Lucky Man

It was dirty, dusty, hot, lacking in electricity and running water. It was a six-and-a-half hour drive from Rosslyn on the great Kenyan "roads." It was an amazing experience, and I'd jump at the chance to go back.

Every year, Rosslyn High School students divide into small grade-level groups of around 15-20 students and a male and a female staff chaperones and head out to different sites around the country to experience different cultures and ways of life and do service projects for the local communities. We call this Cultural Field Studies (CFS).

This year, I was assigned to go with a group of 16 seniors to Olepishet. Don't bother looking it up on Google Maps; it's not there. The nearest town is Narosura, a 45 minute drive or a 2 hour walk. When I found out where I would be going, I tried to find information about it, but all I could find were some blog posts of other Rosslyn teachers who had gone there on past CFS trips.

I wasn't really sure what to expect that Friday when I showed up to school with my pack, a tent, and a camera. We had had a meeting the day before with the students during which another teacher had told us some information about Olepishet and the people, but nobody in our group had been there before except our driver, Jason.

Jason was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed getting to know him and talk with him over the next couple of days. A Brit who fell in love with Africa, he now owns and operates an Overlander safari truck. We definitely had the best ride of all of the groups heading out!

The Overlander

(If you're ever looking for somebody who can put together an amazing trip tailored to your desires, look him up at Kupenda Africa.)

After the long drive through Limuru Town, down the escarpment, through Mai Mahiu, Narok, and Narosura, we arrived at the church compound. The drive was not without its adventure, though. When we were almost to our destination, there was a small stream that we had to cross. Because of the Overlander's long wheelbase and the "bridge's" height, we all had to get out and make a trail of rocks in front of the tires to lift the body enough to clear the ground.

Sleep while you can.

A student and Carole, my fellow chaperone.

When we arrived, we unloaded all of our stuff from the truck and got situated. The girls slept in the church's guesthouse, and the guys set up their tents. 

The guesthouse that the girls stayed in. There were nine of our girls and Carole
in two of the rooms, while the third was occupied by a Maasai newlywed couple who had only been married for two weeks!

The guys' tents. My tent is hiding behind the tree on the left.

As we settled in, we met a lot of the community, both young and old. I was struck by how much it can mean to simply spend time with others. You don't have to be doing anything Important other than spending time getting to know them, even through the language barriers.

Over the next couple of days, we played a lot of UNO (They don't mess around with UNO; it's a serious game for serious people!), hiked, did skits and activities with the kids, and got to know the Maasai better.

Football: the universal language. (And for my American friends, I don't mean American Football.)

Geoffrey, our translator and one of our main hosts, explaining life the first evening.

The kitchen with some of our group and Matteo, an amazingly humble man. He's the real deal (he led the night hunting
excursion for our guys), but didn't flinch from washing dishes or doing anything else that we may have needed.

Getting lunch ready on Saturday. These guys have done this before; 20 minutes
later, the skin was off, and the rest was portioned up and looking ready for
cellophane and a supermarket.

Not all of our kids were used to seeing where their meals come from...

The compound

The view from the ridge above Olepishet. The only place we had cell service during our time there.

The Compound from the top of the ridge.

Kids everywhere love bubbles!

The most powerful experience for me was at the 3 hour+ (!) church service. The first worship song lasted about 20 minutes, and consisted of four bars of loud keyboard music played over and over as different people led singing. (In fact, pretty much every song was the same four bars of music with different words.) For somebody who was a part of a pretty well oiled machine of a church band in San Jose, it looked like chaos. Singers were passing the mic around seemingly at random, most of the people on stage seemed to be doing their own thing, and people jumped up on the stage in the middle of a song only to sit back down a minute later. Chaos. 

But it reminded me of something; something that I remembered our pastor at NBC saying on our last Sunday in San Jose. To paraphrase, Dave said, "We serve a big God, and we know that God isn't only in the United States. God is everywhere. God is on the other side of the world. God is even in Kenya."

I know. Shocking. Of course this is true. Of course it is something that Christians all know intellectually. But we get so wrapped up in our own particular brand of church and worship-style that most of us don't really ever have the experience of worshipping God in an entirely different way than the one we're used to. We get caught up in the idea that the way we do it is the "right" way, which is dangerously close to the idea that our way is the only way, and if we believe this, we shrink our limitless God down into our notion of what He is, robbing Him of His true nature.

Since we've been in Kenya, we've been to quite a few different Sunday services that have run the gamut from "Wow, I feel like I'm in the States!" to an all a cappella Mennonite service and many in between. But it was in this small concrete-floored church full of people whose lives had so little in common with mine and who sang in Maa, a language that I couldn't comprehend, that I felt my definition of God expand. I saw such joy and contentment, such genuine thankfulness and humility, such passion and commitment as they worshipped the same God that we sang to and prayed to in San Jose. Dave is right: God is certainly in Kenya.

One of my favorite picture from the weekend. Such joy.

Students speaking in church through Geoffrey, who translated.

Oh, and I was asked to preach a bit as well.

Believe it or not, this is the stage and the area in front of it. There were more people up there than in the chairs.
Our students are in the middle and toward the back.

And oh there was dancing.

Matteo

Pastor Patrick's wife

One of the older ladies of the community.

A tithe; literally this person's first fruits.

(l-r) Assistant Pastor David, me, and Pastor Patrick

She didn't know I was taking this picture, but she looked up right before I clicked the shutter (and dissolved into giggles right after!).

UNO: a serious game for men.

Gideon and his two sons. He had a large boil on his lower lip that had been keeping him from sleeping, so we gave him
some antibiotics and bandages so that he could lance it. This is the next morning, and he said that he had slept so well the
night before!

On the last night, we had a special time with the guys who had served us over the previous days. We all exchanged gifts, and they gave all of the Rosslyn team members Maasai names. They had been watching us during our time there to see what an appropriate name was. Some were meaningful (Carole, my fellow chaperone, was given the name Naramat, which means "takes care," and one student was given the name Oloishorua, which means "given one."). Some were a bit more fun (Oronkai means "tall and slim"; Leshan means "born during rains."). I'm convinced that my showing pictures of my family had a big influence on the name that I received, which was Olumnyak, meaning "Lucky Man." Absolutely.