Seasons of Encouragement

This morning when I woke up, I got an email. Not an unusual occurrence, always a welcome one. This particular email was from Gene Smillie, responding to my monthly newsletter. And in a few off-the-cuff sentences, he managed to distill all I had said, reflect back the best of it, encourage me, and give me hope for what God might be up to in my life. Wow. Now that's the kind of teacher I want to be!

So as I sipped my morning coffee, I was thanking God for that encouragement, and He brought to mind just what a long and unexpected story He's told with the Smillies and I over the past 20-some years. And it occurred to me that God seems to bring people in and out of each others' lives unpredictably and yet perfectly purposefully in the retelling:

Gene Smillie baptized me. When, at age 5, I decided I wanted to be baptized to tell people in public that I wanted to follow God, I wanted Gene to do it. Mostly because he told stories in a Donald Duck voice and kept bubbles in his center desk drawer at church. And he was a garbageman. Very cool. I think he was also our associate pastor... My memories of that time aren't particularly linear- I remember him making me and my family laugh, I remember everyone being excited when he and Susie announced their engagement at church camp after I had stubbed my toe really hard, I remember being sure I would drown and die during my baptism when I saw the light fading from under the water, I remember grasping onto his arm with all my might when he pulled me back out. I also remember searching for his and Susie's house in Santa Fe late one night, and my mom finding it because of the paper wedding bells on the front door. All of this was during my pre-school years, so if I have the details wrong I hope he (and my mom who has a more cogent memory of this time period than I do) will forgive me. But I'm sure about Donald Duck and the baptism near-death experience. Those are seared in my memory. :)

Years went on, he and Susie moved to Africa as missionaries, we prayed for them, they had kids, I'd read letters from them now and again and smile when they came back to Los Alamos to visit. I remember he was one of the few people who could match my dad in enthusiasm and craziness. Somehow their family ended up in Chicagoland at the same time I was there. I remember hearing him preach at a Chinese church, a few sentences and then a pause while it was translated. I decided it was the perfect way to hear Gene teach- I actually had time to absorb and understand the depth of what he said!

Again the chronology gets a little fuzzy, but God brought the Smillie family back into my life at a critical time- they were visiting Los Alamos and needed a place to stay; I was renting my parents' huge house, living there alone, and had just gone through some pretty major relationship trauma. I was all primed to become a completely anti-male angry cat lady, and suddenly my house was filled with Gene, Susie, and their 3 teenage boys who ate more than I believed humanly possible. They also got me to laugh. Hard. Through them, God kicked some holes in my bitterness and began healing me.

Fast forward 6 or 7 years, and now I'm in Kenya, sending out monthly emails. I stayed in contact with Gene and his family, so they're on my newsletter list. And these past few months, Gene replies in his conversational way and draws out the core of what's going on in my life, allowing me to observe it more clearly and thank God for it. I especially need that distilling right now; I'm so close to all the changes that I can't quite see the pattern.

And isn't that part of what the Body of Christ does for one another- recount God's redemption story, be witness to His good work in each other's lives, reflect what God is doing so He can be seen even when we're blind? I love that I get to serve a God who puts together a little girl and a pastor/garbageman for a multi-decade trek of trial and encouragement. That's a tagline for a movie I'd pay to see simply because it sounds so weird! I notice that Gene's impact on my life isn't about how much time has been spent. It's all about what God choses to do with a few words here and there, the mundane streaked with the surprising over the span of decades and continents. There are lasting griefs in each of our lives, but bottom line, God tells a good story. I got a glimpse of it this morning.

Walking on Water

So we arrive at the beach after dark on Wednesday night, after a rousing day of accreditation meetings back in Nairobi and a couple hours on a very small plane. Dinner has been made for us when we arrive, wonderful white snapper, garlic green beans, and chips (french fries to the American-minded). Delicious- I may learn to like fish yet. And after dinner has settled and we've explored the house a bit, Paul notes that it's low tide and asks if anyone wants to go walk on the reef. All 8 of us are in- we want to get closer to the water, and we figure a nighttime stroll along the beach would be fun. Paul reminds us to put on shoes, which makes sense to me, and I strap on my hiking sandals.

