November Newsletter

Give thanks with a grateful heart,
Give thanks to the Holy One,
Give thanks,
Because he’s given Jesus Christ his son.
And now, let the weak say “I am strong,”
Let the poor say “I am rich,”
Because of what the Lord has done for us.
Give thanks.

My life in the past few weeks has been comprised of very ordinary occurrences. I have been teaching biology each day to my Form 1 (freshmen) students and teaching Christian Education to two of the older classes. I wrote an examination and then graded somewhere over 200 examinations in return. I walk to town and buy produce in the local market where the colors and smells are as tangible as the tomatoes, onions, and pineapples themselves. I actually spend a large amount of time washing my clothes, and I am quite convinced that God is paying me back for every single time I packed up a month's worth of dirty laundry in Lexington, VA and drove it down home to Darlington for my mom to wash. Now I would be quite happy to put my own clothes in the washing machine, but instead, I put my clothes in my grayish-silver bucket, boil some water, scrub each piece individually, rinse them thoroughly, and then hang them out to dry, which takes a bit longer during the rainy season. Life is becoming more settled and routine. I am learning what it really means to live here. As I walk down the road now, children stop and greet me with a smile instead of running away screaming or laughing hysterically. I spend time with our students, singing, dancing, talking, worshipping. They have a million questions for Kari and I about life outside of Kenya, and I have just as many for them about their lives and culture. When we leave school now for meetings in the city, our students hang out of the windows shouting about how much they will miss us.
Every Sunday Kari and I attend two worship services at Icaciri. First, we participate in a student lead service at 7:30 that I can hardly describe. Each morning we walk in to dancing, twirling, girls shouting praises at the top of their lungs. It is magnificent. Afterwards, we stick around for the community service which is completely in Kikuyu. As I sit through this service each week, I realize that even though I can't understand most of the words, there is something familiar and comforting about the commnity of faith, something that makes Icaciri PCEA Church feel like home thousands of miles from my actual home. There is something reassuring about the words of the Lord's Prayer being recited in unison, even if they are not my words. Living here has helped me to realize the connection that each of us shares with the rest of humanity. Every time I walk down the street in Nairobi or look at the faces of my students, I am thankful for the beauty and diversity that exists in our world. I realize over and over again how great our God must be that He made each of us as individuals. What speaks to my soul may be different from what speaks to yours. Yet we are all made in God's image, and that image is reflected differently in each of us. The image of God is made manifest in hundreds of races and ethnicities, in thousands of languages, in millions of faces throughout the world. In Kikuyu the word for God is Ngai, in Swahili it is Bwana, the Jews called Him Yahweh, we call Him Lord. And He answers to every single one, and He delights in each of us when we call out to Him.


Swahili phrase: Asante sana. Thank you very much.

Unexpected Blessings

Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground."
Exodus 3:5

There was a moment a few weeks ago when I looked around at my students and could only think about how different we are. I could only see that they had grown up in rural Kenya, that most have never had electricity or dependable water, that their families and traditions look nothing like mine. I was mad at the rain that drenched me only hours before, and as I sat looking at a family struggling not to lose all that they had, the absence of God was more evident to me than His presence.
Yet as we rode home on the bus at the end of the afternoon, the air was filled with the joyful noise of our students singing praises to mighty God. Their energy and laughter brightened my soul as I could feel the gracious voice of my Lord whispering: I am still here. I am still with you, in the midst of darkness and doubt, I will not abandon you. Despite times of frustration and doubt here, always one crucial fact remains:despite the disparity between rich and poor, sick and healthy, American and Kenyan, black and white, Christian and Muslim , young and old, beneath all of our labels and differences, we share one basic thing, and that is life. We all have, for this brief moment, each of us, a part in the beauty and the pain, the ordinariness and the sanctity of this mystery that we call living. We are all bound to one another simply by our being. And perhaps in these ordinary moments, in a market or on a school bus, these times when we share ourselves with one another, these are the moments that are sacred, these are the times when we are sitting or standing or riding on holy ground. I expected the afternoon to be tedious and ordinary, yet how glorious is our God that He turns what we expect to be ordinary into unexplainable blessing. The songs of my students were their gift to God, which He in turn shared with me.

