Reflections on Kenya

I've been back for a few weeks now and I'm still processing what happened to me in Kenya and Uganda. We worked with two sets of missionaries: Frank and Bernice DeNike, whose focus is going into the far reaches of rural areas and setting up schools to train pastors, and Michael Aganda who is the creator of Life for Children Ministries. Their focus is to take orphans and place them with next of kin while sponsoring them through various donors.

I guess the reason I'm still processing is, 1) because there is just so much need over there, everywhere you look. But honestly, the other reason I'm still processing is because they seem so much happier than Americans do, and they have so much less. They live with far less than what we consider poverty status here.

We drove for hours at a whoppin 20 mph (generally on the left side of the road, but sometimes the right as well) trying to dodge potholes the size of Texas, and sat amazed that there was no road rage. I was freaking out just as a passenger watching cars, vans, tuk-tuks, and motorcycles swerve around us and us around them with only inches to spare between us. Drivers merely nodded and waved at each other and went about their way. In the U.S. there would be some words of anger and maybe some hand motions to accompany.

We traveled a to many sites that in the States would have only taken an hour or two, but in Kenya because of the horrible road conditions, it took five to six hours. I think God took me to Africa to slow me down. I'm used to getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and when things don't work out as speedily as i would like, there is a constant frustration, an irritation just beneath the skin. Even sitting at a stop light for more than 30 seconds drives me crazy....maybe to the detriment of relationships all around me.

How often do we zoom by people at ninety miles an hour, alone in our iron boxes of comfort, with little to no regard to the souls around us. It's not that we're intentionally being evil, maybe we're just distracted. We spend our whole lives trying to make things work better, more efficiently, progress progress progress. We try to find ways of eliminating pain, reversing age, working hard now so we don't have to work at all later, doing whatever we have to do to avoid awkward situations which can get a little messy. And we all know life is messy....these are just things I'm pondering, not preaching.

So after having to literally get knocked senseless by bouncing over potholes from unkept roads for two weeks, I decided (out loud) that i would never complain about road construction ever again. That was the day we traveled way out into the bush of Kenya, far from Kisumu (our home base). That day I had just reunited with the rest of the team because Pastor Rich Jones and I had been in Uganda for two days preaching in the bush. The rest of the team had been working hard at building a church with the African nationals.

The women walked about a mile down a cliff to fill 5 gallon buckets with water, place them on their heads, and balance them there as they walked all the way back up to the work site. We used this water to mix the concrete. Our girls gave it their best go, to the numerous chuckles of the nationals. One of the girls on the team said, "Man, if we just had a water hose, this would all be so much easier." and then she thought about it and said, "But we wouldn't have had so many laughs together. We wouldn't have built community like we did. We depended on each other. We needed each other, and we all knew it."

When i arrived at the work site, our guys and the national men (the nationals wore suits the whole time by the way) were using pickaxes to dig a trench around the church. I didn't last too long at it. The group of ladies cackled at me as i did my best. I must have brought much joy to their lives that day. They killed a chicken and fed us with it.

Then the rain came pouring down in torrents. We seemed to take our time eating...because that's what people do in Africa...take as much TIME as they want! I started to wonder how we were going to get our huge bus out through the miles of stretch that had once been a dirt road.

And hours later as we pushed and heaved that bus down those muddy roads I couldn't help but laugh. I laughed because my "out loud burst of praise" to never complain about road construction again, wasn't a praise at all. It was another complaint about the situation we faced with the potholes.

So covered head to toe in black mud, and really having the time of my life, as nationals emerged from every direction to help us push this bus one foot at a time, I decided it would just be best if I didn't complain about anything anymore.

Everyone wore such nice clothes, yet lived in mud huts. Maybe it was their only set of clothes. These men crawled under our bus in the mud to put dry dirt under the wheels and give it traction. These men were complete strangers.

Yet back home, I remember on several occasions, not having time to stop to help people change tires on the sides of roads because what I was doing was so important...to the neglect of souls/lives/people all around me. It was usually not because I'm an evil person, but because I didn't see them until i was already passing them and it was too late to stop and help....because I was driving too fast...because there wasn't any potholes to slow me down.

We did a lot of ministry while there, don't get me wrong, but I believe that God took me to Africa to slow me down, to make me stop and look into people's faces, to really stop and listen. To see their lives beneath the windows of their souls, to examine myself and see what really is deep deep down inside there. I can't say I liked everything I saw in my soul. Let's just say The Lord and I have plenty of work to do.

C.S. Lewis, the great author, once penned, "I've never met a mere mortal," meaning, no person on earth is unimportant, unworthy of our time and energies. We were all made in the image of God, whatever that means. Every person is important to our Creator. And oh the TIME He must spend on the edge of His seat like I do with my daughter Maci, watching every move we make and listening to our every thought we think, every dream we dream, every desire we urn for, every hurt that holds us back, every quirky thing that makes us laugh. Our great Father has the time to do this, and yet I have been too busy to take His lead.

Isn't this what life is all about? It's not the lack of great accomplishments a man grieves on his deathbed, it's the time spent on everything besides what really matters: creating deep relationships with God and the people around him, living life with others in community, even getting a little messy in the mud with strangers.

Before he died, Johnny Cash remade a cover song from 9 inch nails called "Hurt." I encourage you to watch the video on YouTube because it nearly reflects the words of King Solomon as he laments that getting all this stuff and having all these comforts is merely grasping for wind, worthless. In the song, Cash calls it his "Empire of dirt." The things we've accomplished is not what really matters. It's the people we spent it with.

I've decided that this is one thing that must change because I must agree with Mr. Lewis. When I look back, I too must agree that I "have never seen a mere mortal."