I have to say, it has been a hard go recently for me on an emotional level, mainly due to personality quirks of my own, being overwhelmed in a new situation, and having to rely so much on Lawrence.
Beginning in March, he and I began the part of our nomadic sojourn that brings us up to Kenya several days a week. Not only has it made me have to be organized (not an easy feat for me personally) in getting the necessary tasks accomplished and people met with and children loved on during the days we are in Tarime each week, but also because everything is so different and new in Kenya, I feel like we're starting from scratch.
Even my first few years in mission in Kenya were in the very urban setting of Nairobi, where everything is within arms' reach there in the city. The city we've moved to here in the western province of Kenya is on the shores of Lake Victoria, is spread out enough that you can't walk where you're going, and we have moved here not knowing anyone.
Thanks in large part to the extreme generosity of some of our friends and family, we have been able to rent an apartment here in Kisumu for this first year, as we discern where exactly to take Grassroots here in Kenya, and down the road start the process of building the future mission house, which will definitely be out in the rural areas where assistance for widows and orphans is much more scarce. You can almost get the feeling that there is enough help if you head down the streets of Kisumu and see World Vision, UNICEF, USAID, and many, many other mission organization and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to serving the least and last. However, some of the most dire need is out, deep in the villages where it is much more difficult for an organization to operate from and host visitors from, and we know already that that is the kind of place we want to be. It will simply take time to hear from God exactly where.
I have had to be SO dependent on Lawrence, and it is so weird how much it bothers me. I have really become quite used to my pikipiki (motorcycle taxi) driver Chambili in Tarime over the last several years. He taught me Swahili in a crash course of just always, since day one, assuming I was fluent and telling me long stories that I didn't understand at all for a while until I could pick out words and then phrases and eventually understand his jokes. I met one young man named Ouma here in Kisumu that is pretty reliable, but nothing like Chambili. As I've shopped for things to get the house going, I've had to wait to make some purchases until Lawrence was back from the village, and wait for him to do some of the things because I simply had no idea how to order more electricity credit from my phone or hook up the gas cylinder to our new camping stove. Luckily he is beyond patient with me when I'm stressed and try to take it out on him…
What I know is this: we belong here. No matter how difficult the transition from Tarime to this place has been and will continue to be, no matter how opaque the vision seems on some days, no matter how much I miss having everything already set up, having an amazing leadership team in place, and having a houseful of kids we know and love with donors already on board, I have to tell myself the following things:
a. We have been called to expand Grassroots into a new place.
b. Everything that is to come does not have to take place today.
c. I do not have to be comfortable one hundred percent of the time and know all the answers now.
d. He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask for or imagine.
And that, among other wonderful things, is enough to get me through this day.
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