Wow I don't' think I'm in Kenya anymore...

Yufta it’s cold here. So I’m in Bloomington Minnesota where it is cold! However we did experience the one of the hottest days in the country being at 104 degrees. I came out of our school building and said to my friend, ‘ah it’s finally nice and warm out!’ So least to say I haven’t acclimated quite yet to the weather of the North. I do however love wearing American clothes in the chilly weather, no more skirts.

Coming back to America was hard in a lot of ways but also easy. As I work through culture-shock and trying to get use to everything again I tend to forget that my Internship in Kenya even happened! Either it never happened or I never lived in the States before Kenya. I forget both. If I think to much about Kenya I begin to cry and miss it terribly and all my friends. My life is here now but part of my heart is still in Kenya.

I have been in Minnesota for over a month and will finish my program and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Cross Culture Communication in August this year. I am excited to be finished but also am sad to see the end of so much good and to say goodbye yet again to so many friends.

Through this time here I have been thinking about what’s next and what will I do and where will I go. I have many options and lots of good ideas, the problem is I want them to be God’s ideas and plans for my life and not my own.

Before I went to Kenya I was becoming interested in Midwifery and realizing that I get really excited when I’m around pregnant women and when I hear about their deliveries and hold their newborn. During my time in Kenya the Lord brought this desire to a higher level and I left Kenya wanting to become a Midwife and go into Medical Missions overseas somewhere. So now that I am on this side of the world it’s time to get serious. I plan on taking classes and learning about midwifery and motherhood and all the involved subjects while I’m here and then after graduating I want to enroll in a midwifery school somewhere in the States or in the Philippines. I don’t have anything set in stone but am praying and trusting God to lead me to where He wants me to go.

While being at Bethany College the Lord is teaching me so many things and taking out things that don’t belong in my heart. I have had to work through lies that I had believed over internship and work through fears that I didn’t know I had. Through all of the removing and the abiding in Him I have grown more in love with Him and have become stronger through it all. I am learning the joy of the Lord in this place and how to be alone with just Him and to find contentment in the quiet. It’s hard going from ministry and new things to the same old schedule and sitting in class and working. It hits you in different ways throughout the day. But through it all My God is a Solid Rock and my Comforter

Continuing on...

I wrote this a while ago when I was still in Kenya and preparing to leave. I forgot about it and didn't post it until now. It's just a little of what I was feeling as I began to leave~

How am I to leave this place. How can I go back to my old life in America. How does a person say goodbye to people who you’ve known, visited, talked with, prayed with and for and loved?

The cruel part of this internship is they never told me that I’d love it here. They never told me that I wouldn’t want to leave. At the beginning that’s all I wanted to do is run away from this place. Now I don’t want to go.

I know that wherever God takes me it will be more goodbyes. I know that this is not the end and it’s really only the beginning of my future in Missions.

I’ve invested everything in my time here, I’ve left nothing back and have in a way become part Kenyan.

I’ll always be thankful for this time, I’ve seen and lived what many people will never see or understand. I have a different perspective on life now and I will never be the same. I may move away from Kenya and perhaps never come back but I will never fforget the people, the life I’ve had here or the things I learned.

Finding God in this place has been a challenge and yet He’s more clear here than anywhere. I remember my first couple months when we were experiencing spiritual attacks, God was very near me I could almost touch Him.

I can’t even explain the things I’ve been through here and the range of emotions. I came as a young 19 year old who was terrified, ignorant, arrogant and suddenly all alone in a strange world. Now I’m 21 still young, not terrified, not ignorant and hopefully not arrogant! I have found peace in the chaos and hope in the impossible.

How do you love that which you don’t understand? Get out of yourself and get to know that which you don’t understand.

There’s always a story behind the eyes, there’s always pain behind the smile.

I’ve learned to see a person, to want to see them and to hear their story no matter who they are or what they look like. Because God made them and loves them and wants them to come to Him.

Humanity..

Today was a packed day of emotional trials of this world. Yesterday was almost just as hard. The Lord has been showing me the emptiness of life without Him and how the human race is hanging on by a thread as people strive to make it through this world alone.
Yesterday I met a friend, at the Hospital who usually is beaming with joy but today looked downcast. When I asked him why he was there he said he had to pay fees for the birth of his son. I thought it would be a happy occasion despite the fees. But then his face became serious and he said that the baby had died. I asked how it happened and he said that it was the fault of the hospital, that the students who are training were unable to take proper care of the delivery and the care afterward. My heart broke for my friend and turned with righteous anger at the irresponsibility of the staff at the hospital. I walked with him as he went to pay the bill and talked about what had went wrong. I forced back tears as I listened and watched his face become sadder with every word. He had lost his baby boy, his first born, his only child. Because of human error and weakness. But through all of this pain he told me that he was forgiving the people and the hospital. He said that Jesus tells us to forgive, we have been forgiven much and must forgive others. This shows God’s grace working in him and his wife. I visited them today at their home and could see the wife in pain from the 3day long labor. The only difference that made her pain more unbearable is because she had no baby to hold, no reward for her hard work, just the pain and an empty feeling. They both showed such strength and hope for the future. Fortune (also their baby’s name) would come their way once again.

Later that day I went to see one of my good friends and her daughter in the next town. I love going over there and sitting and talking in Kiswahili and playing with the 4 year old daughter. Whenever I come she runs to me and hugs me tight. She never wants me to leave and always asks her mom for me. I love her so much. Today while I was waiting for the little girl to come home from school I sat with my friends neighbor’s children. There was 2 small children a older boy around 10 and a small baby lying on the ground. My friend told me that the mother was HIV positive and so was the baby. My friend talked about them with a bit of scorn. As I held the little baby and held her hand I wondered at the life this baby would grow up to have and if she would make it to 2yrs. The baby a little malnourished dressed in a yellow sweater with a dirty, soiled blanket around her lower body smiled as I talked baby talk to her. She liked to reach for my earrings and pull my pony tail of hair. Once again the weakness of humanity and the sinfulness of humanity strikes again. Once again a little baby suffers. Once again God’s heart is broken. This was my day.