You might think that Sunday School happens on Sunday- but here in Marsabit, you would be wrong. A 10 hour drive north from RVA, I’m up visiting some friends for our long “Mid-Term” weekend. Each Saturday, three of their four children walk the 5 minutes to a local church to join for a time of worship. If you are envisioning children standing in rows, humming quietly while words are projected on a screen, you might be American. These sweet Borana children know nothing of projector screens, and while they are more than willing to sit in quiet rows, that would be for a lesson, or for the “wazungu” (white people) visitors to stand up front, introduce themselves and share a brief word from the Lord. Worship for these kiddos is active! When not clapping in fun drumming patterns, feet are moving! Jumping, dancing, bringing life to a single keyboard set to “Saxophone” mode with a drum-kit sounding beat playing as a backtrack. I cannot tell you a single word that was sung, but I can tell you these children love Jesus just as much as any Sunday School back home in Michigan!

After worship and introductions, we split, children and youth. While F (one of my friends I’m staying with) went with his kiddos and the littles, S (my travel companion) and M (K’s mom, K being the other friend I’m staying with) went with the older students to hear their “Discovery Bible Study” lesson. These teens are being trained weekly to open God’s word, read the story, read it again, summarize God’s word, then begin to ask questions.

“What can we learn about God from this passage?”

“What can we learn about His character?”

“What can we learn about ourselves?”

“How can we take this passage into our weeks ahead with us?”

Finally, “How can we pray for you?” We took their little written down prayer requests home and last night, sat around the dining room table praying for these sweet teens prayer requests.

Some were simple, “Please pray for my exams coming so soon.” Others seemed silly to me, “Please pray I can play professional soccer in Miami.” And others yet were serious and insightful, “Please pray for my parents hearts.” “Please pray for my leadership skills as I am head girl at my school this year.”

All of them amazed me, even the multiple requests we pray that a teen could become a professional soccer player! Imagine the faith it takes to ask for something so bold, and to believe it could be true!

We enjoyed an afternoon at the market, chatting with ladies that are local vendors, buying Grandma and M and Dolly matching “deras” (a box dress that is commonly worn out here, thin breathable fabric with the edges sewn straight, holes cut for arm sleeves and heads). We ended the evening at one of the three sit-down restaurants in this whole town before coming home for evening chats.

K started sharing with S, who met these friends of mine for the first time when she arrived at their house. S has been asking all kinds of questions about K & F’s ministry, work, and experiences living in Northern Kenya.

“We had a muslim neighbor whose daughter was having lots of seizures.” K began…

“She tried everything, she even let us pray for her daughter, but the problem persisted. Eventually she asked me if I would drive her to a local village so she could get some medicine from the well known witch-doctor. Man, I was not so sure about that, so I called my unit leader and asked if that would be ok. He thought it sounded like an awesome door to open the way for prayer and maybe ministry later, so we went! Of course the medicine just made things worse, but the whole time she was in there talking to the witchdoctor, I sat in the car and prayed for this village.”

You never know what stories you’ll hear, chatting with missionaries out here, and usually these are stories that happened “back in the old days” but NOPE, I’ve been at RVA longer than these friends have been up here, so this was recent! The conversation shifted as S asked more questions about what they do up here.

“F has been working on getting a few of his students at the Bible College through the last book they need to study before graduation.” This 10-book program F runs provides Biblical and Theological training for young people, old people, men, women, pastors and lay-people in this part of the country. Some are simply hungry for God’s word and have the means, so they sign up for classes. Others are sent by a pooling of money at their local church so that the Pastor who was chosen because of age, willingness or any number of other reasons might receive SOME kind of Theological training. The courses run in short intensive bursts through each of the books cyclically so that if someone can’t come for a whole semester, but can come for 3 weeks, they can get through one of the whole books while they are here. There are a number of students currently who have done 9 of the 10 books, but the 10^th course they all need is different from one another!

“T is one of F’s students. She is a young gal, 30-something like us, single, really loves the Lord! Muslim background, hungry for God’s word. She has kind of started a church, that’s where we’re going tomorrow. She goes out to the village two to three times a week, praying with the women, teaching Sunday School and facilitating biblical learning, using the training she’s been getting through F’s bible program. Imagine my shock the first time I went- it is the same village I visited with my neighbor to see the witch doctor!!!”

My jaw dropped. I was NOT expecting these two stories to cross over in this way, and expected even less that this was where we were “going to church” in the very next morning.

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“There… it’s those houses there.”

I saw nothing but dust. We were only 25 minutes outside of town, but the dessert landscape gave no hints of life rising up out of the sand. The car slowed, a blinker turned on. I blinked and there it was. The village. We bumped over rocks and dust coming to a halt next to an empty black water reservoir. I opened the car door and placed my foot on the dry rocky ground. Wind whipped up around me, one side of my dera hugging every inch of me, the other side flowing out towards the homes, err… huts. A few shy children approached the vehicle, seeing T and F, two people known to them. Curiosity filled their eyes as we, the visitors smiled at them and greeted them in English and Swahili.

