Roller Coaster Ride

We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing.
--Billy Graham

Hmmm…so we’ve been a little quiet on our blog these last few weeks. It’s sometimes hard to know what to write about or how to say things…and I’ve felt a little like I’ve lost my ability to communicate. To say that these last few weeks have been hard may be a little bit of an understatement. We have felt quite stressed and burdened. We have been struggling in quite a few areas, and to be completely honest with you, feel as though we are under attack. We know that this is not coincidence feeling this way at the same time as making some crucial decisions about our future, and are praying for clarity and peace from God. We would appreciate your prayers for us in this regard as well. We will let you know as to some of the decisions we are making as soon as we can.

Other than that…life has been busier than ever. It is so hard to keep up sometimes!

I’ll start with Trevor’s work at the TAM shop…he is always busy. Always, always, always! He is trying to learn and figure out how to manage all the work that has to be done and balance all his responsibilities properly. It has been quite stressful for him.
An exciting thing that has happened, though, is that Rueben (from Mitumba) has started working at the TAM shop with Trevor full time! He is working as an attachment, which is like work experience. This has been so good for both Rueben and Trevor! Rueben has really been thriving and learning so much, and is starting to really see that his life has meaning and purpose. God can use anybody, no matter their circumstances!! And Trevor is a really good teacher, and is able to now start helping Rueben and teach him mechanics, the same way he has been helping Mark. God is really working and doing great things!!

Life in Mitumba is busy, but really good. The kids keep me on my toes, that’s for sure! I am falling more and more in love with them every time I see them though. I am so excited to be getting to know a few new older girls on a deeper level. The other day, I was there late because I was waiting for Pastor Shadrach to be ready to leave. It was the greatest time! I was able to just hang out in the field with a bunch of the youth and kids…not do anything in particular, but just be there. I love those days. One of our boys, Cosmas, said “Andrea, today you are not leaving. Today you will stay here with us. Pastor can go home, but he needs to leave you here!”

On Saturday I also had the chance to visit some girls in their homes. One young girl, Mary, asked me if I would like to come and meet her mom. I immediately agreed, of course, and got to see where Mary and her brother Wilson live, and meet their mom. On our way back from her house, another girl, Maureen, asked if I would like to see her home as well. I spent some time in Maureen’s home and visited with her step-mother. I love opportunities like this. To not just be an outsider. But to get to know their families. To see their homes. To be there. Really be there. To be a familiar face. Not just a mzungu face.

I always get a couple youth and kids who just hang out in the clinic with me, they are not sick, they just want to be there. Kevin has proclaimed himself as my bodyguard. That’s why he’s there. Dennis has proclaimed himself as my son, that’s why he’s there. And Fridah just says “I like spending time with you, but I don’t know why!!” ha that made me laugh!! : )

There’s a little girl, Marcy. She started coming around last week…it was the first time I remember seeing her anyway. She’s about 2 or 3 years old…and the absolute cutest little girl I have ever seen! For some reason, she took to me right away, and since then I have not been able to leave her sight. I carried her everywhere with me on Friday and Saturday…if I needed to put her down for whatever reason, I immediately heard “MZUNGU!!” coming from her mouth in quite the irritated tone! It about broke my heart, though, when we were leaving on Saturday afternoon. I obviously needed to leave her there…and her cry and tears were almost too much for me to handle. She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t irritated. She was so, so sad. She stared at me with her beautiful eyes full of tears, using the bottom of her little pink dress to wipe her face. Oh, my heart. One of our boys said “Andrea, just take her with you.” Oh how I wished that I could.

I have fallen in love with little Marcy.

