These Currents Pull Us Across the Border...

i'm sitting here listening to the decembrists and one song in particular that BRINGS ME BACK in full force to my life in nairobi. not only for the fact that i listened to this cd a good bit while i was there, but also for the words that the decembrists sing. they are hopeful and sad at the same time, desiring peace-security-a better life, but those people the song talks about haven't seen it yet. if i close my eyes while i'm listening to this song, i'm there again, standing on kenyan soil and under those same breath-taking clouds. whew how i want to be back. i've been home a week and a half now, but every day here i am thinking almost all day about what my friends and family in kenya are doing. we're 7 hours apart, but that doesn't stop euticauls from calling me and checking up on me to see how i'm doing being back...he wants to know do my parents think i lost weight (he must be joking because he knows how much food he gave me to try to fatten me up, as if i needed to be fattened up)...he wants to know how is it seeing my family and friends again...do i remember that i have to bake brittany a fun-fetti cake (not cupcakes) when the girls get back in august. i miss him and his family immensely.

okay so initial adjustment after being back in the states, for those of you who are curious: i automatically spit out any water from the tap that i might accidentally swallow when i'm finished brushing my teeth because i'm used to doing it. driving on the right side of the road threw me for a real loop and i feel like i just got a brand new car (it's definitely NOT brand new i assure you). i surely am enjoying the heck outta some sweets. the south carolina heat and humidity are about to kill me. i have a love for my family and friends that i never felt quite as strong as i do now. but overall it feels like, and this is the best way i know to describe it, like i'm on vacation because the roads are so smooth, there are trash cans, things are kept up, there is wealth and everything is so NICE-looking. i've never had eyes to see things like this before, and never REALLY imagined it was possible. when your eyes become so accustomed to waking up to a different world every day (because africa is a different world), you see your own world from a completely different angle. we are rich beyond belief. it's such an odd thing to talk about becoming "used to" the slums and the extreme poverty that i saw on a daily basis, if anyone can become "used to" it--i became i guess somewhat accustomed to it without ever desiring to become calloused to it. i want for the people of koragosho (the slum where i worked) SO MUCH BETTER than what they know.

you know when i want to talk about kenya it's exciting and frustrating at the same time. i'm so excited to talk, i can share stories and conversations and things i learned from my time there. but then at the same time it's hard to express in words a lot of what i know and more than that--there's just a lot that i DON'T KNOW. i know that god is sovereign and that he has a kingdom that has not yet come where there won't be any poverty, or murder, or suffering, or sickness. i also know that in the midst of hardship and suffering there is beauty because god is there in the slums, too, and he moves and blesses and surprises and amazes. the people i met are some of the most beautiful, eager to serve people i have ever met in my life. in my journals the best way that i could find to summarize my time and my experience in africa was that "it's tough but it is beautiful." last night when i should have been sleeping i was awake flipping through kelly's book with pictures and little short write-ups from africa. i stared at those pictures, lost my breath--i had a feeling i can't explain somewhere between homesickness and helplessness. homesick for no place that exists, and i felt helpless because now here i am, on my comfortable couch back home safe and sound while back in kenya remain my good good friends and what is supposed to happen next? people i came to know and love will think about me here and wonder what it's like for me and for all of us in america. was kenya just a field trip for me, because i hope not. going back to the idea of what i learned and how much i still don't know, i think in the days and months to come i will still be sorting out what i saw and what i learned. i choose to trust that god used me in nairobi and for the amount of time that i was there, and that things will not always make sense to me but they are what they are and god is who he is. there is sin and disappointment in africa and there is love and beauty in africa the same as there are here in the united states. we are two different worlds but yet very much the same human race.

so here i sit. currently i am in clemson taking a language immersion program for spanish and so everyday i am speaking spanish and really am loving it. i can't wait for the team to get home from nairobi so i can see pictures and hear stories and be connected back to my kenyan home. oh my goodness i don't know what to do with all the feelings i have about those wonderful africans but at the moment i will just ask for your prayers for them. euticauls oversees the ministry of the youth center, where i taught class 2 every day, and they are run by donation. pray that they would be provided for and continue to expand and touch lives. they just finished building a dining hall (right now the kids eat their lunch outside) and so that is exciting. and then please pray for those precious boys and girls that make up the youth center...pray against abuse and pray for sufficient food and clothes and a place to cover their head and love from parents and freedom from sickness and disease. pray that they would continue to learn and advance in their studies--even though i am not there brilliantly teaching them any longer and everyone knows i will one day win a teacher-of-the-year award (that is a joke because before this trip i had never taught a day in my life). i'm going to talk to euticauls about organizing things like paper, pencils, chalk, even backpacks, and BOOKS. they don't have any books to read. i'm sure you could help if you wanted to.

i loved this verse while i was in kenya: "for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with an awareness of the glory of the lord." i saw his glory in africa and i see it here. there has to be a problem or two with the way the wealth of the world is distributed: there's for sure something wrong when we are living in exceptional wealth and they have barely enough food to eat. but god's glory cannot be hidden, in either place. i'm wrestling and coming to terms with the fact that i'll never be able to single-handedly combat the darkness in the world, the sin and injustice and pain. but i can deal with my own sin and then love like i'm supposed to love. i'm not very good at it, but i do it anyway.

euticauls, if you're reading this...
i'm used to the right "shift" key on your keyboard being broken, and so now i'm having to re-train myself to type with the left and right instead of just the left. tell jeff that i nod by raising my eyebrows now and squeeze him real hard for me!

hope.

stepha