Harambee

Harambee is an ideal left over from the Kenyan struggle for independence which means a "coming together" or "uniting." It is a beautiful sentiment and leads to beautiful events where entire communities come together to support one another in times of need or crisis. My first experience with a harambee came last Saturday as all of the teachers and staff from Icaciri were invited to participate in the support of a family in our community. One of the Form 1 or freshmen students, Margaret, passed away from heart failure the same week that I arrived in Gatundu, so one of my first experiences here was her burial. Unfortunately medical care is scarce in rural areas and expensive when it is available, so her week long hospital stay cost her family everything that they had in terms of money, and they were forced to offer the title deed to their land as payment. Here in Central Province, land means much more than just the place where a family lives, it is their livelihood and a guarantee that they will have food and provisions for the future. For a family already struggling to survive, to lose your land is an unthinkable detriment. So, on Saturday, people from our commnity came together at a local PCEA churh to share music, food and laughter and to offer money and prayers in support of this family. The people of our community offer whatever they have, whether it is much or it is little, in the hope that the family who already lost their first-born daughter will not lose their land as well.
One would think harambees would be somber, penitent events of mourning or sorrow, but indeed they are not. Saturday was an afternoon filled with joy, singing, and most of all hope. Hope in the power of people united for a common purpose, hope in the promise that when someone falls, a neighbor will be there to pick them up. Hope that has illustrated for me more powerfully than anything else what the body of Christ should look like.

Happy Birthday Wambui

Many of you are probably wondering who Wambui is. Well, in the Kikuyu alphabet, there is no "L" and the "R" is pronounced differently than ours, which makes Lauren one of the hardest names imagineable. Therefore, after about two weeks of butchering my name in every conceivable manner, my colleagues christened me Wambui, a simple, easy to pronounce Kikuyu name. I now answer to either.
I woke up on the morning of October 29 at about 6:30 am to the sun shining through my mosquito net and the sound of African drums marching across the field as our girls prepared for Sunday worship. It was a beautiful day, and as I made my way out of bed and into the kitchen, I realized that my wonderful roommate had decorated our entire home with streamers, blown up latex gloves, and newspaper letters with a special birthday message. It was incredible!
After our breakfast of tea and mandazi, we made our way to the student worship service where we sang and danced and laughed much like we do every Sunday. We also stuck around for the Kikuyu service that the older members of the village attend, and we both ended up with children on our laps playing a "moja... mbili... tatu" version of pattycake that Kari invented last week. Naomi is a little girl of about 3 years who absolutely brightens my day with her smile every single time I see her, so it was a beautiful blessing to sit with her through the service that I cannot understand. It was such a joy to spend so much of my birthday praising the Lord who created me and who loves me more than any other.
After worship we returned home, I got to open some presents, we fixed lunch, and spent much of the afternoon doing laundry and getting dancing lessons from some of our students. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate the life God has given me than by spending it with those He has called me to serve.
Thanks to all of you who also made my birthday special with your cards, letters, and e-mails, I am continually humbled by the love and support I feel from all of you. God bless.

Short Rains

The entire time I have been in Kenya, I have heard people talking about the short rains that begin in October, and I have wondered what that would mean for my life. Well, they finally started, and basically it means that the sky is fairly sunny during the day, but it pours rain at nighttime. The farmers that live in my community are thrilled, and any time I walk down the road I can find women working in the shambas just as happy as can be about the rain that means food is guaranteed this season. However, the rain and I are not on such friendly terms. First of all, every road in my life right now is made of red clay, and when it rains, the clay turns to mud and sticks to everything it touches including my shoes and clothes. Even worse than the mud, because mud is an issue I could foresee and expect, there are bugs. Our house is totally and completely infested with every type of insect imagineable. Every night, hundreds of buzzing, flying, crawling, swarming things invade our house seeking sanctuary from the rain. There are bees, wasps, termites, flying ants, beetles, spiders, fruit flies, house flies, winged worm things, and, of course, mosquitos. Every night a new battle begins between me and the insects, but I am afraid I am losing. I can't explain how much amusement and frustration these creatures bring to my life. There are a lot of problems and challenges that I expected when I decided to move here, but I guess I never thought I would spend so much time armed with a rolled up paper, spinning in circles, swatting at the air.