Hickster Happenings: Kenya, part 1

Between five days of the stomach bug and my feisty little boy deciding he doesn't want to nap longer than an hour, I've had this in draft mode for far too long. So I decided I'll have to post at least twice about our trip, just so that I can finally be done with at least part of it.

We had smooth, safe and un-eventful travel on the way there. It is so long though and every time I've been I think I can't do it again. But then we get there and one look at the country and it's beautiful people and I swear I'd fly for days to do it again. We left here at 4:45 the morning after Christmas and arrived to our hotel around 5:00 ish on Friday-Kenya time, which is 8 hours ahead. We hadn't been to sleep for more than a few minutes since we left and only got about 2.5 hours of sleep the night before we left so we were EXHAUSTED!

Saturday we had the honor of attending a wedding, which was a first for all of us. Paul's first experience with the African people and culture was shocking to say the least. Everyone was so happy to welcome us when we got there and gave us front row seats-plastic chairs, as opposed to benches. Y'all, we even sat IN FRONT OF the family of the bride and groom. That's just how welcoming and generous they are to their guests. There were some things about their wedding that were similar to weddings here, and of course some were very different too. The ceremony had been going on for an hour or two before the bride even got there. When she did arrive, she sat completely across the tent from her groom for most of the rest of the ceremony. They barely smiled or even gave each other eye contact, but that is just one way in which their culture is so different from ours. After the ceremony, everybody walked to the village of the groom's family where they would have cake and a party for the rest of the evening. We didn't stay long because the heat was getting the best of us and were all still so tired.

At first I thought these were bridesmaids but there were several groups of girls dressed up like this but in different colored dresses, so I'm not sure what each group represented as far as the wedding party goes.

Sunday Paul and I went to Pastor Harrison's church and Chuck went to and preached at one of the other churches within the Malindi Baptist Association. Harrison is the pastor who my mom and I met several years ago and have become close with his family. They have eight children and even named their youngest daughter Sharon, after my mom (pictures of her to come in part 2). I was so excited for Paul to get to see the church and meet his family. This would be the day that Paul got a good feel for how laid back things are in Africa. If they say church starts at 10:00, they consider it to be 10:00 until it's past 10:59. They aren't in a hurry there but most of them don't have a watch or clock anyway. Also, people are walking, bare feet, from who knows how far to come to church. So they get there when they get there. Most of the Kenyans aren't very organized either. Combine laid back, no concept of time and disorganized and you've got nothing but type B personalities! But I find a lot of good in that and you learn to just roll with it. Paul knew he'd be expected to preach so he was well prepared and we were sitting in the front of the church waiting for the "ok" to start when Harrison says to Paul, "Can you teach Sunday school too? And you can start now." Poor Paul started sweating bullets. Thankfully he had a lesson in the back of his Bible (I'd warned him something like that was likely to happen) and with God's help, he taught Sunday school. After that there was a lot of singing and dancing and just straight up worshipping God. These people love God with their whole hearts and it is a beautiful thing to witness. Here are some pictures from church the first Sunday...

Young children's choir and dancers.

Adult women's choir.

Women guests are pulled out onto the dirt floor to participate in singing and dancing. I'm the furthest there is from an African dancer, but you just have to go with it!

Church took up the majority of Sunday and the car was left with us so we still had to make a 30-45 minute drive back to pick up Chuck and then head for our hotel.

Monday and Tuesday Chuck taught a pastor's conference and Paul and I met at Harrison's church where we would spend all day going village to village telling people about Jesus. Some of the most amazing experiences happen while doing that; most of which are hard to put into words and wouldn't mean much if you weren't there. I never get used to how welcoming they are to us. As soon as we walk up to a village, they are scurrying around to find us their best seat-most of the time that happens to be a piece of a tree. They are so excited to see us and even the tiny children stayed glued to us the entire time we talk. Y'all, the children are SO well behaved! It makes it hard for me not to resent our culture and how spoiled and bratty the majority of children are in America (including our own!). It makes me want to move there and raise our children. Anyway, on Monday we saw two special needs children and visited a few of the same villages I'd been to the last time I was there.

Meet Zinga. I'm not sure what disability she had but she was so precious to me. She was playing on this clothes line when we passed through her village and was still in the same spot over three hours later when we came back through.

There are a lot of stories about the next picture. It was the second child with special needs we met. I thought it was a girl because he was dressed in all pink, but that just goes to show they wear what they have and don't dress for fashion's sake at all. The mom of this little boy had five children, two of which were twin babies, and lived in a mud hut that was about the size of our bedroom. That is no exaggeration. Her husband had left her not long ago and she had no job. This ended up being one of the families that touched us the most and we felt such a burden to help. My friend Caroline made some pillow case dresses for me to give to girls there who needed them and this was the first one I gave. This family had so many needs. The mama told us her twins were eight months but they were so tiny and looked like they couldn't be more than two months or so. We bought her a bunch of food and were even able to buy a mama goat and baby goat for her to get milk from for her children. Another story from this picture is about the t-shirts that two of her sons are wearing. If you're local, you may remember hearing on the news about a 16 year old boy named Jacob who was in a bad car accident several months ago. He hung on for almost a month but sadly didn't make it. He was a soccer player at a local high school but a cousin to a good friend of mine. Jacob was an only child but thankfully his parents are Christians and though they have suffered a great deal, their hope is in Christ. Jacob has influenced so many people, both while he was alive and since he has gone to heaven. A bunch of people from his high school rallied together to try to bring prayer back to schools, which is what these t-shirts are from. There were a lot of them left over that we got to take to Kenya. When we'd give them away we'd tell Jacob's story and ask them to pray for his family. The children were all so excited to get a nice, new, white t-shirt to wear as their Sunday best. Last but not least about this mama is that she became a Christian after we told her about Jesus. Some people leave you doubting their sincerity but she wasn't one of them. I know God will take care of this sweet lady and provide for her family. I have a picture of her from later in the week that I will share but here's the picture of three of her children...

You can see Mama and one of her twins in the background.

We ended up being with that family for a while before we moved on. Shortly after that we came to a village I'd visited last time I was there. Remember the young boy who had fallen out of the tree that I wrote about before? I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in a blog post when I heard about it, but he later died (not from the tree fall, I think it was malaria but never got a for sure answer). This was the village where he lived and his mother immediately greeted us and tears swelled up in her eyes. She spoke to Harrison in Swahili and told him that she remembered me-her exact words were, "I could never forget her eyes." Oh boy! It took all I had not to just weep like a baby right there in front of her. She was so happy to see us and to meet Paul and the Lord gave me the privilege of leading her to Christ that day. She has seven children and is a widow. I just can't imagine. She is so heavy on my heart.

There were so many other incredible stories from Monday and Tuesday but I could be here all day so instead I'll include some pictures from those days to wrap up part one of our Kenya trip.