Kenya Thoughts 2

We are so spoiled in America! It has become second nature to us so much so, that most of us don't even realize the conveniences that we take for granted on a daily basis. We wake up to a musical alarm, get out of our nice beds with as many blankets and pillows as we want. We turn on as many lights as we want. We usually have all of the hot water that we want. We go to the fridge and get what we want to eat. We get ready, put on nice clothes, get in our cars, and drive to a job that most of the time we have chosen. We are so used to having things the way we want them, when we want them. Any delay in that process frustrates us. If for no other reason, I think every American should experience "third world living" at least once in their life. We could definitely learn a thing or two.

Eighty percent of the world lives in substandard housing, seventy percent of the world is illiterate, and sixty percent of the world suffer from malnutrition. It is hard for Americans to keep these statistics in the front of their minds. Our team in Kenya came face to face with these realities on a daily basis.

The village where we stayed, Malava, has only had electricity for one year. None of the people that we worked with in the orphanage or the school had electricity in their homes. Our team did have electricity. Some of us had running water (only cold) in our homes, but some of us had to draw water out of a well each day. We had two propane tank burners for cooking and heating water for baths. We slept under mosquito nets each night. The toilets in our houses had to be flushed out manually by pouring pitchers of water in the toilet. We had it made compared to our new friends. Rose lives in a three room mud hut. She cooks and heats water over an open fire each day. She has no electricity, and her toilet is an outhouse 200 feet away from her house. If I had been Rose, I probably would have let the team stay in my house while I stayed in the house with electricity and running water. This idea probably never crossed Rose's mind.

The women in the village are supposed to be the primary workers in their home. The husbands are expected to earn an income and work outside the home. The ladies spend their day working diligently to survive that day. There really is not much you can do in preparation for the future. There is no refrigeration, so any cooking you do is for that day. Once you build a fire, it is only good for that day. Once you heat the water, it is only hot for that day. Once the sun goes down, there is very little work that can be done. These ladies work HARD each day, sleep well on mats in the floor, and get up again to work to survive the next day.

How different is this from our everyday mentality. We go to the grocery with intentions of the trip at least taking care of one week. Very little of the work we do is for survival. We either work to save up money for our future or we work to pay off debts from our past. We make thousands of dollars a month and it never seems like enough. These people make $30 a month and it seems like more than enough.

There is a joy and contentment that I found in Kenya that is unlike any that I have ever seen. In Nehemiah 8, he says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." My new Kenyan friends know this verse in a way that I probably never will. We met widows who had an inexplainable joy. We met people who knew the Bible backwards and forwards. Their relationship with God is priority because they really don't have much else to make priority over that. They have very few distractions, and God makes Himself very evident to them.

Maybe these are some of the reasons that I want to go back.