Our History and the Hope of Christmas: Part Two

"Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget 

the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart 

as long as you live.  Teach them to your children 

and to their children after them."

~ Deuteronomy 4:9

Knowing our past informs the present and gives hope for the future.  At least that's how it ought to be.  We look back and reflect and then consider our way forward.

We cannot know the past unless we learn about it, unless we choose to engage with whatever is known of our history.  Not everything is known, but often a great deal is.  Knowing history has many uses and I like to think that it, like Scripture, is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  When we learn about what was done wrong in the past we can hopefully find a better way forward.  When we learn about what was done right in the past we can hopefully find ways to replicate that goodness.

History is a powerful and earnest teacher if we're willing to be her student.

I am an ongoing student of the history of missions in Kenya.  I am learning both about what was done wrong and what was done right in the past, and hopefully finding solid ground to both reject what was done wrong and replicate what was done right as I live here now.

One of the greatest things I've learned that was done right, over and over again, was the faithful obedience of so many pioneer missionaries here in Kenya.  I can only hope that my level of faithfulness will amount to even a fraction of theirs.  Their stories have inspired me and moved me to tears, and I am eternally grateful to be following in their footsteps.

This is Johann Krapf, the first Protestant missionary to Kenya.  

Krapf was from Germany and spent seven years in Abbysinia (modern day Ethiopia) before coming to Kenya in 1844 with his wife, Rosina, and their infant daughter.  They arrived in Mombasa in May, and on July 13 his wife died of fever.  Their daughter also died, and Krapf was forced to bury his wife and daughter just two months after arriving in Kenya.

He wrote this: "God bids us first build a cemetery before we build a church or dwelling place."

He also wrote a letter to his mission society afterwards and said this: "Tell our friends at home that there is now on the East African coast a lonely missionary grave.  This is a sign that you have commenced the struggle with this part of the world, and as the victories of the Church are gained by stepping over the graves of her members, you may be the more convinced that the hour is at hand when you are summoned to the conversion of Africa from its eastern shore."

After this horrendous beginning, Krapf continued on alone for the next two years before someone else came to join his efforts.  He spent 13 years in Kenya (or British East Africa, as it was called then) and left with one convert to the Christian faith.  A book published in 1906 explained it this way: "Looked at from a human standpoint, Krapf’s life would seem to have had the word failure written around it.  Thirteen years in Africa, years of privation and suffering, and those at Mombasa of the deepest sorrow, and what was there to show for the sacrifice?  A broken-down body and a shattered constitution, two lonely graves on the hillside at Mombasa and one African convert.  But God has ordered it that no effort for good in this world is ever lost."

As God would have it, approximately 30 years after Krapf's wife and child died, a mission station and church were built on the plot of land where they were buried.  Krapf never saw that particular fruit of his labor.  He saw other successes, like compiling a Swahili dictionary and translating the New Testament into Swahili, and of course his one convert, but he never witnessed the joy of seeing a church built in the end.

I look forward to meeting Johann Krapf in heaven and saying thank you for his faithful obedience, for remaining in this land after it stole his family's lives, for not cursing the ground he stood upon but rather turning it into fruitful soil for the future - soil that we now stand upon and are continuing to reap the seeds that were sown by him 175 years ago.

I've been sharing his story with people who I know will be interested.  And I intend to share his story with our boys someday, so they will know our history and remember it, and be grateful for it.

The person who joined Krapf in Kenya was this man, Johannes Rebmann.  A fellow German, he remained in Kenya for 29 years without a furlough.

At some point during that time, their mission board "had dropped Mombasa as being an unfruitful field.  But ‘Old John Rebmann,’ as he was familiarly called, never lost faith in his work and refused to leave his post.... In his lifelong battle…he had been able to keep together a little company of Christians whose number equaled the twelve of his Master, and John Rebmann was content."

By the time he left Kenya, Rebmann was weak and nearly blind and yet had to be convinced to return to Europe for his health.  This is a photo of him and his devoted servant Isaak Niondo.

I look forward to meeting Johannes Rebmann in heaven and saying thank you for his faithful obedience, for coming in the first place even while knowing the dangers and hardships, for working so diligently to learn several languages and preach the Gospel to the nations.

I could tell you stories about others who came after these men, who saw little or no successes, who battled diseases and rinderpest and famine, who laid down their lives, some of whose names are forgotten to history although their presence was known.  There are too many to write about here, but I am learning about them so I can remember them and tell my children about them.  We are standing on their shoulders, just as others will stand on our shoulders in the future.

