That weird crunching sound was back. It didn’t sound good- but I needed to get groceries for the camping trip I was leading the next weekend, and had plans with these two senior girls of mine to spend the day off campus at the mall where the grocery store is located. The three of us had a lovely time, but by the time I’d gotten back to campus, grease was oozing out of my hubcap. Even non-car people know, there should not be grease oozing from an axle, pushing its way out the hubcap.
Sigh. The car was down and out again. Strike 1.
A long day started with classes as normal, a meeting thrown in here or there, and it was my week on for Teddy’s, the milkshake shop I manage on campus this year. I’ve been rotating weeks with my two student managers and today was my day! As soon as I was back from that, the schoolwide music concert began, followed directly by my weekly night of hot-cocoa and games when the seniors are out for late curfew.
Busy as I was bouncing from one activity to the next, I didn’t even think about my computer that I use for the POS system at Teddy’s sitting in the bag with the wet rags I’d brought home to wash. It stayed in that bag overnight, the fan working overload to draw in the moisture sitting right there next to it. When did I think about it? The next morning. My computer had booted up as normal, so I carried on teaching, but after sitting a few minutes I came back to a black screen. No juice. We pivoted and I took it to our trusty IT department once class was out. The motherboard had crashed. I needed a loaner. Strike 2.
“EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY” it read in the top left corner. I was trying to purchase data for the student trip after the camping trip, yet every time I tried to do ANYTHING a message popped up saying “Your device is not registered on any network.” That top left corner usually said “Safaricom.” About to embark with twelve teenagers in my personal care off campus for a week and I was now unable to determine why my phone wouldn’t acknowledge anything but a Wi-Fi connection. Strike 3.
I’m out.
And yet, life carries on. I still was leading and helping plan not one, but two trips with 12+ students each in a 10 day window- one an overnight backpacking trip into the crater of our local volcano, the other, a weeklong trip to Lamu: An Islamic Island, and UNESCO World Heritage Site about 60 miles south of the Somalia border.
Each year the 11th & 12th grade students embark on “African Field Studies” programs to differing locations around the country, some even to neighboring countries, to study missions in different contexts, culture, contemporary African issues, and of course, fun. Different trips emphasize differently these objectives, though they all include lots of fun. I’ve led a couple before focused on adventure-based tourism and how it has been leveraged to help support things like conservation efforts. This trip was very different. This trip leaned heavily into the study of Swahili culture, and a big piece of Swahili culture in that region includes Islam.
About 15 years ago RVA connected with a local man on the Island, B, who has worked with our school groups ever since, coordinating the feet-on-the-ground details. Our first day there, we got off the plane and immediately into a boat ferry to carry us across the channel to the Island. We walked narrow streets of homes made of coral to our accommodations, stopping to pet one of many stray cats or pressing ourselves to the side of the narrow alleys to make room for passing Donkeys laden down with goods or passengers.
We had some time before B would return for us, so I wandered to the rooftop terrace and sat on one of the daybeds, journal in hand and bible on my lap. I knew I needed to bathe this trip in prayer. My three strikes were evidence of that. We needed God’s power and strength encircling our group each day.
I wrote in the margins of my bible this prayer as I read through a Psalm over and over, “As we embark on this journey of Lamu, would you please protect us from darkness that surrounds us on this island.” Where the Psalm says, “Summon your power God, show us your strength, our God as you have done before” I wrote, “Your power over those we face here, even now as I hear the call to Islam.” Arabic surrounded me on all sides, loudspeakers projecting the afternoon call to prayer. The Psalm ends, “You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary, the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people.” I felt God’s peace wash over me as the tension I’d been carrying the past two weeks began to slowly melt away.
Oh, we had so much fun on this trip!
After crossing a hand-made rickety stick bridge, we visited coral homes with indoor toilets from over 700 years ago surrounded by 1000yr old Baobab trees and a gorgeous path to the open ocean, five foot crashing swells to float in as a storm front rolled in.
We spent days on the Dhow (local sailboats), using it as our primary means of transportation to places like the Takwa ruins seen above, or to snorkel on the reef, swim at a private beach, meander through mangrove forests, swim in the channel as the tide changed directions, and even to visit the home village of B. B took us to a friends house who hosted us for dinner, introduced us to his wife, his daughter, his sister, an aunt, his ex-wife, his new in-laws. B took us to the children’s home he worked at for 15 years before recently being let go with budget cuts. He showed us his new motorcycle parts shop he is running. He welcomed us into his life and into his home with radical hospitality.
But that wasn’t what moved me to tears. While creating fun memories back-stroking a student back to the boat who was a weak swimmer, or walking over rickety-stick bridges together was a joy, it wasn’t what moved me to my soul.
Each day we read through Romans 12 together, using it as a launching point for our devotions to guide us in our conversations about culture. No, what moved me was the stark contrast between our engagement with the local AIC (a denomination in this area) Church and our conversation with the Pastor and leadership after service compared to our visit to and lengthy discussion with B and the Imam at the local Mosque.