Oh, and I also celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago! Since I had never celebrated my birthday in Kenya before, it was kind of a momentous event! Ha. =) My birthday fell on a Sunday (June 7). You know, I’m really not a big fan of being sang to. Especially in large groups of people! But…you guessed it. That’s what happened. Our church always does this thing where they bring all the kids up to the front and pray for them before they go to children’s church. And they always ask if any of them had a birthday this week. Well…as soon as that was asked, a bunch of our friends all pointed to me and said “it’s Andrea’s birthday!!!” so I had the whole Church sing to me…it was great. Actually I didn’t mind too much : )
Some sweet friends of ours, Richard and Lesly, invited us over for that evening. It was such a great time for us. WE have LOVED getting to know more people our age, and getting to know friends on a deeper level. We feel so blessed.

This weekend we have had visitors!! Our friends, Craig and Ruthie, and their friend from Rwanda, came to visit! It’s been so great to be able to talk about our lives, since we’re going through many of the same things and same emotions and making the same decisions! It has been wonderful!!

Wow, this has been the most random update EVER! Sorry…I’ll get back to my regular updating soon, but for now, this is what you get! Ha.

Please continue praying for us here in Nairobi. Change is coming in our lives, and we feel slightly like we’re on a crazy roller coaster. Roller coasters can be fun, but they can also be scary when you can’t see where the next turn is coming from. We can’t see around the corner right now, and it’s hard! But God is so good, and we have felt His presence and peace in the midst of all the unknowns.

I’ll update again soon…I promise! =)

:)

This guy was on the roof of our house a little while ago...



He kind of scares me! I'm paranoid that he'll wander into the house sometime when i have the doors open! But we haven't seen him since...

The Real Us...

I thought it was time to give you an update on us. Our lives. Our thoughts. Our feelings. Where we are at. Let me warn you though…it’s all a mess in this head of mine! So only continue reading if you’re ready for it! :-)

So. What is going on in the minds and thoughts of Trevor and Andrea?? Good question! I guess the biggest question is…what are we doing when our year here is done…only three months away! We would LOVE to know the answer to this question! (if any of you happen to know the answer, then by all means, let us know! :-) )

There are many days where we miss home. There are many days where we would like nothing better than to go visit family spontaneously, to hang out with our friends, to just be home. Many days!

But, the flipside is, that most days we love it here. Most days we feel so incredibly blessed that God brought us here. That we get to be living this life here in Kenya. Our way of thinking has been so challenged by being here. We look at life differently. We look at ourselves differently. We look at our purpose and passion differently. We have changed.

We would often like to go back to our other “normal” life. But God has “wrecked” our life. He messed it all up. He wrecked our thinking. And then He put it back together again, only better. He had a plan all along, but needed to change us. And He is still changing us, day by day. Change is hard! But necessary and good all at the same time. We feel that we can never be the same again. And that’s hard too.

But is God calling us to come back to Kenya with our changed minds and hearts??…or to stay home and do whatever work He has called us to do there? That is the question of the hour, my friends. Actually, more like the question of the year!

Today Trevor and I were talking about our life. We were talking about what God is doing. About where we see our lives going from here. Trevor LOVES what he does here. He finds such fulfilment in his work and ministry. It isn’t just an ordinary mechanic job. So many days, God gives him a glimpse of the big picture. And that is so rewarding! And I have fallen in love with the kids and youth that I have gotten to know. I love them. I can’t stand the thought of leaving them. We are making some wonderful Kenyan friends here, and hate the thought of saying goodbye and not being able to cultivate these relationships.

We are feeling fulfilled. We are feeling needed.

So. We have been asked to come back. Seriously asked. Formally asked. We need your prayers! We don’t want to base any decision on feelings. Or on how the day goes. Or on the pressure to come back or to stay home. Or on anything superficial. We want to know what God is asking of us. We need your prayers. We need wisdom. There are some really awesome opportunities for Trevor if we do come back to Kenya. We just need to base all our decisions on God and His desire for our lives.

Please, please, would you pray with us?

Funerals and Grief

The thunder was cracking overhead and the rain was coming down loudly on the mabati (tin) roof. The dreary weather found me sitting in a humble home in Mitumba slum yesterday afternoon. I had come with Violet and Rodgers, George, and Jacqueline, some of the teachers, to pray with Vincent’s family. This is the family that lost their eldest daughter, Rebecca, at a mere 21 years of age, due to being electrocuted by a live wire.