And although so many of their stories include incredible heartbreak, I am encouraged.  I am encouraged by their determination and resilience, by their absolute faithful obedience to Christ's call on their life.  

They did what they did because of Christ.  

Because He came, they went.

And I am reminded on this day of all days why we choose this life, why we spend Christmas halfway around the world from our families, why we reach across cultures to build the Kingdom in the here and now.  

It is because of Emmanuel, God With Us.

It is because of Hope Come Down.

It is because of the Desire of Nations.

All the struggles and sacrifices of the past, present, and future are given worth in the Christ child and the hope He brings to the world.

Our History and the Hope of Christmas: Part One

During grad school at Wheaton, I had an assignment for a cross-cultural research class that required us to explore the Archives in the Billy Graham Center and write a simple report on something we found.

I didn't realize it before, but the Archives are laden with missions history.

Missionary journals, newspaper clippings, old photographs and more fill the carefully catalogued collections.  Not only that, but the grad school library connected to the Archives is full of books on missions.  It's basically a one-stop shop for all things missions-related!

For my assignment, I wound up reading a journal written by a woman named Florence who moved to Kenya in 1906.  At the time we had no idea we'd also be moving to Kenya.  Eli was still in medical school and we were years away from moving overseas.  We knew Africa was in our future, but the specific country was still unknown to us.  Regardless, the journal was fascinating.

Florence wrote a small entry every single day.  She wrote about leaving America on November 1, 1905, and journeying on a ship across the Atlantic. She landed first in Liverpool, England, where she was delayed for four weeks because of diphtheria, but eventually continued on through the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, around the Horn of Africa, and into the port of Mombasa.  She landed in British East Africa (as it was called then) on January 9, 1906.

Florence's ministry included teaching Bible lessons, reading, writing, and sewing.  She married a long-time friend a few months after arriving - his arrival in Kenya predated hers by a couple years - and together they worked among the Maasai tribe.  Her husband, John, compiled a dictionary of the Maasai language and also translated their language into Scripture.  They spent decades in Africa and had a fruitful ministry, and I am inspired by them.

I'm inspired not only because of their successes, but also because of their day-in, day-out reality.  What fascinated me so much about Florence's journal were the non-ministry details, the behind-the-scenes daily living that is so much of life.  She wrote about ants in the house, about ruining the bread, about her husband being sick much of the time, and about an elephant destroying their garden one night.  She wrote about going for walks and enjoying picnics, and about looking for colobus monkeys to send back to the Field Museum in Chicago!  This was their life, their faithful walk as they spent decades working to build the Kingdom of God in Kenya.

And I am inspired.

I, too, have battled ant infestations in our house.  I, too, have ruined the bread.  I, too, have suffered from extreme sickness here.  And although we've never had an elephant in our garden (thank goodness!) we know well the battles of trying to keep our house and garden intact just so we can keep on living here.  Some things, apparently, don't change much in a hundred years.

But many things have changed.  Living here is infinitely easier now than it was for Florence and John.  We have electricity (most of the time) and quick transportation.  We have modern technology and the ability to communicate easily with family and friends back home.  We have lots of options for food, even some Western goods, and access to basic medicine.

More importantly, though, is how much has changed in the last hundred years in the Church.  The ministry that we are able to do now, at a mission hospital that openly shares the Gospel with patients, is only possible because of the foundations that were laid by pioneers like Florence and John.  They advanced the Kingdom here.  They shared the truth and love of Jesus and they discipled many.  They prepared their generation for pouring into the next, which poured into the next and the next and the next...  And now we are here, nearly 114 years later, walking on the foundations laid for us long ago and doing our part to keep advancing the Kingdom here.

It wasn't until we'd been in Kenya for awhile that I remembered reading Florence's journal in grad school.  I wanted to look at it again and learn more of the history of missions in Kenya.  So, on one of our trips through Chicago during Home Assignment last year, I took the opportunity to spend a couple days at Wheaton and look at Florence's journal in the Archives again.  Furthermore, I took the opportunity to look through several books that pertained to the history of missions in Kenya.  The more I learned, the more humbled and encouraged I became.

The missionary pioneers I read about (which I'll highlight in the next post) endured much suffering and seemingly little success.  They sacrificed a lot and gained very little.  Sometimes I feel like that too, because something that's remained the same over time is how slowly things change.  We invest in time and energy and money and emotions and prayer and relationships...and the growth and change we came here to participate in happens very slowly.

