Going on safari with our happy healthy children, who have
learned to be so much happier with so much less stuff.
Then the sheer splendor of entering Eden at the Sekenani
Gate.
But first the Maasai ladies rush up like angels with flaming
swords and stretched earlobes, selling their beads, tapping the windows, crowding
the doors, but they are not there to keep me out, they are there to survive
their family. Josiah asks “why
does everyone want to sell you something”? He doesn’t understand yet that people are forced to work for
a living outside of Eden.
If I were in America today I’d be asking the same question.
Effie used to tell us “the joy of overflow comes quicker
when the cup of need is smaller”. What do I need? Consider these:
Then we enter.
Bam! 1. Giraffe 2. Zebra
3.Thomson Gazelles 4. Wart Hogs 5.Cape Buffaloes
6. Wildebeest 7.Grant’s
Gazelle 8. Topi 9. Impala 10. Elephants 11. Ostrich
12. Maribu Stork 13. Secretary
Bird 14. Waterbuck 15. Lion 16.
Serval Cat 17. Mongoose 18. Stoney Eagle 19. Guinea Fowl 20. Hot Air Ballon! 21.Spotted Hyeana 22. Plover Bird 23.
Cheetah 24. Jackal 25. Elephant (worth listing again) 26. Lilac Breasted Roller
(most beautiful bird in the world) 27.Black Eagle 28. Mouse 29. Eland 30. Ruppell’s
Long tailed starling 31. BLACK RHINO 32. Black Bellied Bustard 33.Wattle Plover
34. Egyptian Goose 35. Superb Starling 36. Crocodile 37.Hippopotomus 38.Reedbok
39. Tiny white Butterfly 40.Hartebeest
God I love Africa!
Thank you for this!
And the adventure of game drives and broken down vehicles
after sunset, did I mention the lions?
And the Maasai guides named Jacob and John who weren’t
afraid of lions but worked relentlessly and selflessly to get us out of our
broke-down place. Then they found
out we had a missionary doctor.
So John went there.
He took us out of our ethereal vacation and into the heart of life after
the fall. But he had to try. This is Africa. He has been trying for the past 3 years
to get help for his little boy, Anderson.
Anderson had a loss of oxygen at birth. There is no help that will cure him except the mom dripping
milk into a nasal tube for him as he lies in bed, unable to walk, stand, sit,
or grasp. And the dad guides
tourists through Eden. Once he
guided 10 cows up through the Great Rift Valley to Kijabe mission hospital to
exchange for any help he could get for his little boy. All his stock in it. But nobody can do anything more. I do grasp it. But.
I don’t want your pain. I don’t want your tears. I don’t want your tragedy to touch me. Not now. Please I’m on vacation. Please. God please. And
I’m underwater in the grief and love of this man for his child.
God I hate Africa.
And yet, thank you for this Father’s love.
But here is the Beauty. It is an invitation to the reality that we live on
Earth. This is not some middle kingdom
in between heaven up high and hell down below. This is the battle ground of 2 kingdoms at war and they are
actively interpenetrating right here daily. The Kingdom of God is at hand! That is Good News.
But the kingdom of man is actively building gates to keep me out. The boundary line is inside my own
heart, this Rifted Valley. My
vacation please, your suffering no thank you. I think my vacation should get me back to Eden. Or my home as close as possible. Or my daily existence can be my own
little graven image of Eden. If
only you won’t contaminate my pleasure with your suffering.
Dichotomy. I
can’t hide from you in Africa. You
are there looking in on me day and night.
I feel like a bird trying to snorkle. This world is so different. I can’t breath sometimes. The smells of a different eco-system fill
my lungs and I need gills. Or a
pipe to breathe. Or a cigarette.
God help me. It’s hard here. It’s
so real here.
And I stay on the surface peering into the world I came to
serve. But in crossing culture and
worldview and systems I am like a flapping bird, not viable in this
habitat. The food is hard on my
stomach. Beans, bland rice, beef fat. (You all should ask Michael about his
special missionary food experience)
I tell myself “5 more bites, you can do it Katie”. . A bird trying to
swim. An albatross at worst, a
loon at best.
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| Dr. Doolittle's Pushmi-pullyu embodies the feeling. |
