Land of Widows and Orphans
Well, I’m back from Kenya now and have been free to reflect on the whole experience.
I find that I actually felt quite at home there. It isn’t as different as I thought it would be. As for my food concerns, it wasn’t too bad; it was all just fairly tasteless. Rice and beans with a spoonful of chicken fat or this play-doh-like substance called ‘ugali’ which is basically ground maize (flour) mixed with water and boiled. It is possibly the most dense thing I’ve ever eaten. You can sculpt it into any shape you want, it’s like plasticine and about as tasty.
We prayed for many people and spoke at a lot of churches in the region, travelling from village to village by hired Mutatu – the Kenyan public transport. It’s a Toyota Hi-Ace with fourteen seats in it! Getting the seats in was a miracle of dimensional geometry; getting people in as well is truly painful, driving in it for 4 hours at breakneck speeds over potholed roads is insanity. It was a deep vein thrombosis inducing experience in a four-wheeled coffin with a psychopath for a driver. I would say ‘never again’ but I’m sure I’d be lying; it would be really good to go back but I’ll wait to see what God says.
A particularly memorable moment came when, several minutes after starting off on another uncomfortable mutatu journey, I began to notice an unpleasant smell. The conversation went something like this:
"Man it stinks back here."
(suppressed laughter)
"Guys what’s going on? Have I stepped in something?"
(outright laughter-me beginning to feel a bit insecure)
"What?"
(one of the guys manages to compose himself enough to say on word: "Sheep" before loosing it again)
"What? Am I sitting in some sheep crap or something?"
It was at this point that my friend managed to finish his sentence with the immortal words "..under…your…seat!" and indeed as if timed to coincide with my surreal epiphany, the sheep that was bound by the legs and stashed under my seat made a frantic break for freedom from between my legs. When I had recovered from the bizarre shock of having bleating livestock bursting from the impossibly small space beneath my seat I was informed that the team had already named the sheep Jenny and that it was going to be dinner on Wednesday. Can’t say I felt any sympathy.
It was quite incredible to see God working through our team. We saw many people healed of long-standing pain; one woman who had suffered a botched gynaecological operation had been in constant pain for 6 months and was freed on the spot. Africans rarely seem to get excited when it comes to prayer – it’s a very solemn thing for them, but she was so amazed to be free from pain that she was shouting in Swahili about what God had done.
There are too many things to list here that I will remember for a long time to come; the sunsets, the grinning children shouting "How are youuuuu!" in their cute accent, the children who just stare with dead eyes, the smell of stale sweat, peoples faces when they realise they are healed, the simple beauty of Africans dancing and singing, realising that prayer is powerful.
Just after coming back home I watched a film called "The Constant Gardener" which was about drug testing in Kenya. It was strange to see the places where I had been on the big screen at home. The film captures the feeling of Kenya perfectly and brings to light the fact that we as a wealthy and powerful nation have much to answer for in our exploitation of the African people, whether by proxy or not, the fact remains that we have and still are abusing the defenceless. Something for which there will surely be a just reward. It’s not just the governments fault with it’s unfair trading laws, it’s our entire way of life. Our standard of living dictates that someone be exploited to maintain it. You cannot have a concentration of wealth in one nation and expect everyone else to compete, but we actually go further – African nations, and in the circumstances of drug testing, African individuals are being forced to subsidise our wealth out of their poverty. Add to this the crippling AIDS epidemic, which in itself is dwarfed in size and effect by the pandemic cancer of corruption that sucks the African nations dry, not just of wealth but more importantly, of freedom, and you have a problem that seems impossibly huge. Too long I have used the impossibility of the task and my physical distancing from it as a withering excuse. This demands a response, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
While I’m unable to divorce myself entirely from my way of life I can make small changes by deciding what to buy, and I can help the people I met out there. Hopefully we should be able to raise enough money to buy some brick-making machines and other means to earn money for the communities that we visited. I have also noticed a significant number of my circle of contacts realising that God is calling them to give to Africa and the cause of justice for the widow and the orphan, in a way that will demand their lives. I have a growing conviction that my part in this is to support them in every way I can, and more, that God is going to give me the funding and influence to be able to do this. We’ll see, but either way, there’s a new line in the sand!
PS. For more pictures go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrheaton
posted by Matt Heaton @ 10:59 pm
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