Well, tomorrow we leave Nairobi. Our suitcases are open on the living room floor, crowded by our personal belongings, junk and souvenirs. It is 11:43 at night. Jeff is next to me reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Robbie is getting ready for bed. I’m wrapped in Maasai blanket, listening to Ghosts Upon the Earth by Gungor, sipping coffee and it is strange/fascinating/scary/sad/exciting/etc to think that in twenty four hours we’ll be chasing the sun over the Atlantic Ocean in an Ethiopian Airlines plane. Fifteen hours later, we will be in Washington D.C. waiting till 5:30 in the evening when our plane leaves for SeaTac. We’ll land around 8:00 pm (hopefully to catch the sunset over Seattle) and that night we will sleep and wake up in America for the first time in two months. For the first time in two months after living in Nairobi, after participating in various community projects, after interacting with their leaders, after teaching and playing with their kids, after being followed by the ecstatic children of Kibera chanting “how are you?!“ on the unpaved dirt roads, after our adventure to marvelous Mombasa, after eating Ugali, Sukumawiki, Chapati and drinking Chai, wandering and exploring downtown, after the panoramic vastness of Maasai Mara and the stars, after conversations that lasted hours and days discussing political science and psychology, philosophy and theology, after questioning God in ways never before in order to grow, wondering about what Jesus meant when he told the Samaritan woman at the well that ‘God is spirit’, contemplating the brutal prophecies of Hosea and the other minor prophets, and reconciling it with the message of redemption and an alternative reality of love and not power, faith and not sight, and hope not finality that Jesus spoke of and lived out, after all this and waking, laughing, sleeping and waking each morning as three friends on an adventure to be remembered for each of our lives on the African continent, for the first time in two months, the three of us will wake up separately in the United States of America in our respective homes to continue our lives. Wow that all sounds so strange to me. But all this will happen. We will wake up and sometime throughout our days, for who knows how long, at least once, we will ask ourselves (if we aren’t asked by others), ‘Why Kenya? Why did you go there? What did you learn? How did you grow? What difference did you make? What ‘spiritual experiences’ did you have? How did you encounter God? What did you learn about him? How has your life changed because of deputation, because of Kenya and how will you impact the world?’ Sure I can answer some of those questions now in this blog. Sure, I can tell you the ways that we discovered God and how we have grown. We certainly have and will continue to. But in all honesty, I won’t be able to give you a concise or even a complete answer. And that is okay. It is okay because our lives are always changing, so our answers our always changing. I can confidently say, not just for myself but for us three, hopefully for the entire World Deputation Team of 2012 as well as the Deputees to come, that those questions will never be fully answered but that our answers will evolve over time, adapting to our diverse dreams, our crazy circumstances and our liquid lives, fluid throughout our existence. The ways I answer those questions will be different from the ways that Jeff does, and the ways Jeff experienced God and Kenya will be different from Robbie’s perspective, and from the girls that worked at the Rafiki school. And Robbie will view things from a different lens than me, but we can both learn from each other. We can, and must, learn from each other. All at the same time, that is not to exclude those who have not gone on deputation or never will. For their encounters with their community, their dreams, and their questions of God that are answered with more questions (much like Job) are things that I can learn so much from. We can, and must, learn from each other. No one is more important than the other but we are all unique creations, meant to live with and learn from each other. We are unique individuals with unique ideas, talents, interests and perspectives on the one world we live in and the one God who made us, who we live with. God is spirit. One of the most important things we learned on this trip was from our wise host Gideon. Early on, he mentioned to us that our two month stay in Kenya was not a mission trip. Upon hearing this, our ears perked up, our eyes squinted, and our attentions focused. Instead he called it a vision trip. I instantly thought of my mom who commended me for doing ‘God’s work’. While I do think I am participating in God’s work, whatever it may be (though I am sure it involves loving our enemies as ourselves as well as walking extra miles with them, and being crazily kind towards them, because God is so generous and so kind), I do not think that to do God’s work you must buy a plane ticket and go to a foreign land and play with kids. I think my mom can do God’s work at the Alderwood Mall Nordstrom’s where she sells perfume. She doesn’t need to buy a plane ticket. My dad is in the mission field when he walks out the front door and drives to Boeing. The mission field is outside of our churches and our ‘mission trips’. What is our mission? Gideon called our trip a vision trip for two reasons. First, because on our trip we will see what God’s vision is for the Nairobi slums we worked at in Kibera, Kawangware and Mathare. Before we flew to Africa, before we signed up for this adventure called World Deputation, God was already present in these places, pruning the hearts of Fred at the Tumaini Academy, Francis at the Upako Center, and Moses at the Inspiration Center. God is working and he is working through others as well to reveal the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, in our communities. We came to see his vision and the visions of those working in Nairobi. We came to see the blending of God’s vision with the individual’s vision and how they were different from person to person and community to community before we arrived, as we stayed, and after we leave. God was already at work on his mission before we even thought of World Deputation. We came to see it and enjoy the opportunity to participate in it. Secondly, the trip is called a vision trip that our vision may be changed. Our vision of ourselves. Our vision of our community and our country. Our vision of our potential. Our vision of our impact. Our vision of Jesus and how he works through the diversity of this planet and at the same time, the wonderful, beautiful, and mysterious diversity of the individual. Every one is different and everyone’s visions of the world and of God will be different. They may not neatly mix, but that is alright. That is the beauty in it. My vision will be different from Jeff’s. Jeff’s will be different from Robbie’s. And we can all learn from each other. And certainly we will not stop learning with one answer. Hopefully, our answers will lead us to new questions, new questions for growth, for new dreams, new possibilities and therefore new realities. Maybe, do I dare say, a new kingdom on Earth, and may that kingdom be God’s kingdom come as it is in heaven. So ask us how our trip was. We will give you diverse answers ranging from seeing the milky way when we were in the savannah to our experiences with door to door evangelism to the questions our students asked us in class to our own discussions with each other at the end of each day. And we will ask you what you learned throughout your summer, wherever you were. We will all learn from each other and our answers will change over time according to our situation. Maybe years from now, we will all look back on our experiences in a different color of light, a different shade, and we will learn new things from them, relating them to wherever we may be, whoever we are, whatever struggle or challenge we may be facing. Maybe we can simply remember one particular event, not knowing the exact significance or its definite meaning, but we can marvel and ponder the mysterious nature of life, we can know in our mind and in our spirit that sometimes the most wonderful things are those things that words cannot adequately describe. God is spirit.
Kenya CTM -Alex, Robbie, and Jeff
