First of all, today is Jesse’s 19th birthday! Saturdays are free days for the team, so some of us girls got all dressed up (put on a clean shirt and jeans…) and went to town to get lunch! We bought chocolate and went back to watch Sydney White on Kristen’s laptop, and it was such a good time. Being in fellowship with such amazing women is one of my favorite parts of being in Africa.
Jesse in the middle! So much love for that girl 🙂
This is where we live! (house left, kitchen right)
It is in this house that I was electricuted on Wednesday morning. I went to charge my iPod and plugged it in upside down and then BAM, I was in the floor crying and trying to regulate my heartbeat. Not the best way to start a morning in Kenya, but hey, I’M IN KENYA. Anyway, I am afraid of all of the sockets now, so I kindly ask my teammates for assistance any time my electronics need charging. It is also in this house that I had my first hot shower in a month! It was glorious. Anyway, we love our little compound.
Here we are cleaning the church!
On Fridays we do manual labor as our ministry, so this past Friday we cleaned the church. African cleaning methods aren’t the most efficient, but we try to do as we are told. They sweep by hunching over and dragging grass bundles over the floor…it is so tiring and we aren’t good at it at all. The Kenyans always ask to “help” and then they just redo anything we’ve done. The “mops” we are using in the picture above come after the sweeping. They are SO heavy and nasty, but we just turned on music and tried to make our work fun. It is nice to serve the people who have been serving us non-stop since we got to Kenya!
The beautiful children of Kenya!
So, the reason I really named this blog electricity is because of an experience I had while doing hospital ministry on Wednesday. Every since I was little, I’ve wanted to work in healthcare, so I have been pumped to get to a hospital and work with the patients. Jesse was sick that day, which was sad because she really wanted to come. We felt her absence when we were on our way, but we kept praying that God would heal here for ministry later on. When we got to the hospital, I was paired with Jarah and Erica, our translator. We were assigned to the women’s surgical ward to pray with the patients and hear their stories.
African hospitals aren’t quite the same as American hospitals. The one we went to was really nice and clean compared to others, but it was still a horrible place. It is stuffy and filled with multiple people to a bed. The people are in pain and the doctors overworked and under paid. It is rough, to say the least. But we came bringing something that surpassed that wordly discomfort; we brought the healing power of Jesus.
I only prayed for four people while I was there, but each of them touched my heart. Two women with mysterious abdominal pain and no treatment, and two children. One was a baby with a horrible skin disease that was eating his flesh, and one with a botched tribal circumcision that left him disfigured and in pain. We didn’t see any miraculous healings, but God was there. The peace of God came over the children when we prayed, and they immediately stopped crying. God does not like suffering, He was there for those children. And the women were so encouraged to remain faithful because they saw God reaching out to them by sending us to pray for and encourage them. It gave me a very hopeful feeling about our hospital ministry and it was exciting.
While all of these thoughts were running through my head, I never expected my day to be strange. But as I was saying “Amen” with the last women, I began to faint. I reached out for Jarah and started to panic. My eyes went black and I couldn’t hear a thing. They sat me down on a bed (and already occupied bed) and started to pray for me, but my body was in so much pain. After a few minutes of Jarah telling me to breath and keeping me grounded, they finally let me leave the cramped room and carried me outside for some fresh air. Although my head had cleared, by arms and hands were frozen in place and painfully vibrating like crazy. It was like electricity was running through them. I was just asking Jarah if she saw them and they looked normal to here so she was confused but she kept praying for me and encouraging me to stay calm. It was so scary and confusing. But finally, after 10 minutes of constant African prayer, my hands settled and it was over.
African’s don’t really understand “not feeling well”…they just say you are healed and you can keep going, but that wasn’t the case for me. Jarah was having what she likes to call a “jaded newyorker” day because she wanted to get me home and safe, but African’s are so chill and slow that nothing was getting done. I felt weak and tired for the rest of the day, so Jarah used her attitude and got us a boda boda to ride back to the house. As we were getting on, I said “I don’t know what just happened, but this pain would have been worth it if we got home and Jesse was finally better…” And what do you know, we walked in the door and Jesse was awake and completely healed. She was so amazed and excited to be better after three days of constant, mysterious pain, and Jarah and I were so amazed that my prayer had come true!
Anyway, I have NO idea what that whole event was all about, but I do know this. God gave those children a peace that surpassed their sickness. God gave me a peace that surpassed my incident. And God, in all of His goodness, healed Jesse and increased all of our faith by doing so. He was so glorified that day, no matter what craziness went on, and that was a very cool experience to have here in Africa. Wednesday was full of electricity!
Speaking of electricity, it went out while we were all writing our blogs. So don’t judge us if these aren’t the highest quality. TIA(This Is Africa), we just have to roll with the punches!
Love,
Kelly
