I think this blog post has long been overdue, but I’ve been
waiting until I reached home to write a final update. The first week of December I went up to
Kijabe (northwest of Nairobi) to Rift Valley Academy (AIM’s international
boarding school for missionary kids) for AIM’s annual Eastern Region
conference. It was neat to meet and be
around so many other missionaries. It
was also humbling to talk with missionaries who had been on the field for over
30 years as well as to hear about the different kind of living conditions and
challenges others short and long-term missionaries had been facing. After the conference I attended a short-term
missionary retreat and workshop until Friday the 5th. I got back to the Mutangilis pretty late and
then got ready to be in Pastor Adera’s wedding the next day (I was asked only a
few days before). The wedding was a
joyous day and a lot of fun. I got home
in the evening and had to repack for a week in Mombasa.
Sunday morning I met at the church with some other
counselors as well as many youth from AIC Plainsview to take a few busses from
Nairobi to Mombasa to attend the Word of Life youth camp held there each year. We left around 8:30am and got to Mombasa
around 7:30pm, but it was nice to just sit and rest on the bus. Before getting to the youth camp we had to
take the ferry across the bay from “north shore” to “south shore.” This meant getting off of our bus, walking
through the crowded streets and running to catch the ferry which was crammed
with well over 1000 people, running off the ferry and walking up through some
hectic marketplace in the dark and eventually getting back to the busses
(apparently it’s free for people to take the ferry, but the busses have to pay
for any people they bring on with them).
The youth camp was located right on the beach, so my last week in Kenya
was spent on white sand beaches with palm trees, bathtub-temperature waters,
the hot and humid Mombasa weather and over 200 kids from different parts of
Kenya. It was a week filled with a lot
of fun and a lot of ministry, but it was also a week filled with spiritual
attack. I’ve heard it said that the last
week of a short-term missionary assignment often has a lot of spiritual attack,
and this proved to be true for me. I was
pretty exhausted (physically, emotionally and spiritually) from the past few
months and felt unnaturally anxious and oppressed. It was pretty grueling but at the same time
rewarding to build relationships with many of the other counselors and
campers. We finished the week and got up
early on Saturday to come back to Nairobi.
This bus ride was one of my favorite parts of the entire week. I spent much of it with Daniel and Arnold, two
campers I’d spent a lot of time with over the week and who had become like
younger brothers to me. The relaxed time
of fellowship was really enjoyable, and we even took time midway through the
journey to have a dance party in the isle of the bus (which took a short pause
when the bus driver had to slam on the brakes once, sending most of us to the
floor, haha).
We got back to Nairobi after dark, and I had to unpack to
repack and head home the very next day!
Sunday morning I went to church and was able to give a formal farewell
to the congregation. I also spent some
time saying personal goodbyes after the services. I finished packing up and spent the remainder
of the afternoon with Marvin and Christine who had come over. Around dinner some other friends showed up
and we ate and said some more goodbyes.
I left feeling sad but very blessed by the friendships I’d made and the
lives I’d had the privilege of sharing in.
On my way to the airport the pastor’s car started having an
issue and we could only go about 10 kilometer/hour (Stanley thinks the gas he
put in was bad). So, my final moments in
Kenya consisted of Stanley, his kids and me traveling at a whopping 10 kph down
the main highway in Nairobi with cars honking and zooming past us…I wouldn’t
have had it any other way! We finally
got some more gas and were able to continue on at a normal speed. At the airport I said my final goodbyes to
Stanley and another family who had come out to personally say goodbye and see
me off. I did the whole “airport thing”
and a little while later found myself looking out a plane window at the city
lights of Nairobi (along with many people I had come to love) fading off into
the distance; it was a surreal feeling.
The flight out of Nairobi was delayed, and because of this
and some other complications at London-Heathrow I missed my connecting flight
to meet my family in Hannover, Germany.
The next available flight was roughly 10 hours later, so I got to spend
the day chilling out in the airport—it ended up being nice to have the time to
just sit, think and process some of the past three months, and I even got to
hear some professional Christmas carolers who came to our terminal at one
point.
I arrived in Germany on the evening of Monday the 15th
and met up with my parents who were visiting my brother who is currently
working over in Germany. We spent the
next week traveling around and then spent Christmas together at my brother’s
place. We did a lot of cool things, but
it was pretty exhausting for me to continue traveling and experiencing yet
another different culture. My parents
returned home last night (the 27th), and it’s good to be home.
In one sense my journey is now complete, but in many other
senses it is simply continuing on. I’m
grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to go and share in the lives of those I
met in Kenya, and I look forward to the day when we’ll meet again (I will definitely
be thinking of my friends, Marvin and Christine, as they get married on January
3rd). I want to thank my
friends and family for the many prayers they have sent my way. These prayers have been a vital part of God’s
working in and through me, and I can’t imagine what my experience would have been
like without the support and power of these prayers. God has challenged me and stretched me these
past three months; He has also taught me things and changed me in ways that I
have yet to fully discover (and that I may never fully know). If you would like to know more about my
experiences feel free to contact me and ask.
Continue praying for my transition back home as I enter my
final semester at Houghton College, and continue praying for the Kenyan people
as well as missionaries around the globe.
I want to encourage all of you reading this to be the “missionary” in
the place God has place you in now. The
mission field is in Kenya; the mission field is here in America. God is working in Africa and in your
neighborhood. Let Him use you; let Him
challenge you; let Him speak into the lives of those around you.
Serve Well