I don’t know what I expected to find. Wailing? Tears of anguish and grief? Torn clothes? Weeping? I found none of those things, however. Instead, I found myself being welcomed into their dark, inconceivably small home, and a place made on the sofa for me to sit down. I found a beautiful woman, a mother, with sad eyes, clasping her hands in front of her, looking lost, and yet smiling at us at the same time. Appreciative that we had come to visit and pray with them.

We also came to present some money to them that had been raised on behalf of the youth, the church, the teachers, us, and a few other people. Money that will be used for the funeral expenses, and the costs of bringing the body of their daughter up-country to lay her to rest. She passed away almost two weeks ago. They have still not had the funeral because the costs are so high, and for a family living in a slum, it is an insurmountable task to come up with that kind of money. So they wait. They try to get the money. People fundraise. Communities come together. And the money comes in, slowly by slowly. They are travelling up-country to Kisii, which means that they have to hire a vehicle to transport the body, plus raise all the money for all of the relatives to travel that distance. And that’s not considering food and everything else needed for the funeral. It is a terrible worry that comes hand-in-hand with dealing with the death of a loved one.
I have been told that sometimes the funerals don’t happen for three months. Three months after a husband, father, daughter, mother…someone they love…dies and they can finally put them to rest and try to move on with their lives. Three months of worry. Three months of only one thing on their mind. Three months of continual grief. Three months of attempting to raise enough money to bury their dead. It is so sad.

We thank God that Vincent’s family was able to raise all the money they needed, and are travelling to Kisii today to have the funeral.

After our time of praying with the family, we left the house and walked through a maze of small dwellings, walking in the rain, dodging sewer waste flowing freely, stepping over unknown garbage, over a rickety foot bridge made of sticks, ducking under laundry hanging to dry, but was now getting wet all over again with the coming of the rain, passed little babies wearing next to nothing and crawling around in the dirt and mud, greeted mamas sitting in the doorways of their houses….all the while trying not to slip and fall on the slippery rocks and uneven trails.

What a place.

Violet said something while we were sitting in Vincent’s mother’s home that stuck with me… “All we can do is leave them in the hands of the Almighty God. We can pray and encourage them, then we just have to leave them with the Lord.” This is true, and yet it is still so hard. We just know that they are going to be going through some terrible grief today and for the next few days, weeks, months, and pray for God to sustain them, and to reveal Himself to them.

God is good. We know He is.

Something else happened in Mitumba on Tuesday night. Lately, there has been a shortage of water in Mitumba. So when there is water, people will be lining up to get as much water as they can, while they have the chance. So on Tuesday night, a mother was going to go get water. She left her sleeping baby (about 1 year old) in the house, with a kerosene lantern burning. When she returned with her containers full, she found that her baby had woken up, crawled over, and must have tipped the lantern, which caught fire. The baby had burned to death before the mother even got back to her house.

Tragedies. Senseless tragedies. Oh how we ache for these people. Life is so hard.

Blog Overload! =)

Yes, there are a few new blog entries again, posted all on the same day! It just works out better that way these days!

1. Anniversary
2. Please Pray
3. Our names
4. Darkness

Happy Reading =)

Darkness

Spiritual darkness, that is. Mitumba slum is filled with it. We don’t even know the extent of it, and can sometimes forget what a dark place it is. We get caught up in playing with the kids, in hanging out with the youth, in having wonderful Bible studies with them, that we can forget that in most of the slum, EVIL seems to reign.

I was talking to Violet the other day (Pastor Shadrach’s wife). She told me about a lot of awful things that are happening in the slum. So many people are practicing witchcraft. So many people are demon-possessed. Satan has a tight hold on many, many people living in Mitumba. People are sacrificing their children (literally) for demon worship. There is so much more that I don’t even want to write. But it is scary.

