This series of Kisii Orphanage posts is a recollection of entries from my journal when I visited the Log Church and Orphanage of Kenya for the first time.
To retain the continuity of the journal, please scroll down to the entry entitled How it All Began, and work your way up, reading each post that begins with Kisii Orphanage.
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Journal Entry – November 19, 2017 (morning)
This morning I awoke in Kisii town. After we left the church last night, the same group of men who had brought me from Nairobi accompanied me to the hotel that they had arranged for me.
Back in April, when I went to see Levi in Ethiopia and when I was first looking at the possibility of going to Kenya, the pastor wrote to ask me if I wanted to stay in a hotel or in his home. I replied that whatever was most comfortable for them. It did not matter to me. But that was because I had planned on staying only one night.
Journal Entry – November 19, 2017 (morning)
This morning I awoke in Kisii town. After we left the church last night, the same group of men who had brought me from Nairobi accompanied me to the hotel that they had arranged for me.
One of these men of course is the pastor Joel.
Another is also a pastor of the church. His name is Vincent, but it took me
some time before I actually figured out what his name was, since the “n” sound
is very different in Swahili. He pronounces his name something like Vinecent.
The third man was the driver
Amos. He owned the car and was a taxi driver. It would be Amos who was to pick
me up every day and bring me to the church.
The front of my hotel |
The hotel where I am staying is in Kisii town
proper. We had actually passed through this town on the way to the church, but
the church is a half an hour or more beyond it on a dirt road that leads up
into the hills.
No one in the church has a car or even a
motorbike, so every day Amos is to pick me up, bring me to the church, and then
back in the evening. There are no buses that run in the remote area of the
church.
View from my hotel window |
Kisii is not a small town. I saw online before I
left that it has a population of 400,000. The hotel is a nice one. It is quite
newly built and has tile everywhere. The floor is tile and the walls are tile
and the ceiling is tile. It seems there is a maid constantly cleaning it. My
bed is also very comfortable. It is huge—king size.
In fact, it is so large that it barely fits into
the room. I actually have no idea how they got the mattress through the door.
I also have my own bathroom, but to get to it I
have to squeeze between the back wall and the foot of my bed. I feel like
Oliver Wendell Douglas of Green Acres in his bedroom in Hooterville, who had to
suck in his gut to enter the door that would only open part way. I took a photo
of the bed, but to do so I had to stand out in the hallway so that I could get
back far enough to snap the picture.
The bed also has a canopy with a mosquito net
mounted over the top that comes down over the sides when it is closed. Malaria
is prevalent in this area and is actually one of the reasons some children at
the orphanage are without parents. Their parents had died from the
mosquito-borne disease.
But I had come to Kisii when the weather was dry
and mosquitoes not so prevalent. I will put the net down over my bed each
night, and I suppose there was a mosquito that I heard at times last night, but
I actually was not bothered.
When I go into the huge bed and put the net down,
I feel like a little boy in a blanket fort. It’s kind of fun, but actually also
a bit of a strange feeling. With the net pulled down around me, there is
something about being in that enclosed space that makes me feel safe. The rest
of the world is outside my fort, and it seems chaotic, but my canopied bed is
my own tiny world that I can control. The thought even came to me that it’s a little
like crawling back into the womb.
In some ways here in Kisii, I feel a like a young
child. I am unsure of myself in this place, and do not actually know what God expects of me. But
I am here. I have arrived. I am in Kisii, Kenya. I still am not certain of all
of the reasons that God wanted me to come. I only know I needed to come. There
was no other way that I could continue with my life.
As tired as I was, I did not sleep all that
soundly on my first night in Kisii. I am sure that I am still adjusting to the
eight hour time change, but it also was because I was thinking about the week
ahead.
But well rested or not, today is Sunday, November
19. Amos will soon be here to pick me up to bring me to the church. I will be
preaching.
Journal Entry – November 19, 2017 (evening)
Back in April, when I went to see Levi in Ethiopia and when I was first looking at the possibility of going to Kenya, the pastor wrote to ask me if I wanted to stay in a hotel or in his home. I replied that whatever was most comfortable for them. It did not matter to me. But that was because I had planned on staying only one night.
This time I am here for about ten days. I am very
glad that I have gotten this hotel. Despite the difficulty and the expense of
getting to the church from here, I cannot even see how it would be possible to
stay in the house of the pastor. I will explain why later on. But another
reason that I am glad for the hotel is that I know the days that I have here
will be very full.
The church has planned a week-long conference…no,
it is more than a week. It is about a ten day conference. Each day I am to
speak and to have Bible studies. I believe I have already prepared all that I
will do. I prepared so because I had a suspicion that this would happen. Now I
am glad I did. I should not need much preparation time while I am here.
But the fact is, the days will be very full and I
will simply need some time to be alone. I will be glad to be back in the hotel
each evening.
The sermon that I gave today was actually an introduction
to the conference. I spoke on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and what we can
expect to learn as we take a portion of it every day.
There are a lot of people who will be staying all
week up near the church for the conference. I have no idea where they all will
stay or how they will eat. But Joel and the church have been planning this
conference for some time.
This afternoon Joel took me out to the back of our
house and
showed me two goats tied to trees.
showed me two goats tied to trees.