This church was filled with joy! A joy I have rarely experienced in a church like that- it was a true celebration of life and of Christ. The first part was abundantly clear with the joyous dancing in of a new child. Forty days she had spent at home with her mother, and this dance party of a life-time was a clear celebration of her new life as the newest member of the community. The second part became clear as sentences at a time my google-translate worked overtime trying to keep up with the sermon. You might not know this, but it has a neat little feature where you can record something in one language and it hears, then writes out what it hears. The speakers were loud enough to burst an eardrum, but that just meant my phone was able to pick up most bits of the sermon being preached by our zealous Pastor. At the end of the 3+ hour experience, we learned that the first church on the island about 40 years ago had been burned down. Now there were mostly peaceful relations with their Muslim neighbors. Their primary outreach strategy involves things like food drives or medical clinics to provide for those in need. Most of the congregants are those who moved to Lamu as adults from other places in the country. The vast majority of those native to the Island were Muslim. We asked about what would happen if anyone on the Island came to know Jesus. The consensus was they would have to leave the Island, or be killed by their family.
The Mosque was a quiet solemn affair. We were the only ones in the Mosque, being brought in for a visit outside of normal worshipping hours. All of the ladies in our group had been fitted with hijab’s by B’s wife, F. She had folded the fabric with swift fingers around our faces, pinning it expertly on the back of our heads with a straight pin. Dripping with sweat in the stale hot air, we gathered in a circle on the carpet in the main prayer room and began to ask the Imam questions. He’d been a student coached in football (soccer) by B as a child, so he held a special place in B’s heart. You could see B’s pride emanating off his very being as he spoke of how this man had studied in Egypt to be an Imam, and was now there leading the neighborhood as his father and his father before him had done. As Eid, the last day of Ramadan, had just happened days before, my students began to ask questions about this celebration. I noticed the difference in how the Imam responded verses B, also a devout Muslim, answered our students questions. B opened his heart, just as he had been doing with his life all week long. One of our students asked about the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca required of every able Muslim). The Imam of course had been and gave us a small glimpse of the joy he had experienced, being united in mind and purpose with so many there for the same purpose. B had not been, but when pressed about why not, he expressed that though the Hajj is one of the pillars of Islam, it is more important to care for your neighbors. Allah requires it of those with the financial means, but that the reward for caring for your neighbors is greater than the reward for Hajj. B had a true shift of priority over what many of us in the room expected him to share. When asked about how the Imam or B would respond if a family member converted out of Islam, B once more surprised us. “Just as you would be sad if your brother or sister left Christianity, we too would be sad. There are some Christians who treat their family poorly if they leave Christianity and some who treat them with grace. I would of course try to have a conversation with my family member to convince them to come back to Islam, but after having that conversation, I would still love them. They are my family. But Allah wouldn’t hold their decision against me, I’d done my part to talk to them.”
On this Island, B knows everybody. On our first day, we thought we were learning a cultural greeting, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOEY!” Everywhere we went people were greeting one another in this manner. Nope. This is B’s signature greeting. He just knows literally everyone. He’s coached dozens if not hundreds of boys on the football team, and just as many if not more know him from his time working with youth at the children’s home. He just has a way with people. At one point, there was a man trying to steal another man’s donkey cart on the street in front of us (how he thought he’d get away with it who knows) but it was B who instantly walked up to intervene, getting right in the angry man’s face pleading in a calming voice, putting his hand on his shoulder, his kind yet imposing presence an attempt to deescalate the situation. Not many would intentionally join a street fight.
I have not met a more godly man who does not know God. We talked at great lengths about how kind and welcoming everyone was we encountered. I had one student remark, “I had no idea Muslims were like this…” after hearing the depth of B’s heart for those around him at our visit to the Mosque. This is what struck me.
Matthew 19:24 states, “I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
I see this in B. He has built for himself an empire. Not of cash, but of people. If what the Christians on the Island said is true, my heart weeps for B. The magnitude of what he would give up if he chose Christ is inconceivable. And yet, I can’t help but think of John 4 with the woman at the well. Verses 28-30 read:
“ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
If B came to know Christ, the entire Island of Lamu would know it. The entire Island would bear witness to the miracle of the millennium. The entire Island might come to be believers. This is what struck me on this trip.
It was a joy spending time with these twelve seniors, twelve students I know and love dearly. We laughed together, we joked together, we ate, then puked up later lobster together, we swam together, saw beautiful blue “Dory” fish together, we got sunburned together, and we marveled together at the work that God is doing on the Island of Lamu, praying that He would strengthen and bolster the local church to draw more and more people nearer to Him. When he does, my three strikes will make sense, because Jesus will be the one scoring the homerun, we’re just not to that inning yet.
Prayer Points
- Pray for B! Pray that he would come to know Jesus as his personal Lord and savior. Pray that God would bring him a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Nothing less will convince this man to follow Him.
- Pray for my students, that they would continue to dwell on what they witnessed while on this trip, that God would continue move in their hearts with compassion for the lost, that they wouldn’t just look back on the ‘fun’ of the trip, but might truly grasp all the layers of what they bore witness to.
- PRAISE: My car is now fixed! Cost a pretty penny, but God has provided through my faithful supporters for moments like this.
- PRAISE: The motherboard on my computer got fixed!!! AND THAT ONE ONLY COST 40 BUCKS! Our IT guy outsourced to his contacts and after about 2 weeks and going through his entire list, someone panned out!
- PRAISE: The term is over and I have some lovely space to rest and catch up on things like blog posts and taxes (for two countries)! Please pray for diligence in checking things off the list one by one 🙂
Faithful Footsteps 