When I, as a time-sensitive American, get frustrated or discouraged with the pace of change in our ministry, it helps significantly to remember where we've been.  Not just where we, the Horns, have been, but to look even further back to those who have gone before us.

Florence wrote this at the very end of her journal in 1906: "What this little book contains of joys and sorrow, struggles, and smooth sailing - may never be seen by other eyes.  Yet it has been a comfort to record them.  God has kept a better record for which we praise Him and are happy to leave ourselves in His hands for the next 365 days."

I am so grateful to Florence for writing a record of her ministry in Kenya.  I have read it and now I know and can remember what God has done.  I can remember and be encouraged by God's work and God's timing.  He intended to bring Florence to Kenya in 1906 and He intended to bring me here in 2016.  We are both part of a bigger story, a story of ages past filled with people crying out for a Savior, and of a God who provided a Savior who embodied eternal hope.  We are part of a story that declares "Christ has come" and "It is finished" and "Let the nations be glad."

I am filled with hope at this time of year as we reflect on all God has done this year.  And I think it would serve us well to remember beyond this year - to years past, to ages past - and remember what God has done in times and places beyond our own that have made our own time and place of ministry possible.

Jesus Was Not a Mzungu

The Swahili word for "white person" is mzungu.  The word for "god" is mungu.  With only one letter difference between them (the z), they sound very similar.

Recently I went to a local shop for bread and other staples.  There were several school children outside the shop and I heard a couple of them saying something with the word mzungu in it.  We hear that word all the time.  We are an anomaly here, and children in particular like to point out the fact that we have white skin.

So it was not unusual to hear children saying, yet again, mzungu as I entered the scene.  At least, I thought I heard the word mzungu.  As it turns out, in actuality they were saying mungu.  Two words that are so similar in sound, and yet sooooo different in meaning.

The children were saying that I was like a god.

I didn't understand the situation at first and I smiled at the kids as they called me mzungu, which is what I understood to be happening.  But thankfully another woman who was standing outside the shop decided to address the very erroneous implication that I was like a god.

She called for one of the boys to come and see me, then told me directly, "They think you are like a god.  I am telling him you are just a person.  Let them come and see you are just a person."

And suddenly I realized the truth of the situation.  They were using the word mungu, and I had been smiling at them as if it was funny at best, truth at absolute worst.  I thank God for the woman who chose to speak up!

When I realized the situation, I also called for the boy to come.  "Kuja, kuja.  Habari yako?"  He came obediently but skeptically, and we shook hands.  The woman said something else in Swahili that was too fast for me to catch, and then the boy went on his way.

The woman was clearly upset and disturbed.  She came into the shop with me and repeated herself, "They need to know you are just a person.  I wanted them to know you are just a person."  She relayed what had transpired to the shopkeeper and I wanted to encourage them both that I was in agreement.

"You're right," I said.  "We are just people, the same as you."

"Yes!  You are the same as us!"

"It can be confusing because there are so many pictures of Jesus as a mzungu, but Jesus was not white."

"Jesus was not white."

"Yes," I said. "Jesus has usually been portrayed as a white person with light skin and light hair.  But he was born in Israel.  He had dark skin and dark hair."

That caused a pause, but I charged on.  "So it's easy to be confused, which is unfortunate, because Jesus was not a mzungu.  I'm glad you said something.  I also want them to know that I am just a person.  I am just like them."

There was a general agreement with that, and somehow we moved on to making our purchases and I left for home.

But I was mortified.  Those Kenyan children thought I was like a god?  Just because I have white skin?  There is no worse thing they could have imagined me to be!  I was absolutely mortified.

I was reminded of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra.  Paul healed a crippled man and immediately the people thought they were the gods come down.  "The gods have come down to us in human form!" they said.  They identified Paul as Hermes, and Barnabas as Zeus.

Needless to say, Paul and Barnabas were horrified.  So horrified, in fact, that they tore their clothes.  They shouted, "Men, why are you doing this?  We too are only men, human like you.  We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them."

Granted, they were likened to gods because they did something miraculous while I was likened to a god only because of my skin color, but the erroneous falsehood remained.  There is only one true God.  Period.

As for the misconception of the school children here, it's easy to understand their line of thinking.  They have most likely seen pictures of Jesus like this:

And this:

And this:

Not only is our Savior usually depicted with white skin, but often His salvific work on the cross has been portrayed with a Savior that's as white as a Scandanavian in the middle of winter.  Look at that pasty whiteness!  It's blinding.

