23 Apr Home And Back Again

As we drove towards the village where the Bible school was to be held, I saw a road paved across a flat, wide plot of land with Mount Kenya towering over us on the right and the Aberdare mountain range running like hills to the distant left.

The sky seemed to almost glow with a blueness that was unobstructed by clouds. Instead, the lush green of the mountains collided directly with the vibrance of the sky. We turned onto the dirt road that led us to the church, and though it was covered in gray gravel, it still managed to throw us around with its ruts and bumps. 

When we arrived at the small church compound, we wove our way through the yard to a new wooden building that stood behind the church itself. The sun outside was so bright that I had to wear my sunglasses, but as soon as I stepped down into the classroom, I felt as if I had lost my vision. Once my eyes adjusted themselves, I realized I was standing at the front of the classroom and twenty or so male students were looking at me. I crossed the freshly tilled dirt floor to a seat near the back of the room. There were four windows, or rather square openings, in the walls; only one was opened to allow sunlight inside. The interior walls were covered with flattened cardboard boxes; little slivers of sunlight snuck through the creases and overlappings of the makeshift walls. 

The air in the room was surprisingly cool and smelled like fresh earth. Outside, you could hear the occasional motorbike drive past on the dirt road running alongside the church. Behind us, children and women called out to each other as they went about their day- working and playing.

I wrote the above during one of the early weeks of my return to Kenya. I had spent the last months of 2014 living and working in Kenya, and soon after welcoming 2015 into the world with my friends and family in the U.S., I again the crossed the Atlantic to Kenya.

“My desires for control and comfort and for recognition and honor became clearly revealed as the sins of pride and entitlement.”

These types of observations about my environment came easily during those first few weeks of return; my eyes had again grown accustomed to my American surroundings, and everything in Kenya felt fresh, vibrant, and new. The contrasts between the countries stood out starkly in my mind. There were so many differences- as bright and colorful and varied as the fresh fruits that filled the roadside in their produce stands. 

However, nature began to once again run its course, and the unfamiliar became familiar. Those things that had felt so new and different at both of my entries into the country faded into the daily realities of my life. The transition is so gradual that you hardly notice it’s happening. One day, you suddenly glance around and realize how much this place feels like home.

Similarly, I began both of my trips with a rush of personal revelation; to be plucked from one’s culture and land into another makes your own habits, tendencies and even sins stand in stark contrast to the people around you. In the same way that the unique foreigness of my surroundings was so clear, my own differences and deficits became more obvious as I interacted with the individuals and the customs of my new society.

God certainly used these times of personal revelation to grow and stretch me. Many of my daily habits actually flowed from a heart of idolatry. My desires for control and comfort and for recognition and honor became clearly revealed as the sins of pride and entitlement. I was broken through an immediate removal of the opportunities to practice these sins in the ways that I had been. Feeling like an addict going through withdrawals, my heart responded to this emptiness with feelings of despair and frustration.

Because God is faithful, He did not leave me to work through the de-throning of my idols alone. Instead, through his Word, times of prayer, and the wise, instructive words of others, the Spirit of God continued His work within me. There were often times when the words of Scripture felt stale and when my prayers felt one-sided. I had to choose to trust and depend on the promise that God was working in me, giving me the desire and the power to do what pleases Him (Philippians 2:13).

Now, I find myself approaching another culture jump. My work in Kenya is finished (for now), and I’ve started packing up to return home. I’m continually wondering how I got to this point, how time moved so quickly. And while I have a grasp on some of the initial work that the Lord did in me, I’m longing to discern the ways that I’ve kept on changing and growing.

“I feel challenged to seek out opportunities for my sinful heart to be revealed on a regular basis.”

But, in the same way that I was blind to many of my sins while living within my own culture, the acquired familiarity of my new home limits my vision of myself. Thankfully, this is one of the reasons we have been given His Spirit; He reveals those things that we are unable or are refusing to see in ourselves. Yet I can’t help but think that there is another truth here for me, and perhaps also for you. Do I have to travel halfway around the world to have the blindspots of my heart revealed? I’m thinking that the answer is certainly not.

Instead, I feel challenged to seek out opportunities for my sinful heart to be revealed on a regular basis. Even though I love any excuse to travel, the reality is that we can interact with those who are different from us by just walking down the street or around the corner. Regardless of this fact, it’s far too easy and comfortable to spend all of my time with those who are very much like me. I can find much affirmation when interacting with those that look, and act, and talk like me.

So sadly, I often fail to be intentional in seeking out the company of those who would stand in contrast to me. Rather, I long for the comfort of familiarity. As I return home, I am determined to pursue people who are not like me. The beauty of the church is demonstrated in this type of unity across diversity. To share a common faith with those who are obviously different from us is both unifying and challenging, reminding us of our mutual eternal citizenship.

So where do I find these opportunities? I think I’ll find it in a continued willingness to be uncomfortable. I’ll find it in an ongoing awareness of my own acceptance into the family of God when I was a foreigner whose habits and desires were far from pleasing to the One who saved me. And I’ll find it as I grow in my commitment to serve others both in the church and in our community. As I learn to care about the preferences and priorities of people who are different from me in their nationality, their social status, their education, or their life stage, my own selfish views and preferences will continue to be confronted and changed.

-Megan Gaminde, OVC Kenya