Adults are coming to Shadrach and Violet and to the teachers who teach in the school there. Adults who are dealing with witchcraft and demon possession, but want out. Adults who cannot handle being controlled by the devil and are searching for the truth.

Mitumba slum needs your prayers. The teachers and pastors who are trying to help need your prayers. We need your prayers as we spend much time in this slum. Pray for God’s hand of protection, not just physically but especially spiritually. Pray for the children who are growing up in this environment.

God is doing a great work, but it does not come without opposition. The darkness is being lifted in some places, but in others, the fight against evil is much more violent. We know that God is more powerful, and that in the end He WILL REIGN. But in the meantime, we need to struggle, to pray, to fight for what is good and true and right.

I am reminded of the words to a song that Chris Tomlin sings:

What can take a dying man, and raise him up to life again?
What can heal the wounded soul?
What can make us white as snow?
What can fill the emptiness?
What can mend our brokenness?
Brokenness

Mighty, awesome, wonderful
Is the holy cross.
Where the Lamb laid down His life, to lift us from the fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.

What restores our faith in God?
What reveals the Father’s love?
What can lead the wayward home?
What can melt a heart of stone?
What can free the guilty ones?
What can save and overcome?
Overcome

Mighty, awesome, wonderful.
Is the holy cross.
Where the Lamb laid down His life, to lift us from the fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.

Thank You for the Cross.

Our Names...

…are apparently not the easiest names to have if you live in Kenya! We hadn’t ever given much thought to our names before, that they were strange, or difficult to say, but now we know that they are. (we blame our parents for this! =) )

Let’s start with Trevor’s name. A typical introduction conversation might go like this:

“My name is Trevor.”
“What?”
“Trevor.”
“WHAT?”
“TREVOR.”
“Travel?”
“No, Trevor.”
“Driver?”
“No, TREVOR.”
“Trouble??”
“No, T r e v o r.” (said slowly.)
“what?”
“Treva.” (Trevor, resigning himself to his new name, rolling the ‘r’, leaving off the final ‘r‘)
“OH, Treva!!” (with a smile!)

He has been called Driver, Trouble, and Travel on many an occasion! The name written on his coveralls says “Terror”! So now he finally has just resigned himself to always introducing himself as “Treva” to those he meets…it’s much easier that way!! =)
At the airport in Mombasa, one of the guards there asked to see our tickets. Trevor showed him the paper, and he looked at Trevor’s name. “Trevor Wolfe? That’s your name???” Trevor said yes it was. The guard handed the paper back…”that’s a funny name” with a look of I don’t know, disgust (??) on his face.
His name has given us many a confused look, and many a confusing conversation!

And what about my name? Well, turns out that my name is easy to say. That’s not the problem. They say it “An-drAYa”, like the Spanish way of saying it. It sounds really nice. No the problem is that Andrea is a Swahili name. It’s Swahili for Andrew!
We were in our first up-country Church in Kurungu (in October). Nobody speaks English, they all speak the Samburu language. We had to stand up to introduce ourselves, and when I said my name, EVERYBODY started laughing!! EVERYBODY! I looked around with a confused look on my face, wondering what I had said that was so funny! It was then that I was told that I have a man’s name. And since then, there have been many times where I have introduced myself, and a Good Samaritan will whisper to me “Did you know that you have a man’s name???” Yes, yes I know!

When we were in Kakamega for Easter, Benedicto’s wife, Nancy didn’t call me by my name all weekend. I didn’t think too much of it, until the last evening, when she asked me about my name again. I told her it was Andrea. She said “that’s what I thought you said the first day, but I was sure I misunderstood you and didn’t want to call you by a man’s name! I didn’t want to offend you!”

So that’s the story. Trevor and Andrea are not ideal names to have here in Kenya! We’re thinking of changing our names. Maybe to Peter and Jane. Those are very common names here, and would make for much easier introductions! I guess it wouldn’t be as interesting though… maybe we‘ll keep Trevor and Andrea. This way nobody will forget us! =)