The idea that Jesus was white gets ingrained in us from childhood.  What else would we expect when, on top of images like those above, we produce and read children's Bibles with a white Jesus?

It's actually quite normal to think of others from our own frame of reference.  Therefore, I think it's natural for white children to think of Jesus as white because they're identifying Him with what they know - their own white skin.  But unless they are taught otherwise, they will grow up thinking the falsehood that Jesus was white.  In reality, because Jesus was born in Israel he "would have looked like a Palestinian or Sephardi Jew, with brown skin and black hair."

Which means He probably looked more like this:

Or this:

Based upon my experience with the school children, it apparently remains necessary to continue spreading this truth.

I was also reminded of a story I heard a couple years ago.  A Kenyan friend was telling me about the first time she saw a mzungu.  She was a child at the time and a German missionary had come to the area.  When she saw the white man she immediately thought she was seeing Jesus.  She even went home and told her mother that she had seen Jesus.  As my friend told me this story she was laughing, because she knew how ridiculous it was, and I laughed too.  But my heart ached at the same time.  The perception that Jesus was a mzungu was, and still is, needing to be squashed.

So let me add my emphatic voice: Jesus was not a mzungu!  Jesus was not a white man!  He was an Israelite, a Jew, who came to seek and save the lost, which includes all of us whether we are white or black or anywhere in between.

Culture Charts and Navigating Culture

This came about because of the day I inadvertently traumatized two of our three children.  What I thought would be a good cultural experience for us all turned into one anxiety attack and one peak of frustration that culminated in two sobbing little boys desperate for an escape from said cultural experience.

Talk about a parent fail.

We had only been in Kenya for a few months, and our gardener mentioned that the nearby school was having traditional dance performances.  I was intrigued and wanted to see this for myself and take photos.  Better yet, I could take all the boys with me and we could learn about this cultural tradition together!  I explained to Caleb and Kai what we were going to do.  I told them there'd be singing and dancing and people dressed in costumes, even with paint on their faces.  It sounded so fun and exciting to the boys.  Costumes?  Face paint?  Who wouldn't want to see that?

So I strapped the baby on my back, and off we went with our gardener leading the way. 

We could hear the singing before we entered the school compound, and it was loud.  Music is usually loud here, so I wasn't phased, but once we entered the compound it was nearly deafening.  That should have been my first clue that things were about to go south, particularly because Caleb struggled with some auditory sensory issues at that time.

The second clue, which was less of a clue and more of an in-your-face realization, happened about one minute after we arrived and the group of students which had finished performing came streaming out the side door of the school, right to where we were standing.  They were dressed in traditional African attire and had various designs painted on their faces with white paint.  It was an impressive sight.  Or a terrifying sight, as it turned out to be for my boys.  Without skipping a beat, the whole group of students literally surrounded us and squatted down to peer into the faces of my sons at an extremely close range.

Caleb instantly began crying, and I mean crying, deep and anxious tears.  Kai buried his face into my side and clung to me like his life depended upon it.

I couldn't blame them.  It takes a lot of strength to bear the stares we receive as a minority here.  Our white skin attracts a lot of attention, and white children garner an even greater amount of attention. 
But to have that kind of attention literally in their face and without any prior warning?  It was too much.  My boys simply fell apart.

Except for Asa, who sat content on my back, oblivious that anything was amiss.

But while the baby was blissfully ignorant of the complete invasion of our personal space, my two other boys were acutely aware and utterly overwhelmed.  So I told our gardener that we needed to move to a different spot.  He took us to the back of the building where we could be alone and catch our breath a bit.  I successfully calmed Caleb down and detached Kai from clinging to my skirt, then asked if they'd be okay standing with our gardener for a minute so I could take some photos.  They agreed, and I went inside the school for literally two minutes to take some photos and a video.  When I came back outside, I discovered that another group of students had descended upon my children and were doing the same thing as the first group: squatting down at eye level and staring at my children.  They, too, were dressed in traditional dance attire, with face paint, and an intimidating presence.  No one was speaking to my boys.  They were just staring at them.  And so both of the boys were now a sobbing, hot mess.  Caleb was having an anxiety attack and Kai didn't know what to do with these people who wouldn't leave him be and so just resorted to crying about it.

And my inner Mama Bear came out.  For better or worse, I couldn't contain her.  I swept forward and threw my hands out to create distance between my children and these youth who didn't seem to understand the situation.  I wasn't angry at them, per se, since I know that personal space doesn't really exist in this culture, but I was definitely defensive of my babies and needing to protect them from the turmoil I'd unwittingly dragged them into.