I learned long ago that I don't need to walk with a flashlight. Usually if I'm in a group, there is enough random light from everyone else's torches to get by, and I'm pretty good at the trick of time-delay walking: watching where the person with the flashlight put his feet, then putting my feet there too without needing to actually see where they're landing. It's a skill I developed during late night hikes in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and it has served me well. So obviously, I didn't bring my flashlight along- there were 4 already, so why should I?

We stumble down the dune towards the beach onto firm sand. I notice that Paul's wearing tennis shoes, and all the other girls have on flip flops with toe rings, perfectly stylish in their khaki capris. Paul points out a shallow pool with a snail in it, and then explains that the snail's highly poisonous. I start to consider what might happen if I step on a poisonous snail, what with not having a flashlight, and I struggle to catch up with Paul. As we start to cut across the bay, the sand gets softer, which is a little harder to walk in, but not impossible. Five feet later, it gets even softer. Maybe muddy's a better description. Another five feet, and the mud starts to smell like sulfur. Soon after, the sticky concoction turns to calf-deep quicksand! Paul's tightly laced high-tops now make sense. My chacos are barely staying on my feet, but girls behind me are losing their flip flops. We try to keep walking, the mud gets deeper, and I hear squeals of discomfort as toe rings are getting sucked clean off and flip flops disappear into the muddy depths... I tell Paul, "This is not fun," but he tells me it's just a little farther. Right when I arrive at more solid ground, one of the guys behind me loses his balance and falls into the mud, taking a white shirt and khaki pants girl down with him. There's screaming. And it's the last straw- 6 bodies and 3 flashlights turn around and head back for the house, throwing muddy flip-flops at each other.

But now that I've made it through the mud, I'm not turning back- I want to see the reef! I'm from New Mexico, for crying out loud, so anything involving water seems glamorous. And I'd never been to the Indian Ocean, so even Indian Ocean mud was kind of exotic. But I ran into an unexpected problem: in my don't-bring-the-flashlight calculations, I was figuring on level ground, multiple flashlights around me, and a full moon. The moon went behind a cloud, all but one of the flashlights had turned back, and the coral was pitted, rutted, and covered in slippery algae. On top of that, Paul was hopping around on the uneven reef like a mountain goat (a coral goat?), pointing his flashlight into random holes and saying things like, "Look- it's a sea urchin. Don't want to step on that!"

Eventually he took pity on my lack of illumination and total cluelessness regarding animal life. He slowed down enough to point things out to me, and we saw some amazing creatures- stonefish, moray eels, sergeant majors, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, sally lightfeet, 6 kinds of sea urchins, and some pretty purple algae. =) He was on a mission to find an octopus, which we didn't accomplish though we trekked all the way around the point and towards some pretty steep holes. But it was cool to see it all at night- the animals weren't as skittish, they weren't terribly startled by his flashlight, and stars on the ocean are beautiful.

Eventually we turned back towards the house when his flashlight started to die (was he counting on me having one?), and I asked very timidly if we could keep to the side rather than going through the mud again... So we stayed to the edge of the beach, actually under the overhanging coral. Here we met some of the strangest creatures yet- bright red crabs with extra spindles on their legs, nearly-translucent whitish crabs that seem to not have shells, and of course tons of regular grey and black crabs. When we moved quietly, we could hear them skittering along the reef below our feet, to our side, and even over our heads. I've seen way too many Alien movies; that sound kind of freaked me out. But if I moved away from the overhang, I was back in the sulfur mud, so I stayed in the protection of the coral and tried not to think about what might crawl into my intestinal system and burst out onto the dinner table 3 nights hence... It also crossed my mind that I hadn't expected this as part of my missionary experience but that it was improving my prayer life.

We finally made it back around the cove, up the dune, and into the house, and I was glad for the experience overall. But next time, I'm bringing my own flashlight.

Moi Day, Eid, and Sunburns

So I'm recalling my "Creative Non-Fiction" writing class in college, and I think I need to do a little more mental sifting before I can compose just the right funny story from last weekend.

But to tide you over, here are some pictures of our trip to the beach. As you can see, the 8 of us were really suffering:

The view from our front door

The 8 of us after snorkeling, before the sunburns really hit...

Nature

I spent part of last week on CFS, and I observed nature in many forms...

Giraffe

Zebra

The Rift Valley and Mount Longanot
Hippo

Wildebeast- some say God made them last to use up the spare parts.

I also observed some more familiar-looking nature, for example:

Middle Schoolers on the Pre-Complaining Portion of a Hike

Women Disturbed by Outhouses

Middle School Girls Seeking to Look Alike
(and copy their teacher...)

