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.