We left immediately and the boys refused to let go of my hands until we were a good distance away from the school.  Eventually they both recovered from the trauma of being on display for a group of people dressed in traditional dance costumes.  But I felt terrible for putting them through that experience and wanted to reward them somehow for surviving through it.

And that's when I inaugurated their Culture Charts.

The concept was simple: for every new cultural experience, they would earn a sticker.  When they filled out a chart, they'd earn a prize.  It was as simple as that.  And I decided to backtrack for all the cultural experiences they'd already had, so they filled up their first charts pretty quickly with experiences like:

Learning how to greet people. 

Going to church. 

Shopping at the store.

Visiting someone at their home.

Traditional dances.

Other experiences included going to the U.S. Embassy, visiting the dentist, meeting Maasai women on safari, and drinking chai.

Some of these things seem so simple.  Going to church, for example.  They've been going to church since they were born.  But going to church in Kenya is not the same as going to church in America.  There are a lot of differences.  Visiting someone at their home?  Definitely not the same here as it is in America.  The first time we visited someone in the village, Caleb couldn't go into the house.  It was just different enough that he couldn't do it.  We let him play outside and he was fine, and several months later he eventually he made the huge step of going into a Kenyan home and not batting an eye, but it took extra time for him. 

It was a new cultural experience, and he earned a sticker for it.  Which was rewarding and affirming and motivating for him.  Which was exactly why I chose to do Culture Charts in the first place.

We don't use Culture Charts anymore.  The boys have acclimated enough that they're not necessary, which is a good thing.  I had almost forgotten about them until I found them while unpacking here at Chogoria.  It warmed my heart to see the charts again and be reminded of how far our boys have come in navigating their way through this culture.  They're still navigating their way through it, as are we.  But now we can simply have conversations with the boys about culture.  Culture charts are no longer needed to encourage and affirm these kids in their journey through cross-cultural living, and I'm thankful for that.

Sometimes, though, I wish they could still earn stickers.  It was a tangible reminder of what they've learned, and how far they've come.  

And sometimes I wish I could have a Culture Chart too.  I wish I could've earned a sticker for the first time I ate ugali and sukumawiki.  And I would've given myself a sticker for the first time I heard Swahili and understood what was being said.  And for learning to drive on the left side of the road, with cows and goats and zebras in the way.  And for trying and failing to make chai on my own.  And for learning the difference between geckos and skinks.  And for having my hair pulled during church because some kids were curious what long, blonde hair felt like.  And for suffering through typhoid.  I actually would've given myself two stickers for that one...or maybe three...or maybe ten...

But there was no tangible way for me to mark milestones in navigating culture.  There was only the awareness that I had done something new, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not.  And knowing that I had done something new was an achievement in and of itself.

The only way to acclimate to a new culture is to do all the new cultural things that come your way.  And once you do them (or in some cases, once you do them over and over again), then you have the hope of mastering them and being more grounded in this new culture.  And eventually it doesn't all feel new anymore.  Some aspects of this culture begin to feel familiar.  And that is an amazing feeling.  That feeling, in fact, is the greatest prize I could ever hope to earn as I navigate my way through this cross-cultural life.

The Art of Letting Go

During our time in the States last year, people would sometimes ask how we'd grown or changed because of living in Africa.  I always thought that was an insightful question, because it asked something deeper than "So how'd you like it there?" while displaying an understanding that living abroad does indeed change a person.

One of my responses to this question was, "I really learned how to hold things loosely, and simply let go."

When my phone didn't work for the first three months after moving to Kenya, despite multiple communications with people on both sides of globe and concerted efforts to fix the problem, there was nothing to do but let it go.  Oh well.  It would get resolved somehow, some day.  And I had other ways of communicating with people.  So oh well.  Hold it loosely.  Don't let a cell phone cripple you.

When I discovered one day that my precious light corn syrup from America had been nearly used up by my househelper who didn't understand its value (because it can't be bought in Kenya), I had to breathe deeply and let it go.  Light corn syrup isn't worth upsetting an otherwise smooth househelper relationship.

When the gardener planted grass seed in our garden because he thought it was lettuce?

When our sons' Kenyan friend threw books around and ripped pages because he'd never been taught how to handle a book properly?

When the water coming out of the tap was obviously dirty, but it was the only water to bathe our kids in, our kids who were even dirtier than the water?

Let it go.

Let it go.

Let it go.

It was a constant lesson, learning to hold things loosely.

