kenya: the first days in sigowet

I am poured out like water,iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

and all my bones are out of joint.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

My heart has turned to wax;iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

it has melted away within me.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,iiiiiiiiiiiiii

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

you lay me in the dust of death.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Psalms 22:14-15

∞

In my last post about Kenya (also: this post is really lengthy but I beg of you--read it all! Take a break if you need, just read it all, please), I talked about that first day in Sigowet. On one level, I'd love to tell you that things perked up when I woke up for my first full day on ministry assignment. I mean, for the Kenya Global Project (not sure how the other Projects or Treks work), ministry assignment is where a lot of the Magic is supposed to happen. Essentially you're sent off into the great unknown, and God inspires and transforms and moves you. I had heard so many of Myron's stories that I was more than eager to get some of my own.

These pictures are from our first full day--we went to visit the brickmakers and on our way, passed through a field of cows that Courtney was really taken by (she really likes cows for some reason, it kept coming up...which I guess was a good thing, her being my assignment partner and all, since someone once said I look like a cow. Don't try to start tracing a resemblance in my features now, though). The very first people we officially "preached" to though was a group of men who were lazing around in a field, taking a break from  their work. Pastor (he's the one in the first picture, and was the local Pastor who took us around and acted as a chaperon/guardian/translator/helper/resource), as we near them, tells us we're going to talk to them. We introduce ourselves, and before I know it, Pastor is asking me to give a word to the men. Uh...alright. I pulled my Bible from my backpack, flipped to a passage and read it, and gave a word/sermonette about it, which Pastor duly translated. Then he asked Courtney to pray for them. 

And that was that. It was startling--that was...it? It wasn't thunderous preaching nor fire-and-brimstone raging...it was so...simple. Even so, it was already more than enough for me to handle at the time. We walked around all over those next few days--as we would for those three weeks, actually--stopping to visit homes, talk to and pray for people, and give words. For those first five days or so, that felt overwhelming to me. It was hard for me to even walk--my steps felt unsteady and my strides lacked purpose. Any thoughts of home--not even anything specific like my bed or car or closet of above-the-knee skirts, just a mere, abstract inclination about it in my head--sent tears straight to my eyes. Our second day, when Pastor asked me about my family while we were walking along, I started crying. Our first Sunday in Sigowet was Father's Day and I had a good ol' cry that morning too before church. 

No one except God will ever fully know how low I was those first days. Even now I think I might start crying, thinking not necessarily about how difficult the circumstances were, but how ill-adapted and inadequate I myself was.

John 3:6 reads, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the spirit." Paul writes in Galatians 5:16-17a, "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desire what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh."

Every morning I would wake up inescapably early, and lay in bed while it was barely growing light out and the household was just beginning to stir itself. While I was lying in bed, I would pray for strength to face the day, but mostly those prayers felt empty and I just cringed against overwhelming desires to be far, far away. During the day when we were out ministering to people I couldn't focus. My mind felt clouded and my spirit bruised from fighting against my flesh, which was tearing at my spirit as it tried to somehow soar. Nothing about me felt transformed. My flesh was not something I had given up to God long ago, but it was a feeble, pitiful shell I shivered in, yet frantically clung to, and my spirit--broken. I am not trying to exaggerate or give my experience in Kenya some melodramatic flair; I am simply telling you how it really was for me--that my spirit was broken and those first days in Sigowet, I was sure my spirit was dying.

I'm going to finish this post with a spoken word I started--but never finished--those first days of assignment. So bear in mind it's rough and a little...yeah, whatever.

You have brought me to this place of skin and bone

You have left me here all alone

Dumped me unceremoniously face first

into the dirt

Bound, tied up in this unflattering, below-the-knee skirt

This is where You have taken me

and this is where You have forsaken me