seen and heard, because this place is one of my homes now, and I never want to forget that, or forget the people here.
It feels nice to be settled into a schedule, but at the same time, I don't want life here to become just a day-to-day routine. I want, I crave for each day to be filled with the Lord's surprises, with His unexpected plans, and with His crazy and exciting wonders. And I believe that we will see miracles happen here and experience His Kingdom here on Earth - we already have and we will continue to! I've been praying for perseverance and persistence for our team, that we will be bold and active and alive here in our last couple weeks, and that we will be able to give as much to this place that now feels like home as it has already given to us.
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