like magic-

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As we drove away there at the end, two big crowned cranes were flaunting their feathers and trying to intimidate a goose off of her nest so they could eat the eggs.  We weren’t sure what sort of bird it was at first so- Stop the car! We got out for a closer look.  When the noise of the driving engine is stilled and you hear only the quiet crunch of grass and feel the intense equatorial UV rays all of a sudden, you get out of the car and feel the earth below and the sky above and you feel the freedom of the wild all around.  It's like magic.

Then we saw something else.  The unexpected tall heads pop up out of the trees.  Look!  Another one! Wow, over there! The Maasai Giraffes suddenly grazing on treetops just on the other side of the road.  One, two, three, four, o look at the baby!….Twenty!  With giraffes a big group like this is not called a herd or a pack.  They are called journey.

Man-Cub and I walk towards them.  I know they can kill a lion with a mere flick of the foot, but we don’t stand a chance of getting THAT close to them.  They, from on high sense our presence and turn in unison to look our way.  They are silent and gentle giants and we sense their presence too.  Each one stares at the other in expectation. 

My friend Beth gently helped me to learn about expectations.  My expectations often handicapped my experience of life in community.  When I wanted someone to be like me or think like me, I missed the true beauty of that person and our relationship was hindered.  Once my expectations opened up for people to be free as other and not just what I wanted them to be, then the wonder and the joy of relationship to God’s creation opened up. Beth is good at that.

So we watch the giraffes from waaaaaay down below and we step towards them in wonder-filled awe.  They stand their ground.  We step again and they turn the other way. We step up our pace to a trot and they begin to amble with two left legs and two right legs.  It looks like magic.  We begin to run and they, like a dream, move in silence and slow motion.  But they gain so much ground with each step that they are gone in no time.

They are a journey.  We too, are moving step by step in the journey.

"Your life is a journey, you must travel with a deep consciousness of God" I Peter 1:17 The Message

Then Again, Do Ask Me

Then again do.

Do ask me how it’s been.

I may give a blank stare and try to gauge your level of interest. But I do long to tell you.  I long for you to know. But these are things I might not tell you in person.

Ask me how was it, and I might say I was so made for this awkward cross-cultural thing.  We are really blessed so much by this experience that we might walk with Jacob’s limp for the rest of our lives.

If you ask are we going back, I will gaze with uncertainty and wish I could answer you in Kiswahili: Mungu atasema. (God will say).  The language and the culture here have a high tolerance for uncertainty. Most North Americans will find that (and me now) highly frustrating.

Ask Man-Cub how it was and he will answer “good”.  That is probably sufficient for most askers.

Yes there are stories of lions, elephants, giraffe chasing, and pure exhilaration.

But if you really want to know, catch me at the right time, send sonar signals telling me you really want to know, and I might tell you something like:  *proceed with caution as you may not want to read aloud the following:

Subsistence farmers with overdrafted bank accounts from buying maize seed that would not grow in a place with no buffers, no insurance for that sort of thing, symbolic mangled up guard rails along the precipice of the highway.

Rheumatic heart disease killing women because they had simple strep throat untreated so many times in life that her own immune system turns on her and infects the heart.  The heart that is to beat twice its normal capacity during pregnancy and just. Cant. Sustain. Anymore. Pressure.

She dies of a broken heart for another baby girl born in Kenya with no mama to love.

A few days ago, my friend Amy rescued 2 newborn baby girls who were victims of attempted infanticide.  One was left to exposure in the rain by the river overnight.  She is malnourished, but found in time to live.  The other. The other girl is probably a month old and has a broken arm.  It broke when she was. When she was thrown into a pit latrine.

Psalm 11

In the Lord I take refuge.        Selah.

How then can you say to me ‘ flee like a bird to your mountain’?  For look, the wicked bend their bows; they shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart.  When the foundations are being destroyed what can the righteous do?

The Lord is in his holy temple. 

The Lord is on his heavenly throne.

(Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple? I Cor 3:16)

God is living in people like Amy.  She rescued these precious daughters of God because Amy is a little piece of the Kingdom of God.  She rescues children and people like me.  She is a friend who will help me in my loneliness; she packs my junk and gives a friendly Kenyan “push” when it’s time to go.  She will continue doing her work because of what God has done in her life.  

Some missionaries will try to tell you “you ought to be doing” (Most religions of the world are based on that idea).  But the Good news tells us “He has done it”.  He has done all the rescuing of all the cosmos and he has encountered all of this suffering in his own heart. 

What he has done is the long list of beautiful tiny bricks being laid in the Kingdom of God.  It may be a Kingdom that looks like mud huts, and milk cows for widows, and school fees for teenage girls.  He has done it.  He has built into his Kingdom medical training for young Kenyan healthcare workers.  He has built into his Kingdom more equipped Sunday School teachers.  He has built into his Kingdom a local translation of the Bible study that gives a storying pattern for the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation seven times over.  He has built into his Kingdom the encouragement of medical staff and treatment of patients with love and respect.  And, He has healed.  His Kingdom does bring healing.  The mortality rates are high, but then again we are all of us, mortal.  But about 80% of the medical patients are discharged in better health.

Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.  This is my Father’s World.

Sometimes it does feels like the gates of Hell are not far from the front door.  But then again, we know that they will not stand up against us.  The Kingdom is being built here after all.  So we opened the door.  Thank you for supporting us through it all for these past 2 years.  The Kingdom of God is at work in you too.

Tonight we take off to London with the full moon and the stars of the southern hemisphere and fly straight on till morning.  O Lord, Let your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.