Chapati, Laughter, and Jesus

During my time in Kenya thus far, I've gotten accustomed to the "home visit" experience - tagging along with some of our center workers to visit clients in their homes, checking up on how they are doing and encouraging the clients and their families. It's always interesting and exciting to venture out on home visits with first-timers, though, as the experience never ceases to impact and touch people in myriad different ways. Last week during the vision trip, I went with Jane, Mom, and Dad - along with Joseph and Margaret from Banana Hill - on several home visits one afternoon. We ended the day with a visit and dinner in the home of a client named Theresia, a grandmother who lives with her two youngest children, John and Mary.

I have to say that this was one of the most fun, laughter-filled visits that I've ever been on. Theresia is an incredibly joyful woman, and she was absolutely thrilled to have visitors from America joining her for dinner. While her kids and neighbors cooked up a great meal of potatoes, vegetables, and beef stew, Theresia taught us the secrets of making her specialty - chapati. Chapati is a tortilla-like flat bread that Theresia makes during the day to sell to construction workers on nearby job sites, and she is apparently the best chapati-maker in Banana Hill! All of us wazungu watched with rapt attention as Theresia took a ball of dough, sprinkled some flour on it, and quickly flattened it into a perfect circle with a wooden rolling pin. Then she expertly rolled it on to the pin and dropped in onto a small circular pan over a coal-fired jiko, adding cooking fat and turning the chapati at just the right intervals until it was golden brown.

After watching a few balls of dough turn into piping-hot, buttery chapati, it was our turn to step up to the plate and show off our skills! As first Jane and Mom, then Dad and me, took our turns rolling out the dough and cooking it, while all of the Kenyans in the room rolled with laughter - they laughed our un-circular, not-quite-flat sheets of dough, they laughed at our unskilled attempts to roll the dough onto the pan, and they laughed at the flour we sent flying all over the place. We laughed because they were laughing, and before long the whole room was doubled over!

It amazes me how laughter can bring together people from such different places. When we were sitting in that room - four Americans and about eight Kenyans - it felt totally comfortable, like I was sitting around with any of my friends having a good time. That's an unbelievable feeling, and it was magnified tenfold when we started to talk about the biggest thing that we all had in common - Jesus. Theresia shared about how her faith had grown through the counseling of Joseph, and both of her children shared about how they were staying home to love their mother and praying for the means to support her better. We shared about how thankful we were for the chance to see their faith and their love with own eyes, and we talked about how Christ has blessed each one of our lives with family, friends, love, and fellowship. All of us prayed together, bowing our heads in the dark room lit by a single lantern - hearts dwelling on the same place, minds lifted heavenward to the same open arms of the same Savior. At that moment - after all the laughter, the tears, and the prayers - I felt that we were all...the same. No matter how different our lives might look from the outside, we are the same in so many ways. Jane and Mary, Bob and John, Sherry and Theresia...each person prays to the same God, and each one will meet again in the same place for eternity!

Praise God