Well, this is it: the final week of the assignment. It's hard to believe, but in just a few days I'll be flying back to America and then home. This is a thing of mixed emotions for me and everyone else on the team. On the one hand, we'll finally be returning home, able to eat our own food, see our families and friends, sleep in our own beds, etc. But at the same time, we'll also be leaving life as we've known it for the whole summer. We've spent so much time together, shared so many wild and wonderful, life-changing experiences, come to see the world in a new way and be a part of what God is doing here, but we're leaving all that behind. It will be really hard.
To help us deal with all of these conflicting emotions we'll be experiencing, we've come to Mombasa, a coastal town off the Indian Ocean, to have some reentry training. Mombasa is very different from any of the other places we've visited in Kenya so far. In some areas, it looks almost like Beverly Hills in its extravagance. It is a tourist location, so there are people here from all over the world. It has a large Muslim influence. In many ways, it is more like America than any other place we've visited, and most of those ways are proving to be the hardest to deal with. For some people on the team, this reentry training and debriefing is proving to be the hardest part of the whole experience. It is hard to see water wasted when we've seen people who have to travel several kilometers to fill their small water jerkins. It is hard to see food in abundance when we've met children dying of malnutrition. It is hard to see houses with bedrooms larger than the entire homes of our pastors. It is a very different place, and it is the kind of culture that we'll be coming back home to.
Perhaps the most difficult part for me has been trying to understand the place of prosperity in my own life. Surely G0d promises us good things as a blessing, and it would be wrong of me to shy away from the blessings that He has placed in my own life, but how can I go back to having so much when I know that my resources can go to keeping people from starving to death or help build a church or keep kids off the streets? Where do I draw the line?
Another things that has been playing on the back of my mind is the realization that I will soon be leaving the people whom I've spent so much time around. Many of them I would now consider some of my best friends, but we'll be leaving one another and returning to different lives all with their own demands. I really hope that I can continue to have relationships with as many of them as possible, but God only knows who I'll ever see again or who I'll even be able to stay in contact with. It's a comfort to know that in the end, He knows best.
I'm glad I'll be home, though.
Please pray:
- For the team as we begin to deal with the problems of returning to American culture without either becoming frustrated with it or simply forgetting the lessons of Kenya.
- That we would enjoy our last few days together but will also be ready to return home.
- That the work we've done here will be permanent and not just temporary; that when we leave, our efforts will not have been in vain.
And praise:
- For the many wonderful lessons we've all learned here in Kenya.
- That the ministry continues even here - two of the hawkers on the beach decided to be born again!
- That my assignment area, Kimanju, has had two days of rain since I left, the most since March!
- That though we are leaving Kenya, God is not, and He'll continue to be with us as well.
"And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
- Romans 8:28
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