The Summer hustle and bustle is coming to a close! We just
parted ways with our last volunteer team until November and Uhuru Academy will
be concluding its second successful term of the year August 8th. Not
to mention I have officially been in Kenya for 6 WHOLE MONTHS. Wow. I really do
not know how that happened or understand how time can fly by so quickly. Literally,
June and July were a blur!
To highlight the major events we did have the City Project
team from The Summit Church in Durham come visit for two weeks and they
certainly left an impression! They plowed some farm land we are going to use to
grow more lettuce, did some manual beautification of the school as well as continued
the ever prevalent struggle of paving the driveway to the school, held a
worship service with the students and a church service, organized/participated
in many field days and craft activities with the students, and had the most
positive attitudes. J
We really enjoyed their energy and enthusiasm and how they really bought into
the vision of Uhuru Child and sought to love on not only the people of JIkaze
and our students, but also the people living in Tigoni (where we live). In
their spare time after a long day of physical labor, some of the students would
venture out of the team compound to meet people in Tigoni who they could sit
and listen to stories from and even share the word of God with. It was so
encouraging just seeing the love of Christ exude from these college students
and seeing their hearts for anyone and everyone to know Jesus. No one is exempt
from the love of Christ through the gospel and I think I was reminded of that
through them being here. Here are a few
pictures from them assisting the students in interpreting God’s Word in Bible
Study one Saturday morning!
Also, I attempted my first visa run a week and a half ago
and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life! Basically, I had
only planned on staying in Ethiopia for a few hours and because of that, the
visa office at the Ethiopian airport would not let me leave the airport.
Apparently, there is a rule that you must be staying in the country for at
least 24 hrs before you can exit the airport and get an Ethiopian visa. Long
story short, I waited in two lines for an hr each, trying to figure out if
someone could help me get a visa and get out of there….to no avail. I kept
bouncing between two employees at two different desks, one of which was rude to
me every time I tried to ask him a question. Then, the two employees started
arguing with each other about the rules in Amharic (Ethiopian national
language) while I stood there hoping the woman helping me would be able to get through
to this guy. In the end, he remained a jerk. And the icing on the cake was that
my plane ended up getting more and more delayed each hour as they gave us an
update for 8 hours. I was supposed to arrive in Nairobi that same day at 12:45
pm but did not arrive until 8:45 pm. Needless to say, I will not be flying
Ethiopian airlines anymore! It was a headache yes, but just terrifying being
stuck in a foreign country, in an airport I had not previously flown to, with a
language I did not understand (I wish every African country spoke Swahili), and
I was by myself!
Recently, I have been doing a word study in the Bible with
the word “lost.” Like, what does it mean when the Bible describes people as
lost? How does God address these people and why does he “find” them? What makes
them get lost in the first place? And I feel like this experience has given me
a very real experience of what its like to be “lost.” I was left to fend for
myself even though I didn’t know where I was supposed to go half the time or if
I was ever going to find someone nice enough to help me. Then, I realized once
I was safe at home in Kenya (yes, my home now), that that is what happens
spiritually to us when we stray from God. We are desperately searching for
truth or resolution in places that we aren’t even sure they exist. We are so
far away from anything safe or comfortable that we don’t think we will ever
return to our home, in God’s arms. BUT, we are never far enough that He cannot
seek and save us. The parable of the lost sheep, which I am pretty sure
everyone is familiar with, says that He will gladly leave the 99 on a mountain,
to seek and save the dumb sheep that has left His side (my paraphrasing J ). What a promise! Why
we ever go astray from the perfect love and security of God I don’t exactly
know, but what I do know is that we are sinful. We want to follow our own way,
no matter what the result is and when we finally realize we are lost and have
no helper and are at a loss for what to do or where to go, we can ALWAYS ALWAYS
ALWAYS call on the Lord for rescue. That’s one of His identities! We have a
loving Rescuer who will literally drop everything to come save His flock. What a
Father. So, no I am not happy or excited about what happened last Monday, but I
am thankful that God used that moment to give me a visual representation of
what happens when we leave His side where we are safe. Not to say I left His side
in going to Ethiopia because I had to do it, but being lost there and scared
and alone made me realize this is what we do to ourselves when we choose to go
our own ways and is always the result. Our desires and the worldly things we
chase always over-promise and under-deliver.
“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows
favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
–Psalm 84:11
P.S. Tim and Jody’s
cat, Toroak, that I helped to deliver her babies is doing very well and the
kittens seem healthy and active. They are going to be 4 weeks old soon which
also just seems impossible to me! But, here are a few pictures of the cuties!