Power outages affected cooking and homeschooling and bathing (because at least dirty water can be hot if the power is on!).  Cross-cultural communications that resulted in Amelia Bedelia moments were never out of the ordinary.  Daily routines were upended because someone stopped by the door, again.  The list could go on.

In essence, it was because I had so little control over everything that I had to learn to let things go.

Control is something we hold dearly in America.  We love to be in control.

We control our schedules and agenda by valuing our time and expecting others to do the same.  We control what we eat and when because our food options are virtually limitless in America.  We control where our money goes by holding an individualistic perception of finances ("what I earn is mine to do whatever I want with").  We control what direction our life takes because we make decisions for ourselves, with our own interests in mind.  The list could go on.

Americans love to be in control, and our culture is such that we can control much of our lives.  When things feel out of control, we lose our footing.  It feels like the earth is crumbling beneath us and the only way to get on solid ground again is to get back in control of our lives!

Life in Africa, on the other hand, offers little control.  It offers an albeit stressful (for an American) yet invaluable lesson in learning how to pull back, let go, and let God have His way with us.

After two years of living in Africa, I really thought I had learned a lot about this.  And I think I did.  Truly.  But after spending some time back in America, then returning to life in Africa again, I was smacked in the face with the reality that everything I had previously learned about letting go of my need for control was just scratching the surface.  The need for control is so deeply ingrained in me that, I fear, it will be a lifelong journey of choosing to give up my need for control and opting instead for letting things go.

And I say "choosing" because it does require a choice.  When our cultural makeup has taught us from birth that we can and should be in control of our lives, there's really no other way to unlearn that except to choose a different way.

And choosing a different way has been very good for us, even though it's been very hard.  It's been hard to do because it's unnatural, and it's been hard to do because sometimes I downright don't want to do it!

For example, when we bought this washing machine in Nairobi and had it delivered to Chogoria so we could actually do our laundry, we thought it might take a week or so before getting it all set up.

Our house, however, wasn't built with a washing machine in mind.  There was no obvious place to put it.  So we needed the plumbers from the hospital to come and install some drain pipes and a new electrical box to plug it in, etc.  Long story short, it took over two months before our washing machine was up and running.  It just sat there, staring at me every day while I hauled our laundry to the neighbor's house and back so we could have clean clothes to wear.  It took that long because things just don't happen quickly around here.  That's literally all there is to it.  And there was nothing we could do about it.  We'd gone through all the proper channels and done everything on our end that was appropriate to do, and then we just had to wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Let me tell you, waiting over two months before having the freedom to do our own laundry whenever I wanted (and however often I wanted) was not easy for me.  I felt trapped, out of control.  I lamented every time our boys would come into the house covered in dirt.  I bit back frustration (or not) every time our boys spilled food on their shirts.  Or every time our son leaked in his bed overnight.  Because all of those times meant I had to do more laundry, without the ability to do it on my own.  My control had been taken from me.

Another example: there are ants in our kitchen.  Specifically, there are ants living in the walls of our house, and they congregate in the kitchen (for obvious reasons).  The only thing that has proven to keep them at bay is constant cleaning and sweeping.  If ever we forget, our sink looks like this:

I fretted over this for several weeks.  I don't like ants in our kitchen.  I don't like that I can't leave a pile of dishes overnight for our househelper to clean in the morning.  I don't like that I sweep our floors like it's my job (as if I need another job!) and I don't like that these little tyrants number in the thousands so that no matter how many I get rid of it doesn't even make a dent in the problem.  It's just the way this house is.  After realizing how much I was letting this bother me, and by God's great grace, I somehow let this go.  I still don't like the ants, but I currently don't vex over all the extra cleaning that goes into holding these little buggers at bay.

It's just a part of life here.  Like so many other things.  It's just a part of life here.

And the best course of action is to let it go.

Which is something I'm still learning how to do.  Still choosing how to do.

Because, as it turns out, the art of letting go is about making a choice.  It requires choosing to care less about schedules and agendas.  It requires choosing to not begrudge interruptions at the door.  It requires choosing to find and accept help when you discover it's not possible to get the job done on your own.

Pole pole (as the Swahili saying goes, "slowly slowly") I am learning how to make these choices.  There are plenty of days I fail.  But some days I succeed.  And those days are victories.

Tales of Transition

The bags were packed, the deep storage stored, the keys handed back to my folks.  "Boys, time to get in the car!" I shouted to our three little munchkins.  It was time to fly back to Kenya.

