These last three memories I’m going to share are the ones that have challenged me the most personally. They leave me asking myself ‘what do we do now?’ and ‘how is life going to look different for me when I go back home?’. Africa Nazarene University has a morning prayer group that meets regularly. During Holiness Week (the full week we were there), they met every single day. I figured there wouldn’t be a lot of college students from our team that would have the desire to get up every morning at 7am, but I felt like prayer was something I needed to go to. I managed to get some friends to go with me on a few days, but I knew that I could discipline myself to wake up early for a week. The first day was rough. I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open. The way the prayer meeting worked was the first 30ish minutes were set aside for prayer and personal reflection and then they sang a hymn that signaled everyone to pull a chair up to the circle where Cindy (our missionary host and ANU’s chaplain) led a little devotional. The week of Holiness Week she was looking at Mark 11:24… even when I didn’t feel like going on Tuesday, I got up because this verse intrigued me and I desperately wanted to continue looking at what it had to say on effective prayer and our desires. A paraphrase of the KJV that we looked at says: “I am telling you, whatever you desire and ask for when you pray, trust in faith that you receive them and you will have them” Mark 11:24. We can’t just pray and ask for something and expect to receive it in full if our desires aren’t pure and we don’t desire it fully with our whole hearts. This doesn’t mean that all you have to do is fix up your heart and God will instantly grant your prayers… I desire with my whole heart that Mom will be healed in whatever way is going to glorify God the most. That doesn’t mean she’s going to miraculously be healed (or pass away) tomorrow - we can’t forget about God’s timing. Along with looking at this verse, I learned about spiritual warfare (there was quite a bit of it during some of the services) and how real and scary it can be. The faithfulness of people in that group was quite inspiring. I loved every minute I spent in morning prayer. But the things I learned about prayer and my responsibility to intercede for myself and others in this faithful way is not something I can just leave in Kenya and abandon when I get home. Especially after hearing testimonies and seeing the power of prayer, it’s something that God has challenged me to continue. Hopefully I’m not reading this a few months or years down the road and saying ‘oof I dropped the ball on God again’... hopefully this is something I can fully pursue and incorporate into my daily life. God truly wants to share in relationship with us and he wants to be our number one priority… first and last thought on our minds. I am so thankful for my internship in Puerto Rico because I think the intentionality and the mindset I will have while I’m there will help me to actually start praying… and keep praying.
A few chapters ago I wrote about Jane - a wonderful woman who helps Rob and Cindy take care of their house and Cindy’s father during the day. The first Sunday of our trip we went to her church that was in town - Ongata Rongai. In order to get there we ended up taking 2 trips in Rob’s car. I was in the first group and it was a little awkward getting there. A lot of the church’s members hadn’t arrived yet and we had been directed to sit down. I, however, did not want to sit down. I walked to the back of the church where they had some signs hanging up describing upcoming church activities and their mission statement and I was standing there reading when someone (the pastor of the church, Pastor Kennedy) came up to me. He got my attention and said “you are a pastor?”... I was so surprised. I said “yeah, how’d you know?” and he responded by telling me that “I was so calm in that moment and he could just tell”. That was a super cool moment for me. We got comfortable and sat through Sunday School/Bible Study that lasted for about an hour and a half and then we got ready for church to start. That day at Ongata Rongai was seriously SO cool. I wrote the following in my journal that night: “Worship was powerful. Each song built with spiritual intensity. During the last song (the whole time I was dancing, clapping, and singing in Swahili) I noticed how passionate people were. I said ‘God I wish I knew what they were singing and praying’ and immediately the voice of God said ‘they’re asking for revival’ and of course I started crying. I said ‘if that’s what they’re saying or even if it isn’t… please give them what they are asking for… and give it to me too’”.
Based on a prayer they said in English after the worship time was over, what God had spoken to me was correct. It brought me to tears how urgently and desperately they were singing, praying, and crying out to God. After the service I talked to some people who asked me what worship was like in America. I told them ‘not like that’ and they were shocked to hear me describe what a typical worship service looks like when it comes to participation. It was almost like their hearts were broken for me - for us - that we were not experiencing the joy that comes with the worship style they practice. Why don’t we worship like that? Why do we have to be stone statues reading off of a screen? Why can’t we pray like that? Urgently asking God to be with us, bless us, satisfy our needs, and bring REVIVAL to the church??? We are in desperate need of a revival and yet we’re too lazy/embarrassed/comfortable to even care enough to praise God in the way he deserves to be praised??? I’m not saying that I’m going to be dancing up and down the aisles when I come back home… but I AM going to choose to not be ashamed to worship God in the way I need to.