Middle School Boys Playing With Fire

And of course:

Middle School Boy Trying To Be Taller

Matatu

What is this m-word? Noun? Verb? Adjective? Expletive?

Well, dear readers, a matatu is a mini-bus, a snub-nosed van packed with people careening to or from the city center. There is a driver and a fare collector, both always male, each wearing a solid-color vest to look official. The driver's job is to pass as many vehicles as possible, thereby picking up more passengers than the next guy and making more money. Most Kenyan roads are roughly 2-lane, unless the person in front of you is going too slowly, then you may feel free to pass him, even if you have zero visibility at the time. There are no lines on the road, so driving between them is obviously not a cultural norm. I guess it's kind of like walking on a sidewalk- everyone basically keeps to their own side, unless someone is going too slowly, and then you pass. Yes, just like a sidewalk. Except you're traveling at high speeds in chunks of metal. But as my coworker Tim told me when I cringed as our school bus passed a truck on a winding mountain road, "We're used to it, the other driver's used to it; it's just you that's not."

Anyhow, back to matatus: the fare collector's job is to shout to prospective riders to find out if they want on, alert the driver to stop by whacking the side of the van, open and shut the door, and run alongside and hold on tight since the matatu often leaves before the door is actually shut. The fare collector taps you quietly on the shoulder after a time so you can pay him your coins. He also responds to quiet taps on his shoulder when you want to get off. In addition, he has the tricky task of deciding how much to charge you, which depends on where you are going, how rich you look, and what time of day it is. For example, a trip into Nairobi recently cost me 20 bob, but the trip back by the same route cost 50 because it was almost dark, and I am not. The collector knew I needed to arrive at my destination before nightfall in order to be safe, and so I would have to pay the higher price in order to preserve my well-being...

I am nearly always the only light-skinned rider of the matatu I am in, unless I am with a mzungu friend. A few days back I got a quick course in matatus from my friend Rachel, a Wheaton student from Minnesota. She's one of the HNGR interns placed in Nairobi, and she's standing behind me in the picture from the last post. Matatus are a regular part of her African experience, and when she heard that I didn't know any of the routes nor what exactly to expect when riding and was therefore severely limited in mobility, she came to my rescue. You see, there's about a giant gap between figuring out the public transportation system by myself and having someone show me; there's little likelihood I could master it left on my own. Matatus are a very Kenyan way to travel (cheap, not entirely safe, not entirely comfortable), so almost none of the expatriates at my school ride them. But Rachel met me at the matatu stop nearest my apartment, rode with me downtown, walked me to the other major stops, and introduced me to a cheap downtown coffee shop. She also pointed out the Hilton as a major landmark and free bathroom, and she gave me advice about which areas were safe for a white girl who sticks out like a hard boiled egg in a bag of poppyseeds.

And so I felt somewhat competent the next day when I took a matatu to Hawker's market to buy my vegetables. On the way there, I marveled at the different personalities of matatus- some are MTV on wheels, with pumping bass and semi-obscene music videos playing on a screen at the front. Others are more sedate, with philosophical advice displayed on the sides and ceiling: "To avoid life stress, live according to your standard." The one I rode in that morning had an interesting (and fitting?) combination: "Honesty is the best policy" coupled with "I may not be smart, rich, or good looking, but I am available." And on the return trip I rode in one whose stickers proclaimed "Yesu ni Bwana." I knew my Swahili was improving because I could translate it: "Jesus is Lord." It was the first time I've understood something I've read, and it was a good first sentence. =)

I'm becoming pretty comfortable on matatus; it barely took any effort for me to ride to the hospital this morning. Don't worry, I'm not sick- I went to visit Travis and Lydia because baby Meshach has finally been born!


He's wonderful and vocal and beautiful, and it's delightful to be here for this event. Just like when I came back from HNGR and waited at the hospital for Erin Hausam to be born, Meshach Klingforth reminds me that life continues despite whatever transition I may be experiencing. There is consistency the world over- God is faithful to bring life and sustain it, and evidence of His goodness can be held in human arms.

So I continue my upward growth, and the view is improving: I have a lot more independence, a touch more confidence, and every day more rootedness in this place and its relationships. I'm grateful for matatus and how they expand my horizons, and I'm thankful for relationships with other expatriates whom I can serve and support.