I grabbed my own bag, headed out the door, and heard a voice from around the corner.  "Mama, I had an accident."  I turned to see our 6-year old standing in the grass, soaked all the way down to his toes.  It was not the kind of accident we were accustomed to hearing about, which our potty-training 3-year old was a pro at.  So I was confused, then suddenly panicky, and downright upset.

"What happened???" I yelled at him.

"I fell into the lake."

What? I thought.  You mean, the lake at the bottom of the hill that you're expressly forbidden to go to by yourself, and on today of all days when the bags are packed and the car is packed and I have no spare clothes anymore to find for you???  That lake???

It was not my best parenting moment.

Thankfully, my own parents came to the rescue and we found clothes for my son and dried his shoes and I was given space to cry my hot and angry tears and we still got on the road with enough time to make it to Detroit Metro in time for our flight to Nairobi.

*deep breath*

And our son recovered his excitement to fly back to Kenya, which I had temporarily squashed with my parental freak-out moment.

And then we had a great trip overseas!  The boys were all-star travelers, as usual.  We arrived tired but in one piece, and all our luggage came through without issue.

And then we had a smooth reentry into Kenya, minus the expected jet lag which hit the boys pretty hard.  But we rolled with it, administering melatonin and movies at 4am like it was our sole purpose in life.  We saw close friends, we saw a pair of hornbills at the guesthouse (yay!), we went on the annual field retreat and reconnected with a ton of people and met some new friends (sea creatures included), and we started the process of moving from Tenwek Hospital to Chogoria Hospital, where Eli will be the new program director for the family medicine residency there.

We also traveled back to Tenwek to meet and greet old friends and help our hearts with the transition of moving to a new home.  The boys were happy in that familiar place and loved climbing their favorite trees again and playing with one of their best buds.  It was a wonderful time.

Then, finally, we officially moved to our new home at Chogoria Hospital - eight hours away from Tenwek in a different part of the country, among a different people group and a different tribal language.  We love it here.  We love our new house, even thought it's taking a long time to get settled.  And the boys love all the bugs to catch both inside and outside the house.  And we love our new neighbors who've been a delight and a godsend at the same time.

Overall, our transition back to Kenya was smooth.  Quite simply, we were doing great for about three weeks and counted ourselves blessed to have such a smooth transition.

And then this past week happened.

The small-ish trials included power outages, ant infestations in the kitchen, ant bites on the kids, losing some of our stuff in the move from Tenwek to Chogoria, misadventures during a supply run, getting rear-ended by a motorcycle, whiny kids and short tempers, and waking up to water all over the bathroom floor that came from a leak in the hallway closet connected to a plumbing problem with our hot water heater.

The big trial was the morning that Asa accidentally fell off the top bunk of our new triple bunk and landed on the back of his head.  Long story short: his screams were awful, my heart froze with fear, he eventually vomited three times as a result of a concussion, my heart froze again, we took him to the hospital for a CT scan and continued praying for God's protection over our little man. In the end, the images showed no intracranial bleeding but they did show a hairline fracture on the back of his skull.  My heart gave out again, as if it wasn't already spent after the initial trauma.  By God's great grace, Asa was back to his normal self the following day and all we have to do is continually keep our active 3-year old from being too active so his skull has the time to heal on its own.

first night with the new bunk, 

before the incident

waiting for the scan

getting scanned and 

telling him happy thoughts

looking at the results

Asa liked seeing pictures of his skull

We rejoice in God's protection over Asa, whose fall could have resulted in a much worse injury.  Not only did God protect him completely, but He held our hearts close in the midst of fear.  He gave us the prayers of His people and Scripture to claim.  He strengthened us and sustained through that intense trial.

That was actually the first of our trials last week.  Meaning that everything else pales in comparison.  Yet it doesn't negate everything else.  We have still felt the weight of the other burdens and stresses and we still feel the desire to be freed from them.  So many struggles have come at us this past week that it feels like a barrage.  A deluge of difficulties.  An avalanche of adversity.

Which made me remember something I wrote down a while ago.

Two years ago I wrote this in my journal:

The only way to ensure that you won't be attacked by the enemy of God is to do little or nothing for God.... But if you are trying to bear fruit for the kingdom of God, if you are trying to spread the Gospel, if you are trying to be a source of light in this very dark world, then be assured that the enemy of God will make enemies of you too and will mount his attacks against you.

After the water leak incident this morning I suddenly remembered writing these words and went back to find them.  I wrote those words as an encouragement to myself during a difficult time when it felt like we were under spiritual attack.  I remembered those words this morning, not only because we now find ourselves feeling the same way again - under attack - but also because we're in the middle of transition, which seems to be a prime time for the enemy to go on the offensive.

