Energetic. Always on the move.
Full of faith and hope. That’s
how I would describe the
people of Kenya I saw and met
on my recent 10–day trip there.
I wasn’t a tourist. I had been invited to help lead a writers’ conference in the western part of the country. Almost as soon as I arrived, I met the rest of our team: Rudi Tinga, the Salvation Army editor from the Netherlands; his brother, Envoy Koos Tinga, recently retired; and Marion Ndeta, editor for the Kenya Territory.
I had never been to Kenya before; in fact, I had never even set eyes on Africa except through TV and movies and other people’s pictures. But here I was, half a world away from home. In some ways, I felt as if I were in an alternate universe.
In the U.S., it’s rare to see more than one person in a car. In Kenya, it’s rare to see anyone traveling alone; most people travel by matatus (vans or buses) with every seat full.
Here, people ride bikes and jog for exercise. In Kenya, people travel by bike or on foot because it’s the only way to get where they need to go. And they’re carrying everything from babies to bags of charcoal to furniture. Some men earn money by carrying people on the backseats of their “boda boda” bicycle taxis.
Here, if you see a wild animal by the side of the road, it might be a deer or a skunk. In Kenya, right along the main road, we saw baboons and zebras. Small donkeys, when they weren’t carrying heavy loads, grazed beside cattle, goats, and sheep.
Here, our cell phones work only when we’re in range of a tower. In Kenya, they work everywhere, even in the high rainforest.
Here, many churches are struggling with dwindling, aging congregations. In Kenya, many churches are enjoying explosive growth. The Salvation Army in Kenya, for example, has at least 325,000 members and more than 550 churches. Leaders say that the Army is opening an average of one new church a week.
Here, we live very private lives; most of us don’t even know our neighbors. In Kenya, people live very connected lives; community and family are still as strong as they once were in the U.S. Often, in Kenya, church becomes an extension of the community. At Nairobi Central Corps on my last Sunday in Kenya, the church was holding a “harambee,” or fund–raiser, to help the family of a couple who had died in a car accident.
Community is what we found in the town of Kakamega, at Jaminda’s Paradise Motel, with our own team and with the 29 men and one woman who came to our conference. We were there to teach Salvationists—soldiers (church members) and officers (pastors)—how to write features, news articles, and devotionals. We did that, but we also found ourselves blessed as we came to know our new friends who sacrificed a week of their time to learn from us.
That was another “alternate–universe” discovery for our team. In Western culture, students often must be pushed and prodded to do their work. But our students were dedicated from the moment they arrived and often came early and stayed late to finish their assignments.
We learned, too, that sacrifice is part of every Salvation Army officer’s life in Kenya. Unlike in the U.S. and other Western countries, officers there don’t receive a paycheck from The Salvation Army. The only support they receive is the tithes and offerings of their people. In western Kenya, where many people struggle to make ends meet, those tithes and offerings might be maize flour or perhaps a chicken instead of money.
We might think of such a life as hard, even depressing. But the officers and soldiers we met always seemed to be smiling. Their joy seemed to come from a deep place as they sang praises to the Lord in Swahili and sometimes, for our sakes, in English.
The students had great vision for their work as Christians. Most wanted to learn so that they could have a new means of reaching others for Jesus. One delegate, Captain Job Andika, has a vision to build a children’s home. Another, Major David Simiyu, wants to find ways to reach out to the many children who have never been to church and may not even have parents to take them. Others are excited about the possibility of creating a Salvation Army radio station in Kenya so that the Gospel can be spread over the airwaves. Still others were thrilled to learn from Rudi Tinga that photos can also be a way to show what The Salvation Army is doing.
Our students also taught us something about gratitude. Following each session, one would stand to offer thanks. The student would lead the group in an in–unison greeting ending with a loud clap and beaming smiles in our direction. Such thank–you’s always made me laugh with delight—pure joy combined with a rush of my own gratitude to the Holy Spirit.
“Asante” means “thank you” in Swahili. It can’t begin to express my gratitude to the Lord and to the beautiful people I met and came to know. But it’s the best I have for the moment. So, “Asante, Kenya!”
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