11/9/07---My 1st week: the Tumaini Orphanage in Kenya

My typical day this past week:
7am: rise to the loud sound of children singing,
showering and getting ready for school.
715am: yoga or lectio-divinia with T-bone, Shimmers,
and Jonathan
8am: breakfast
9am: quiet time with God
10am- 3pm: read, check email, write friends, spend
time with Shoshoku, Eunice, people who work at
Tumaini. Build relationships. ON weekends, we play
with the kids
3pm: the kids come home from school. Play, talking,
building relationships.
4pm: reading in the library (every other day)
5pm: running, sometimes it is soccer
6pm: dinner with the kids
7-9pm: more time with the kids
10pm: lights out

It has been such a wonderful week at the Tumaini
Children’s home. It has truly left mark on me as a
very special place. It was an honor to be a part of
their family for even just a short time. The children
there were truly beautiful and so eager to love on us
wuzingos (white people). Just today before I left for
the airport to head to Ethiopia, I decided to run
around the field at the school to get a quick jog in,
and with some of the kids being on their break, they
just swarmed around me to run beside me. About 40 5-8
yr old kids ran beside me, surrounded me, cheered for
me, and breathed hard as they tried to keep up as I
ran my 11 laps around the field. Such a heart-warming
experience with the children running right beside me,
competing with each other to run the closet to me,
their big eyes and smiles looking up at me, wanting to
be a part of what I was doing. So amazing.

I wish I had more time. 1 week was too short to
develop any long-term relationships at Tumaini. I was
just beginning to get to know them and their hearts.
I bonded with a few: Grace, Awoi, little Rhoda, little
Jane, Dominique. But there are so many: 170 of them
in that home. I was originally planning to stay for
2.5 weeks, but I felt compelled to change my flight to
Ethiopia to an earlier time. I have 1 month in Africa
and I thought: “I didn’t come to Africa to spend 4-6
hours of the day reading, resting, doing quiet time
and doing my own thing with my friends here…I came to
give my heart and serve all day, to be used up by God
in as many ways as I can.” And in Ethiopia, I will be
put to work in several different ministries all day.
Because Jonathon, Emily, and T-bone are at the
orphanage for 6 months, they need the time alone so
they can give their hearts to the kids over a long
time. I have just but 1 month and I don’t need to
come to Africa to spend part of my day resting and
reading. I came to be in action around my desire to
make a difference.

So I left for Ethiopia today. As Boniface was driving
me to the airport today, I was able to spend a lot of
time processing and reflecting on my time this past
week. I was thanking God for the beauty and pure
innocence He puts in these children and for the grace
and generosity of the natives that lived there at the
orphanage. And I realized something- that it’s not
the kids or Africa that are the source of my making a
difference. It’s not that Tumaini is where I must be
to make a difference. It is me, it is in me, it is
God’s spirit in me and His mark on me. It’s His
goodness and selflessness in me that wants to reach
out to see and spread His kingdom. By just being here
in Africa, in action, I get to see this and it reminds
me of my true greatness in God, of the true impact I
really can leave people with.

I got tears in my eyes sitting in the car realizing
that I really do make a difference, and I was thanking
God for allowing me to see my difference making heart
in action. Yes, intellectually I can grasp that I
make a difference as an individual, but this past week
I really got to see it in with those kids, even with
my fellow housemates as I was talking with Emily about
some personal things she was dealing with.

And what’s so cool is that the more I see who I really
am in God, the more I see my difference making
possibility in Him, the more I’m not willing to settle
and stand for all that is not God in me – all my
impurities, all my selfish habits and pride that only
hinders forward movement in the kingdom of God. All
my pride -- my pride in “my being so noble to serve
here in Africa,” my pride in “having the intellect to
reflect like this about God’s kingdom,” and my pride
in thinking I’m so great and make such a difference.
Crazy. But I’ve always heard that humility is
recognizing one’s own place in this world, and ego
aside, I know my potential for greatness, for being a
great leader who makes a difference. But so subtle
the pride is. C.S. Lewis talks about this in his book
The Great Divorce: that the further one progresses on
the path towards light and Christ, the more subtle
one’s sin or bad habits are, and if those sins aren’t
dealt with properly, the more they can damage one’s
personhood in Christ.

I am truly inspired by this past week to continue on
with my desire to impact my 6th graders I have with
the church when I return home. I am inspired to
further my development in my self in relation to God.
Amen.