A whole new ball game...

After a long day (or 2) of flying, I'm happy to report that I found my way safely to Limuru, Kenya on Friday night! Being met at a foreign airport by a group of friendly faces was an incredible feeling, and driving out through Nairobi to Limuru finally made this journey feel like a reality -- this was becoming home, and I almost couldn't contain my exhaustion/excitement!

My first day in Africa, on Saturday, was a startling reintroduction to how shockingly different and utterly joyful this place can be. Shockingly different, in that one of the first things we saw in Limuru was a car get stuck on the railroad tracks and then get t-boned by an oncoming train…the kind of things that you see in movies but would never think happens in the real world. Luckily, the driver was ok and fled the scene. Also remarkably different is the flexibility that this life requires. In an effort to relax on our first day back, Duncan and I decided to drive with some friends out to Hell’s Gate National Park and do some rock climbing. First this required running all kinds of random errands, followed by a two hour drive, then on arriving at Hell’s Gate we discovered that the prices of entry have changed. Not wanting to pay the fee, we all decided to drive to nearby Lake Naivashu, haggle for a cheap boat ride, and go visit some hippos and pelicans down the shoreline. On the way back we spent an hour in a traffic jam, and then another hour at a mechanic’s shop when the car started smoking, but “hakuna matata,” it was an amazing day in the end!

I know that flexibility, and the patience that it requires, is something that I am definitely going to need God’s help to adapt to. My natural desire is to have some sort of plan or schedule, but it simply doesn’t work in this culture. I’m finding that releasing these kinds of needs will probably make this time much more enjoyable, but I know it won’t be as easy as that sounds, and I would love prayer for the right kind of outlook on each day and what it holds.

The other realization that yesterday held was how utterly joyful this place can be. This joy can be found in so many places – the genuine smiles on the faces of people when they meet you or see you after a long time, the happiness in the children’s eyes as they run and play around you--the mysterious “mizungo,” or even an orange fanta with real cane sugar in it. Part of this kind of joy is simplicity…a simplicity of purpose and love that we miss so often in the craziness of American life. Really taking the time to enjoy and relish a blessing from God, in any of these forms, is so satisfying. There were two moments yesterday that really captured this for me. First, I found myself standing on our porch around 7am, sipping a cup of chai (milk tea) and looking out at the dense fog covering the landscape. It was cool, probably around 50 degrees, and it seemed like the feeling of the cold air and the blanket of fog were hiding the promise of the beautiful day that was to come. This echoed the feeling of my own heart…knowing that so much was in store but unable to see it at the moment, a knowledge that gave a wonderful peace and a beautiful, quiet excitement. The other moment was not so quiet and still, but rather overwhelmingly loud, as I found myself in the backseat of a car with two Kenyans, two other Americans, and a friend from New Zealand, driving through the Great Rift Valley, every window down in the driving rain, singing “The Circle of Life” as loud as we possibly could! These are the times that create an almost uncontainable happiness in me, a gratitude and praise for the beauty of our Lord’s plan that I can’t express but I absolutely love.

As time goes on I know the novelty of life here will fade, but I pray that the joy and beauty never does. I am still waiting to see what all this time will hold, but I am even more confident now that God has amazing things in store, and I can’t wait to experience each one of them!