Following is our recorded story of our Kenyan adventure this past Sunday. It is a good reminder to all of us that GOD is GOOD.
The morning started out beautifully, just like normal Sundays. I woke earlier than usual so I could have quiet time to myself in the kitchen before the demands of being a mom became too demanding. Carolyn, Clara, her sweet crew, Tiffany, and I left for church close to an hour after Wayne and Joe left, which has been our habit since we came. It makes it so nice that Tiffany doesn’t need to be at church during instruction class. At church, Wayne announced that the order of the service would be different that morning because he needed to go to the Rabour church after the message to take the charge of bishop there. We had Sunday School after the message to give him time to preach to us at Lela before he needed to go to Rabour. He also announced that JoeAllen would close the service, and after that Joe would go to have prayer at the funeral of an acquaintance of the Lela church. This was news to me. We were in for a real Kenyan adventure…
Sunday School without Wayne and Clara’s more experienced, capable selves went as good as it could, and Joe did well with closing the service. It was not his first time to do this. As we were shaking the last hands in the line of dear Africans filing out of church, our attention was drawn to a commotion by the old mission van in the church yard. A small boy was screaming loudly in pain and a crowd was quickly gathering around him. Joe ran fast to investigate and discovered the boys had been playing inside and outside the van, and one little boy had his finger pinched in the door. To make the situation worse, the door was locked, so it took a bit to get that nasty sliding door open. Dear Sister Zilpah came to me and asked for pain relief medicine for the injured boy. She very seriously said, “It is good for him to have it.” After some digging in my overstuffed bag, I found chewable children’s vitamin C and adult Tylenol and Ibuprophen. I decided right then, in Kenya, I need to carry my “nurse bag” with me everywhere after this. I did comfort the boy by exclaiming over his finger and giving him a vitamin C. He seemed quite pleased with my attention. Meanwhile, the majority of the people lingered in the church yard hoping to catch a ride to the funeral.
Carolyn took an older member, Hesbon, home with the van while Joe and I finished meeting the people. When she came back, Joe told Carolyn that he doesn’t mind if she drives the van because she is more experienced with this dear old van with its left hand stick shift. Poor Carolyn! I know how awkward it can be to drive American men around, but she bravely stayed at the wheel. I climbed in beside her with Tiffany, and the cramming, jamming, cracker box stacking began. After some shuffling and discussion, we headed to the funeral with twenty eight people on board. The funeral location was surrounded in mud and water, due to rainy season. As we bumped along the rough road to the funeral, that overloaded van needed to drive through water and Carolyn was afraid we would get stuck, but the backseat drivers were telling her to keep going. She told me, “The gas gauge shows below empty.” I began to pray and immediately I felt peace that God was in that van with us. I told her, “God will provide.” We arrived well at the funeral, and after the challenge of walking across logs setting across the water and sticky mud with very helpful and kind African mamas hanging onto my arms wanting so much to help this Mazungu mama across the mud, we gathered around the coffin and sang good Christian Luo songs. There was a mixture of evil and good represented at that funeral. Some wailing hopelessly; others singing and praying. Joe read a few verses and prayed. Those kind ladies insisted that I sit down. I preferred to stand but sat for their sakes. After the prayer, they begged us to eat. They served the typical Kenyan meal of beef, ugali, and sukuma. The church people ate well that day. Their stomachs are accustomed to it. I tried, but the ugali was the color of the tan/gray water around the place and with every bite, the grit of sand in my teeth would take my appetite. The beef didn’t smell like my mom’s Sunday lunch at home either, but I did enjoy the sukuma. Their hospitality was the sweetest part of the meal. The dirty, hungry, starving dogs that insisted in squeezing around my legs, (to my dismay), and under my chair ate well that day too. Tiffany was very happy to feed them.
As soon as it was appropriate to leave, Carolyn, Joe, and I, along with several Lela church members who didn’t wish to stay for the burial, headed across the mud once again to the van. The very helpful Africans became a little too helpful to me in that mud and caused me to lose my balance with all the hands pulling and pushing on me. My foot slipped off the log and I stumbled into that thick, sticky mud losing my flip flop in the process. I quickly reached way down and found it with my hand. The ladies insisted on washing me in a very murky mud puddle. I was happy to head home. That van made it home without running out of gas! PTL!
*You just never know what kind of excitement a day will bring... I enjoy Glenda's perspective because after awhile this becomes normal life. It's fun to read it from someone else who has a fresh outlook on all the "new experiences" here. Thanks, Glenda, for letting me share this... :) ~Carolyn
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