The morning started with a jarring ride down a rocky, dusty road. Two hours later, we turned onto a slightly smoother although dustier path. Finally, we found ourselves and our van in the Kenyan bush, driving through dry creek beds, over rocks, around thorn trees. The pastor who was navigating for us lost the way - there was a large rock cropping that the van could not traverse. So he and our driver got out and climbed up on the rock. He whistled and soon heard an answer from a fellow Maasai. We started again and found Sammy, who guided us the rest of the way in to where we were going to share the gospel..."even to the remotest part of the earth." [wink.]
The van stopped close to a tin church building, Olikarikara, where children were having school. A few of them were outside and smiled shyly at the mzungus. We waved. As we walked by them, they bowed their heads in greeting. We touched the top of their head and said "supa!," returning the greeting. That is how young Maasai greet those older than they. Sadly, we were not able to share with them at school. We walked a short distance past the church/school, along a path that wound around another rock to a boma. The boma is a fenced in compound of mud huts that a Maasai family calls home. They don't get many mzungu visitors here. Polygamy is common, so each wife has her own home in the boma.
While the news was given (visitors!), we waited under acacia and thorn trees. It was shady with large rocks to sit on, peaceful and calm. Looking toward the fence of the boma, we could see little ones, curious. I waved and smiled. The older would wave back, the younger not so sure about these new faces. Eventually four Maasai ladies joined us from the boma. They had dressed up in their beautiful beaded Maasai jewelry that they make by hand and colorful cloth wraps. The Maasai love color, especially red. It makes them stand out with the animals on the side of the hills, for they are herders of sheep, goats, and cattle.
We greeted them as they came out to the shade tree. One lady brought plastic chairs. The visitor's seats. I think she walked down to the church/school to get them and carried them back up - for us. They insisted we have the chairs while they took the rocks, or ground. That's the way it is. Even for the women visitors. In both African cultures I've interacted with, this is what they do. The men are most important, for lack of a better term. The women are the workers and servants, preparing food, keeping house, caring for the children, getting water. The children are loved but not spoiled. But visitors - they are honored. Men, women, and children. When having a meal - the guests are served and the men might eat with them, but the women eat elsewhere as do the children. There are always chairs brought for the visitors, no matter how far a walk it is to find and return with them. We are given the best that they have.
Seats, food, water. Sometimes all that they have. It is humbling to be the recipient of that honor.
You see, I'm just a single girl who wears blue jeans and sneakers (that is, when I wear shoes at all). I like to play with kids and tell them about Jesus. In their culture, I'd be the one carrying the chairs and getting the water. And even though as an American I have more money than they do, were the comparison culture to culture, my house is fairly similar to that mud hut and tin church building (and I like it that way). So I'm perfectly happy sitting on the rock under the tree with the children around me. But they were honored by my visit, so they brought me a chair. And so I sat in the chair and smiled at them sitting on the rocks, happy to have someone come to see them. I listened to fellow team members give their testimony and share the gospel. I smiled at the children trying to take it all in. At the babies being babies. At the mothers caring for them. I wondered what I could say that hadn't already been said. Mimi and Lena shared the good news and Lena prayed with them - one lady becoming a Christian there under the tree!
They didn't want us to take pictures, but her name was Helen. The others (who already believed) were Pauline, Rose, and Jennifer. I think Jennifer had carried the chairs. Rose was the grandmother of the group. I shared how I teach the Bible to children here at home, and from Deuteronomy about talking of the scriptures when we walk and at home and in the morning and at night.
We walked a short ways towards the next boma where a couple of other families were gathered.
They followed us. They carried our chairs. We shared some more, to this group I told my story and shared the love of Christ's death on the cross and the joy of His resurrection. Lindsay shared the story of Gideon. Lena made them smile with her enthusiasm. There were a few men at this place and Peyton was able to talk with them. There was a mother with a baby who had been deformed from lack of water. After we gave out salvation bracelets and Mimi explained what each of the colors meant, it was almost time to go. We circled around this mother and Walt prayed for the baby. They greeted us as we left. Emily, our translator, said that one woman had told her "no one ever came to visit us like this before."
They won't know unless we go.
[Romans 10:14-17]
