“Karibu Nyumbani” (Welcome Home)

These were the words I heard over and over again from my “family” as they welcomed me into the village of Kipkaren last Wednesday. My welcome was filled with lots of singing, hugs, smiles, flowers, and prayers. My cheeks were hurting from smiling and my eyes were blurring from tears as I entered my new home for the next four months. Wow, what a special place this little village is. My first few days here have been all about settling in, re-connecting with the staff, catching up on all the different aspects of our ministry, preparing for the teams and interns who will be coming this summer, and just adjusting to life in Kipkaren (which is somehow very busy with ministry, and yet also very slow paced and always unpredictable). Each day has been filled with new adventures. Here are a couple of them:

Driving in Kenya:
Yep, that’s right, I am now a Kenyan driver! It actually wasn’t as scary or hard as I anticipated. I was a bit nervous about learning to drive on the right side of the car and the left side of the road, but I quickly learned that those adjustments would not be my biggest concern. It’s the BUMPY, pot-hole-filled, dirt roads that pose as the biggest challenge (but, they also bring the fun and adventure of it all). I’m proud to say that I’m getting the hang of them though and am gaining courage to really tackle the bumps and dips. So, yes, ninaweza endesha gari (I can drive the car). Not to be confused with “I have diarrhea.” I learned quickly that the word for “drive” and “diarrhea” are the same. So, when you talk about driving, you have to make sure you add the part about a car. If you don’t say you are driving the car, you are saying that you have diarrhea. Good minor detail to remember when driving here and telling others about it.

Riding the Boda Bodas:
My first day here, I went to a nearby town with two members of ELI”s Home-Based-Care-Team to do AIDS testing and counseling (I didn’t do the testing or counseling, but went along to see the program and spend time with Betty and Pheobe, two of my closest Kenyan friends). We had a great day talking and laughing together as we waited for people to come by the church to get tested. Maru, our driver was supposed to pick us up around 4:00 to bring us home, but at 6:00, there was still no sign of him. We called him and found out he was still doing business in a town about an hour away. So, we decided to walk the 5 miles home. We were now on a race to beat the sun going down so that we wouldn’t be walking in complete darkness. But, we were slowed up a bit because we had to buy cabbage and meat in the market for dinner that night, and the load was a bit heavy to carry. But, God came to the rescue! After walking for about 10 minutes, we saw some ‘boda boda’ drivers. A boda boda is a bicycle with an extra seat on the back of it that is used as a kind of taxi. We hired three of the boda boda drivers to bring us home on their bikes, and wow, what a blast! I laughed most of the way home riding on the back of the bike. I think my driver laughed most of the way also- he had never carried a mzungu (white person) before. Both of us got quite a kick out of the whole situation. Not to mention Pheobe, Betty, and everyone we passed on the road. Definitely a memory to treasure!

Along with all the fun adventures going on, God has been teaching me and really working on my heart. A few days ago, I was driving with another staff member and saw a sign on a car saying “The Mighty Hand of the Lord.” It had a picture of a hand, but we started laughing because it wasn’t a very good drawing of a hand. It looked a bit small and shriveled. We laughed for a minute, but then I realized, “You know, I think that’s the picture I have of God’s hand a lot of the time. Sure, I say I believe in His might and power, and I declare that His hand is mighty, but, if I’m honest with myself, the picture I really hold of His hand is a small, somewhat weak one. How do I know this? I can tell by my prayer life. I can tell by my expectations of God. When I look at the prayers that I pray and the small expectations I often have, I can tell that my view of his hand is small. When I think about how much I stress and worry, it tells me that my view of His hand is small. Oh Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for limiting you. Forgive me for the small view I have of your mighty hand. Will you give this blind girl sight? Sight to see your hand as it really is- in all it’s might and power!!! Teach me to pray prayers worthy of your hand, prayers that proclaim your greatness in what they ask for and what they expect.

Prayer Requests:
We have our first team arriving on Tuesday the 23rd. I am really excited, but am also feeling a bit insecure. In so many ways, I still feel so unprepared for this job of hosting the teams. The more I’m here, the more I realized how much I don’t know. A lot of me feels really inadequate to be the person in charge of hosting these teams. But, the Lord spoke to me today that, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12). I am determined to cling to this promise and trust his power to made great in my weakness here. Praise the Lord that “when we are weak, then we are strong.” Please pray for His power to really rest on me and be made complete. Pray that HE equips me and does this job through me. I am going to need so much wisdom and discernment and help from Him. Pray that He fills me with His love, His words, His wisdom, and His power. And may He be my confidence and competence!