May 17 is a day that I will never forget. We spent the day at a school in the heart of the slum of Mathare. Images from this day are ingrained in my mind. The slum took up a whole valley that was just minutes from the city and better living conditions. On the drive there we saw lots of hard working people going through the motions and trying to survive. We saw trash everywhere - the ditch on the side of the road, big piles in random places that chickens and children were picking through. When we parked the bus, there was a little boy (he didn’t go to the school we were visiting, just lived in the neighborhood) outside who had what looked like burn marks up and down his arm and on his chest. We walked through the “slum soccer” courtyard where we would later have recess and walked into a little alley between the school (right) and a multi-level housing unit (left). The first thing I saw when I entered the alley was a dead rat and the last thing I saw before I left was two little boys playing. They weren’t playing with toys though - they were pouring dust from one plastic trash wrapper to another. The school had dirt floors and mud brick dividers between 5 or 6 classrooms. Their desks looked like skinny little church altars and each classroom held at least 20 children. Each teacher had a chalkboard, a couple books to teach out of, and two boxes of well used chalk. We were supposed to rotate and end up seeing 3 different classrooms but the first room I entered happened to be Ms. Edith’s preschool class and she asked me to stay with her class throughout the whole day. Even though the circumstances around them were unthinkable to me (a privileged American), every child I met had the biggest smile on their face and light in their eyes. They were incredibly happy. They were getting an education - the only way to break the cycle and get out - and they got lunch every single week day. During recess time the older kids played soccer in the courtyard and the community that surrounded the school watched while doing laundry or other everyday tasks. The preschoolers got to play with a parachute… they LOVE that parachute. Their giggles and smiles drown out the dirt, pain, and struggles around them. Since I spent the whole day with Ms. Edith’s preschool class, I got to know several of the children by name. As I watched them interact with each other and got to see their personalities, I began to see my own preschool children back at First Church (NFCN) in them. Tom reminded me of Jeremiah, Liam reminded me of Daisy, Trevor reminded me of Corbin, and Sylvia reminded me of Amy. Children’s ministry has its ups and downs. I have only held the official role of co-pastoring in preschool with Bethany for about 6 months now. I have the whole summer off but you better believe that when I get back and start working with my kids every week, I will ALWAYS see the faces of the precious children at the school in Mathare. I will continue to pour into the sweet kiddos I get the privilege of working with, but a piece of my heart will always belong to Kenya. They will be in my heart and in my prayers forever.
While the children brought me so much joy, the most impactful relationship I built that day was with the preschool teacher - Edith. She’s a student at ANU and teaching at the same time. That day she taught numbers, letters, different foods that are good to eat and how to draw them, how to pray, the importance of baptism, and many other little lessons. Edith is so strong. She serves humbly and selflessly everyday in the midst of utter poverty. The area is dangerous - Germaine walked every single girl to the bus as we left. He told Janice and Jacinda that it didn’t matter if you were white or Kenyan - it was almost a daily occurrence for people to be stripped, beaten, and robbed in Mathare. So what do we do? I feel like a lot of Americans would say “give them money, donate clothes, and offer food” but if I learned anything from Mathare it is that throwing money at the problem will NOT solve it. One of the little boys I was with wanted to see a simple “African Nazarene University” bracelet so I took it off and gave it to him. He looked at it for a couple minutes and then he took it off and gave it back. As I noticed other children watch his movements carefully, I realized that it was probably a good thing he gave it back. Other kids or even adults might have fought for that simple little bracelet. There are over 500,000 people living in Mathare and if the resources we donated to them were not plentiful - overflowing for everyone to have their fill and more - it would not bring peace and resolution but rather utter chaos. I was only in Kenya for a short time, but it seems to me that what Kenya needs is not America coming in to ‘save them’. Kenya needs its young people to continue to grow up and become passionate about ministering the communities around them. ANU students went with us that day and THEY are the answer and the hope that Kenya needs. I am so thankful for the opportunity to go, see, experience, discover, wipe the slate clean, and learn what life in Kenya is really like… but at the end of the day the future success of Kenya rests in the hands of the generation that truly knows the root of the problems and has the determination to fix it.
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