As Sam has previously mentioned the team of Mi2's are back in Nairobi and although being home is nice, I left a little piece of my heart in Kisumu and with the team there. I apologize ahead of time if I repeat anything the other Mi2's may mention.
Well for starters because I have tendency to be "allergic to the motion" as a Kenyan once put it, or in American terms Car sick. So I took some Zofran and was given th honor of riding in the front of the LIA van with our brilliant driver Jakes. This is where my love for swahili really began, Jakes would point at things and ask me to try and pronounce them, laugh when I said it wrong and then correct me, so I learned a lot. Now my team has a joke, "O wheres sawyer, found her, she asking a Kenyan "how do you say...blank in swahili?" But that's the learner in me, I guess. Many Kenyans and my team laugh at me but I still love the language.
I also was able to enjoy my 21st birthday in Kenya on our first day in Kisumu. On my birthday we went to church, I stood up an sang in front of everyone, along with my fellow Mi2's, which I would not have done in the United States probably ever. Kenya has a way of pushing you out of your comfort zone and it has been an amazing experience. For my birthday dinner I had Ice Cream and Fruit Salad. One of my favorite birthday's to date.
Monday started with a whirlwind of the SECC teams arriving and being in community with them was epic to say the least. I don't remember all that was said but what I do remember and possibly never forget was the wisdom of a young woman of 14 (I think) named Ivy who spoke and prayed with such integrity and grace. Not going to lie, I'm a little jealous because I wish I was like that at 14. Tuesday arrived and through a series of events I had the incredible opportunity to travel with Pastor Dave Stone and Pastor Kurt Sauder to visit widows with HIV and as a nursing student this was so cool to experience. And the widows were so kind and gracious to us.
O my goodness, so one day I think it was thursday our friend Ephantus from LIA Kisumu looks at me and says "So Sawyer, you are going to preach a sermon on Sunday!" I said, "say what". But here's the thing in Kenya you gotta go with the flow, be flexible, embrace the challenges. But man o man, I was not overly excited about preaching. Let me explain, I am not naturally gifted at speaking in general. When I say that I mean, I really usually don't enjoy it, I break into a sweat, feel the heat rise in my face, start to stutter etc. it's a mess. So I kinda said like "hey, ephantus you were joking about that whole preaching thing right?". Yea he wasn't, but it was comforting to find out the next day almost all the Mi2's were going to preach at different churches on Sunday. So we were all in it together and praying for each other. So I preached on how God has a plan for our lives and it went fairly well I would say, like I would do it again, actually I kind of enjoyed it, so weird. But I was so grateful to be challenged in a new way.
Um, what else am I assigned to write about... O yes, as Mi2's we have a goal of doing what is called a Seed Project in the communities we work in. A seed project is small scale, short term project that involves the community and hopefully has the ability to open doors for the churches in the community. So we (Mi2 and LIA) in collaboration with pastors and TOTs put on a Widows luncheon. We served a meal and LIA provided an excellent Kenyan speaker, who talked about nutrition and gave a demonstration. It was really cool. Some 70 plus Widows came and hopefully walked away knowing more and being connected with other widows in the community, Bwana Asifiwe (praise the Lord). (P.S. how many times can you say community in a paragraph, my english vocabulary needs some work)
Well I think I have written quite enough. But in truth words cannot describe the feelings I walked away with from Kisumu. That LIA team is full of joy, love and the spirit and so funny (even though they don't think so). Those 5 churches partnered with LIA are devoted to their community and serving them. Even just the people in passing were amazing.
Thank you for reading!
Mungu Akubariki (God bless you)
Kate Sawyer
No comments:
Post a Comment