Please continue to pray for my health. Thank you so much for your prayers concerning this so far! I have felt completely healthy the entire time so far- praise the Lord! May this good health continue throughout the entire summer! Continue to pray against malaria, and that God continues to bless each meal to my body. Also, pray for energy and strength throughout these busy days ahead. Each day is going to be jam-packed from 6:00am till late into the evening. I am definitely going to need God’s strength!

Pray for my relationship with God. I long to grow so close to Him this summer. Pray for deeper intimacy each day. May the busyness not distract me from hearing His still small voice and may I dance with Him through every circumstance of the day. Oh, I long to get to know Him so much more.

Pray for my relationship with each team member and the Kenyans in this village. I really want for God’s love to shine out of me onto every person I come into contact with. As I interact with them, I long for them to feel the touch of God.

Lala Salama (Sleep Well)

Lala Salama
Originally uploaded by Kierra Higgins.

Tonight I got to read to the children before they went to bed. I was so blessed by the entire experience and will never forget this night. I entered the first girls’ hut (home to 12 girls) and found a few small ones already asleep in their beds. The rest were working on their homework at the table. They were so excited to see me and showered me with hugs. I brought in some books that the American teams had sent and told them they could pick one for me to read. They picked “The Bernstein’s Bears and the Messy Room.”

I began to read to them, stopping to explain all the words they didn’t understand. At first, it was just words like basement – they have never heard of a basement before and thought it was so funny that you would have a room under the ground. But then I got a bit more concerned as I had to explain things like “model dinosaurs,” “race car collections,” and a bunch of other toys. These kids have never had toys before, and now maybe each have one “toy” to call their own. My heart began to hurt as I read them a story about this messy room with all these hundreds of toys cluttering the floor. At one point, Mama Bear opens the closet door and she gets covered in all the falling toys that were jammed into it. This isn’t right, I just kept thinking. Children in America shouldn’t have this many toys, and these orphans in Kenya shouldn’t be hearing this story. I skipped over much of the rest of the story, trying to finish it as fast as possible. The solution at the end was that Papa Bear built them a toy box to store all their toys in, and they had to organize all the toys in the closet (the closet was still full to the brim mind you, they were just organized in boxes now instead of falling all over the place). I suppose it had a good lesson for kids to keep their rooms clean, but these children already know this lesson well. They amaze me. They clean their room and the whole Children’s Home every day. They each have their own cleaning chores and they happily attend to them every day. I never hear any child complaining or arguing about any of it. I was embarrassed to read to them about Brother and Sister Bear fighting over who had to clean up and who’s mess it was. These children would never dream of creating a scene like that. I told them at the end that I think we need to write our own children’s book with them as the main characters and then I can take it to America and read it to the children there who do not know how to clean their rooms very well. The children laughed and said they would like to be in a book. Maybe I’ll write one someday.

After the story, they all kept telling me, “Thank you so much.” They all hugged me and told me they loved me so much. I told them, “Lala Salama” (sleep well), and they kept saying it back to me. They told me to sleep well and have sweet dreams. I wished them sweet dreams as well. One girl told me that she never used to have sweet dreams – she only had bad ones (which I’m sure are from her traumatic past). But now that she’s been at the Children’s Home for over a year, the bad dreams have left and she only has sweet ones. Praise God!

As I tucked the little ones into bed, they each told me they would be praying for me. I told them I would pray for them too. I asked them how I could pray for them, and their answers blew me away. Their first answer was for me to pray for their parents (their new parents who they received when they came to our Children’s Home). Next, they asked me to pray for the children who were sick in the Home. Third, they wanted me to pray for the children in Sudan. They looked at some pictures from Sudan earlier this week and saw that those children had no food or clothes, so they are really praying for them. Fourth, they asked me to pray for their sponsors in America. Fifth they said to pray for the teams and interns who will be coming to Kenya this summer. Finally, I asked them, “Yes, but how can I pray for YOU?” They said to pray for their education that they would continue to learn a lot and do well in school.