“The Lord provided these goat to us for the
conference,” he told me.
I expect that one day soon, there will be some
goat meat on our plates.
The church service was the first for me in any African
country. It was interesting and fun for me to see the manner in which these new
friends of mine worshiped the Lord.
Some of the many children of the church, including
the twenty-some orphans that are under the care of the church, were first given
the opportunity to share some things that they had learned, or to sing a song.
Four of five of them had memory verses that they
wanted to recite. The children, whose ages ranged from about four to ten or
eleven, all lined up in the front. In turn, each recited their verse.
Each one began in the same manner. They began by
saying, “Praise the Lord!”
To which the congregation replied, “Amen!”
The child repeated. “Praise the Lord again!”
Congregation: “Amen!”
I used exclamation points in these quotes, but I
actually pondered whether or not I should use them. These phrases were not
shouted or even said in a loud voice, but as I came to see later, this was
simply the normal way that the children or even anyone began what they were to
say in front of the congregation.
“Better than my method,” I thought to myself. When
I am about to speak, I think that I usually say something like, “Um…”
But the best was the singing. The children also
have their own choir, and next, they were given the opportunity to present a
song. One of the older girls came to the front to begin. It was in the same
fashion:
“Praise the Lord.”
“Amen.”
“Praise the Lord again.”
“Amen.”
Then the choir began to sing. The girl who said "Praise the Lord" was the
only one in the front. The rest the children in the choir were still far to the
rear in the church building. They also were singing, but as they sang, they
proceeded up the aisle, dancing as they came.
This was not an ecstatic dance or anything like
that. The
children came two by two, and with their arms, legs and entire bodies, they were keeping rhythm with the music. They more than sang the song, they also felt the song. Their worship was with their entire body.
children came two by two, and with their arms, legs and entire bodies, they were keeping rhythm with the music. They more than sang the song, they also felt the song. Their worship was with their entire body.
I had only been with this people for a half an
hour, and already I had learned so much from them. So far, I had learned the
most from the children.
There were numerous solo pieces of music, numerous
choirs, including the youth choir, woman’s choir, and adult choir. Many of the
songs were western songs, ones that I recognized. Some others I think must have
been African in origin.
Most were in English, some in Swahili, at least I
assumed it was Swahili. I actually did not know. The real tongue of the Kisii
tribe is Ekegusii.
One younger lady sang the Christian country gospel
song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” She sang very nice and in
perfect English with even a little country “twang” in her voice. I thought that
she must have learned the song listening to a Loretta Lynn album.
There were three sermons in all. Yet another
pastor of the church, Pastor Douglas, had preached even before I arrived. I
learned that the service had actually begun about 9:30, but I did not arrive
until 10:30 or 11:00.
Pastor “Vinecent” also then gave a sermon,
followed by more singing and dancing. Then it was my turn.
I have mentioned that there were many people there.
The building was packed, plus there were many people standing outside to hear
what they could. The older people present mostly did not understand English,
but could speak only Ekegusii. Still others who had come from neighboring
tribes could speak neither, but did understand Swahili, the actual national
language of Kenya.
Because of the three languages present, as I spoke
I had two men translating for me—one on my right hand and one on my left. One
was translating what I was saying into Ekegusii, and the other into Swahili.
I have served as translator before for English
speakers who were giving a sermon to a Spanish-speaking church. I know that it
can be a difficult task. I once translated for the president of the mission organization
I was working for at the time when he came down to Venezuela.
He liked to use a lot of descriptive adverbs and
adjectives in his sentences. It wasn’t, “David put a stone into his sling and slung it at Goliath
to strike him dead.”
It wasn’t that. It was, “The youthful shepherd boy
David put a small, smooth stone into his often-used sling, twirled it about
his head as he had done thousands of times before, letting go of one of the
strands at the precise instant to send his projectile flying straight and true
into the forehead of the giant warrior and hero of his own people—Goliath.”
More colorful and more interesting perhaps, but
also more difficult for the translator to remember all of those phrases. It was
because of my own past experiences at translating, that when I was speaking at the church today, I at first
broke up my sentences into smaller phrases so the two men would not feel as I
had sometimes felt as I was translating.
However, when I stopped speaking to allow them to
catch up, they also stopped. When I resumed, they also resumed. These men
obviously knew English better than I knew Spanish. They were translating on the
run without the need for pauses.
So there I was speaking without pause, flanked by
two men who were translating into two separate languages as I spoke. Three languages
going simultaneously. They tended to shout a lot when they spoke, so I also did more shouting than I am accustomed to do.
It was not bad speaking, since I only concentrated on what I was saying, but I have no idea how it was for the listener, and how each was able to focus on his or her preferred language.
It was not bad speaking, since I only concentrated on what I was saying, but I have no idea how it was for the listener, and how each was able to focus on his or her preferred language.
It actually was a great day. Despite the
misgivings I had in waking up this morning, I thoroughly enjoyed the worship
service and the entire day. Strangely, I feel at home in this place, and despite the very
obvious differences between me and everyone else here, I already feel a strong
kinship with them. I feel much like these are my people.
But now it is late, and tomorrow is another day
that will be full of unknowns. Time to crawl into my huge bed, pull the
mosquito netting down around me, and get some sleep.
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