In general, I don't think Satan chooses to attack people just because they're in transition.  But I do think he chooses to attack people who are making an obedient choice to do the will of God, especially if that choice requires altering courses in order to do it.  Which is why times of transition are especially susceptible to spiritual attacks.  Whenever a person chooses to fulfill God's good plan, it invites the enemy's schemes.  When coupled with the underlying stress inherent with major transition, the enemy's schemes are particularly potent.

Back to my journal entry from a two years ago:

What matters is not that we will have trouble in this world or that we will be attacked by the enemy of God if we are bringing glory to God.  What matters is how we choose to respond to it.  There's no denying that trials and hardships are a burden.  The crux of the matter is whether or not we bear the burden well.  That is what Satan is really concerned about, and what God is really concerned about too....  We should be prayerful.  We should be reading Scripture and reminding ourselves that a servant is no greater than his master - if Jesus can be tested by the devil then so can we, and so shall we be....  

We are certainly being tested and tried.  And we have a choice: the choice is how we respond.  God instructs us how to respond when Satan attacks, which is to resist him and stand firm in the faith.  Our choice is whether to do it or not.

Just yesterday I read a book to the boys that was among the many we've unearthed since being back in Kenya.  It's called The Sheep That No One Could Find and is a rhyming retelling of the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  In it, the lost sheep is depicted as being pursued first by a wolf, then a lion, then a snake, all out to destroy him.  I asked our boys why they thought the author would write that into the story even though the real story doesn't include those kinds of details.  Caleb immediately said, "Because the lion is prowling around looking for someone to devour!"  That kid knows Scripture.  I opened my Bible to 1 Peter and read them the passage he was remembering: "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith" (5:8-9).

This is how we're resisting the enemy in this very present trial: we've started laughing instead of stewing, we're reading Scripture truths that speak into this, we're praying for joy and peace, we're contacting other people to also pray for us, and we did a prayer walk through our house to pray over every single room.  Let me tell you, it was powerful to hear our sons pray with us, saying things like, "Thank you for this room" and "make Satan just go away from this room" and "God, come here."

If we resist the devil and stand firm in the faith, we give glory to God.  And as I ended my journal entry two years ago,

If God can be glorified, then Satan is defeated.

Chai Time for Life

When asked what I miss the most about living in Kenya, I think of chai time.  Not just chai (which is amazing in its own right with Kenyan tea leaves and fresh milk from the cow), but chai time.

Kenyans drink a lot of chai.  For breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, supper.  Maybe other times in between.  Basically, any time of day is a good time for chai.  And my favorite part of drinking chai is the time it takes to drink it.

Not because it takes long to guzzle it down, but because it involves putting everything else on pause in order to sit down together.

During mid-morning chai time at the hospital, Eli and his team of residents and interns would pause rounding on patients in order to sit down at a table and drink chai together.

During mid-morning chai time at our house, the boys and I would pause homeschooling and our househelper would pause cleaning/cooking so we could sit down at the table and drink chai together.

This was not a gathering at the water cooler.  We did not stand around and make small talk about the weather.  Not exactly.

We sat down at the table together, we prayed over the chai, and we talked.  Sometimes about the weather, yes, but about many other things as well.  We talked about where we came from, what songs were sung at church, the best way to eat a loquat, why our kids wanted to carve faces into pumpkins, what we'd be cooking for the Christmas meal, my multiple language blunders, and much more.

Basically, we spent time appreciating each other and trying to understand each other better.  It was a way of loving one another.

And sometimes we didn't say much at all.  Yet the long silences that sometimes ensued while sipping chai were not uncomfortable.  We didn't feel obligated to fill the silence.  There was peace in simply sitting around a table together, pausing from everything else, and being still together.

Asa drinking his first cup of chai

Recently our family took a break not unlike chai time.  It was a time of putting everything else on pause, of intentionally sitting down together to appreciate each other and understand each other better, and sometimes to sit in silence together and let that be okay.  It was a sort of chai time for life.

It took a few weeks, and actually required a lot of heart work, and was so very good.  We came away feeling more connected, more patient and present with each other, and ready to unpause and dive back into life.  The only thing that could've made it better is if there'd been an actual cup of chai in our hands!

As we prepare to head back to Kenya in a few weeks, we look forward to re-embracing the rhythm of chai time, of pausing together to intentionally be together.  This, I believe, is one way we can love each other well.