Wow, I couldn’t believe how many people they asked me to pray for before they even thought of themselves. More than ever, I am understanding Jesus’ words, “Unless you humble yourselves and become like a little child, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Lord, teach me to be like these little children! Thank you for the lessons they taught me tonight and the way they blessed me.

Asante Sana Jesu (Thank you Jesus)

After lunch
Originally uploaded by Kierra Higgins.

As I sit at my computer trying to think of how to summarize my last day and a half, I’m at a loss for words. Let me just say that my cheeks really started hurting today from smiling so much. We arrived at the Ilula Children’s Home and Training Center last night around 7:00 to an amazing welcome of 96 singing children and 20 ELI staff members. As I walked down the line and greeted and hugged each kid, almost of all of them said to me, “Welcome Home Kierra.” And truly, I feel like I’ve come home. From that welcome on, my time here has been nothing but pure joy. Why, you might ask? Well, here’s a little taste of what I’ve been experiencing: catching up with all our Kenyan staff at meal time, worshipping with the kids at devotion time, learning Swahili with the kids while eating lunch together, playing soccer, hearing what God has been doing in the ministry here during the last few months, sleeping in a hut under my African Princess mosquito net, and enjoying the breathtaking African skies and butterflies!

Already, God is doing so much in my heart. I have so much to learn here; so much to learn from these people. Living life with them reveals to me how small so much of my heart is. I look at some of my friends here and think, “How do they love at such a deep level? How do they trust God at such a deep level? How do they experience joy so deeply?” I am praying for enlargement. I long for God to enlarge my heart and my capacity to feel and experience life at every level. And I am excited. I want Him to stretch me and take me to new levels of loving people, new levels of experiencing His joy, new levels of hope in Him, new levels of peace in Him, new levels of compassion for His people, new levels of trust in His power, new levels of enjoying each day and moment, and new levels of knowing Him.

Lessons from Today:
1. “Haraka Haraka, haina baraka.” I’m not sure if I spelled all that correctly, but this is what Laban (the director of our Children’s Home) told me today. It means, “If you hurry, hurry, you loose the blessing.” I love it! They really understand the blessing of taking your time and enjoying each minute and conversation during the day. They never miss the blessing of the day because they are hurrying through it too fast. I wonder how many blessings I’ve missed because I was too busy and too hurried. Thanks for the reminder Laban!
2. Sally, one of the assistant house parents at our Children’s Home told me, “We have to work hard because God has given us health today. There are others who are not well today, but we have been given health and strength, so we must use it for God and work hard, especially for those who are unable to. So, I am working very hard today and am really praising God for my health and the ability to work for Him.” Wow, I want to be praising God for my health today also. And I want to use every ounce of health that I have for Him and His Kingdom and glory.
3. The power of praying. I sat in on the evening devotions that the children were having tonight and was blown away by their prayers. When it was time to pray, these kids got so excited! And they wanted to pray about EVERYTHING! They prayed for their sponsors in the U.S. (they all know their sponsor’s names and pray for them every day), they prayed for the children who were sick, they prayed for the children in Sudan who are suffering (they saw pictures from the Sudan last week and are really moved to pray for that country now), and they prayed thanking God for all the blessings He’s given them now (food, shoes, parents, school, etc). Truly, “Out of the lips of children, you have ordained praise.”

Starting out on a journey...

This is it, the awaited day has finally arrived!!! And I am so unbelievably excited! Thank you so much for all your prayers during the last two weeks. I have never felt so carried by the prayers of others before. God's peace has been surrounding my heart and I have been able to get everything checked off my to-do list with very few tension headaches. Bwana asi fiwe (Praise the Lord)!!!

You guys, I'm ready! My heart and mind feel so ready to step into this adventure. I woke up this morning with a song in my heart. It's the song from the movie Anastasia (and I'm sure from other places as well). It goes... "Life is a road and I wanna keep going. Love is a river I want to keep flowing. Life is a road now and forver. Beautiful journey. And at the end I want to be standing at the beginning with you." It's so true! This life with God is such a beautiful journey and I want to keep going down the road He has for me. I want His river of love to keep flowing out of me. I am truly standing at the beginning with Him...and I know four months from now as I return to the states, I will again be standing at the beginning with Him.

So, here we go Lord...starting out on this journey together. I'm standing at the beginning with you and there's no place I'd rather be and no one I'd rather be standing here with!

Twende (Let's Go!)