“Can we take your picture?” S asked politely. “Anataka picha… je, iko sawa?” (She wants a picture, is it okay?) I wondered aloud in a different language. We discovered brambles arranged in little hovels to hold animals in overnight, stone walls erected for a make-shift kitchen, and hut after hut of saplings bent in dome-like shapes, covered in cloth to provide shelter from the never-ending gusts.

“Habari Buana.” F greeted the “Chairman” of the church, the elderly man whose support allowed at all for this meeting to happen. “Where are the adults this morning?” T translated into Gabra, the tribal language. “They are fetching firewood and a group have gone for water.” The well being a three hour walk one way, the chances of them being back for a Sunday morning meeting were slim.

After about twenty minutes of waiting, discussing, and picture taking on our end, about 20 children had gathered for the first portion of church, Sunday School, this time actually on Sunday. A little more demure than the day prior, singing was still an active part of the worship, clapping along to the beat.

We then gathered around the empty water tank, a little respite from the wind, where F sat down to teach the little ones, T translated into Gabra. Each student had pulled up a rock to listen intently, hungry for a nugget of truth from God’s word. After a while my own tush began to ache as I am not as accustomed to squatting on rocks on the ground as a chair. Eventually F wrapped up his sermon about Hagar in the dessert, learning about the God who sees us, the God who hears us, the God who knows us: El Roi. A deep lesson for some so young, and yet, not so complicated they cannot understand.

We closed this portion of the morning church time with a few songs led by myself and S. As she is Dutch, it took a couple minutes to pick a song we both knew, only halfway in realizing “Peace like a river” and “Joy like a fountain” were meaningless analogies. The third verse came out “Love like a dessert-” so vast, full of an innumerable amount of sand. Something that made a little more sense than “Love like an ocean” an indescribable idea of endless water when their parents were making a day long trek for enough water to use for cooking, a little left for drinking.

We then passed out “biscuits” (small packets of sugar cookies) and packets of milk to each of the children, patiently having formed an orderly line. The Chairman was directing both the children, and us, making sure no person missed this opportunity for a little extra nutrition and calories. Slowly a few adults wandered out. Some because they’ve been before, hearing T share. Others because the Chairman and T had called at their huts, drawing them out for some learning. I didn’t notice at the time, but later at home chatting with K, I realized the significance of the men’s presence. Often in village church plants, men are absent. The church begins with children, grows to women, and only after a very long time may draw in the local men. Not so in this village of Orendere- the men are there too, listening alongside the children and women, and TO a woman nonetheless! Today F was preaching, T was translating, but T is the one coming multiple times a week, initiating fellowship and community. F comes when he can, but he can’t always.

We heard the same message again about Hagar and the God who Sees, new analogies added for the adult mind, a little depth added, a challenge provoked. After the adults received their own biscuits and milk amidst awkward chuckles and smiles, a few pictures and some stretched legs from crouching on more rocks, we piled back into the truck for the seemingly short drive to take us back to a different world.

I’m not yet sure what to make of this whole experience. There were other moments of joy throughout the weekend, painting with small children, cuddling a baby, chatting with my friends on the 10 hour car ride back to Nairobi where they stopped for a week “down-country” with K’s mom who had come to visit before S and I continued back to RVA.

I’m not sure yet I’ve processed the contrast of abject physical poverty, people living in cloth huts walking miles for a small sip of water, with a gathering around an empty water reservoir to drink from the true living water. I’m not sure how to grapple with the beauty of Gabra reaching Gabra, no effort needed to understand the culture from where she comes or language she speaks, a missionary to her own, while she sacrifices cultural norms in refusing yet to find a husband and have children, being ‘passed’ from relative to relative since she can’t get a ‘real job.’ I can’t quite comprehend the deep cultural ties to Islam that bring women to church in what might appear to a typical American as full hijab. I am not sure how to fathom the magnitude of the implications of the “Chairman” who is advocating for the presence of this church, drawing in men to this weekly meeting. This kind man who cares, yes, for the spiritual needs of his community but also the physical ones as he carefully distributed the snacks alongside us with a watchful eye- no child may go without! I don’t know how TO process all I’ve seen in a few short days, but what I do know is that here at Rift Valley Academy, we educate and disciple our students toward their potential in Christ, thus enabling families to serve, and sometimes it is truly a gift to get to see what that serving can look like, drawing people of every tribe, tongue and nation to Christ for the Glory of God. AMEN!

Prayer Points

Please pray for K, F & mom who is visiting, that it would be a time of rest & renewal before returning back North to this difficult place they live in.

Please pray for T as she disciples and reaches out to this remote village. She is a 30-something single gal, which in this highly patriarchal family based culture is absolutely unheard of and countercultural. Pray for wisdom, guidance, and support from the right places and spaces.

Please pray for K & F, and their teammates B & E. This is a difficult place to live for various reasons, some obvious, some hidden. An example: B & E just returned North from having spent a few weeks in Nairobi for medical appointments & car repairs, only for their car to die as they pulled into their home back north, remember, they just left the mechanic in Nairobi!