A week before Miki and I left for Kenya, I wrote out a prayer.
“Make yourself known Lord. In mystery and in goodness, in grace and in fear, with timidity but power. Lord we come, we want more of you, we walk for you, we fly for you, we greet and respond, we weep and we pray, we study and we serve, strive and rest. We worship in our doubt and we wonder, Lord, all for you. On the knees of my heart I lay the next three weeks, all for you Jesus.”
I knew the Lord would move, I prayed he’d give me sight and break my heart free from passivity. He did more.
Walking into Kenya felt like coming home. It’s not the country or the place or even the people that made it feel that way, it was the mission. I finally re-entered a country and continent, in a healthy enough place, where I could finally feel the heart behind why we had been there all along. That’s what felt like coming home.
To me – I think it was stepping into a frame of reference large enough that we strive with eternity in sight. Kenya was a reminder that this place is not home. The people we saw in the hospital were a reminder that this life is fragile and death is real. The sunrise on the deck in the morning and the Word of God breathing life and urgency into my lazy heart, gently whispering, and shaking the truth into me that we only have so much time. So what are we going to do.
For me it was acknowledging that the Lord really does shape our paths, and to follow him in that, is humbling and terrifying. In failure and fear there is no better place to fall into his arms.
For me it was getting it into my hard head and comfort-driven heart, that there is and will be nothing more fulfilling than going home, and hearing your Dad say, “well done.” And here on earth the closest I can get to that, is living to bring living water to the thirsty and speaking the good news to those who need to hear it. I have life because a man, 2,000 years ago, changed history when death couldn’t contain the life inside his lungs.
Kenya kindled the little fire in my heart that cries out knowing there is more. Kenya confirmed that I have to live my life with a slightly, reckless certainty in the things unseen – until I can go home.
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