Perspective

Pertaining to perspective, I think all of us had a lesson learned. Most of the team's first impression of Turkana was similar to that of Kate's: "Nothing really all that beautiful grows in Turkana. At first glance the Acacia trees appear nice, but up close you realize they’re covered in three inch thorns. The rivers are all dried up, and walking through the sand is like walking at the beach, except without the relief of an ocean breeze and nearby water. Without water having touched these lands in two years everything seems to be dying, animals and people alike." Yet, once we looked closer, or through the eyes of it's Creator we discovered beauty that we had never seen. The colors and intensity of an African desert sunrise or sunset was one of the first things we noticed. Or when the desert turns so pitch black at night that you can't see your hand in front of your face, you can look up and see stars like you have never seen them. So bright, so many, and so close. When you look at a sky like that and remember how He placed those stars with his fingertips, you can't help but recall what a great and mighty God we serve.

Mel had very powerful lesson learned in perspective that she shared with the group during team time one evening. "As the team knows, God really used nature (in crazy ways) to speak to me while we were in the bush of Kenya. Actually, He used rocks in particular. It reminds me of the verse that says, "if we don’t praise Him, even the rocks will cry out!" I ended up spending most of my quiet times in Turkana walking in circles on a “bushless” patch of sand and praying. I had some really interesting talks with God…many I’m glad no one else had to hear. One of the first mornings, I was praying , singing and walking when I looked down to find a small rock that, to my marine biology-educated eye, looked like a piece of coral or worm-ridden rock that had washed up on shore…in the middle of the desert?? I showed it to the group and shared my lesson with them as well. I had been frustrated with God that day about why He was “forgetting” these people. Why wasn’t He doing something? Looking at that rock, it made me think of perspective. If a friend came up to me here in Charleston and showed me that rock, I’d simply dismiss it as something common here in SC beaches. My perspective was all wrong. I thought I knew what was going on, but with my limited perspective, I was clueless. God was reiterating that I am clueless! He sees it all; He weeps over the suffering of these people as well; He knows all that has happened and will happen in their lives. Who am I to question Him about it? Hmmm…definitely a lesson to take back to the States!"

Building Relationships

When we first arrived at our boma in Turkana we immediately began building relationships with the discipleship students and their families. We were all somewhat frustrated by the language barrier at first. We had so much to say to these people and so much we wanted to hear from them. Over time God showed us how to express His love without words. Whenever we did have the help of a translator, we would often have to elicit the help of two: one to translate Turkanan to Swahili, the next to translate Swahili to English. It certainly gave us enough time to think about what we wanted to say next!

The next morning we began what would become a daily routine for everyone. All three teams would meet down by the riverbed (with no river of course) for prayer, fellowship, and worship. We would take turns with the discipleship team leading worship. We were blown away by the intensity and joyfulness of their worship, which was only produced by the sound of their hands and voices. Funny how with even our ipod and speakers our worship didn't hold a candle to theirs at first. God sure blessed Africans with such a natural gift for music. A lot of us agreed that we had never heard such beautiful worship before...even without all the expensive lights, instruments, screens, and sound equipment!

Oh and the prayer time...you want to talk about breaking language barriers? The teams would take turns praying and man was it powerful! We would have no idea what the other team was saying (or shouting) when they were praying but boy could you FEEL it. I think I speak for more than myself when I say I would be covered in goosebumps by the time we were finished. It was truly an example of Matthew 18:20 when Jesus says "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be in the midst of them"...no matter what languages they are speaking! And it was even more powerful to see the circle that we would form every morning go from a circle of three teams to a ONE team circle.

Karibu Turkana!

That means "welcome to Turkana" in Swahili...and what a welcome it was! If we didn't feel like we were in Africa yet, then it definitely hit us when we got to Turkana. Turkana is a stark contrast to the heavily western influenced Nairobi. Whether it was the dry heat, sand, poverty, destitution, or poorly built "structures", our team stepped off that 15 passenger plane completely wide-eyed. Here's what some of the team had to say about their initial shock:

" Wow when we first got off the plane? I guess my first thought was yup this is definitely Africa. The airport was this dusty dirt road they used as a runway. That, and we all were either sick or almost sick. But the airport terminal was this lean-to pavilion thing that read LODWAR on top. Looked like something your Grandpa would store his 1952 lawnmower under. The scene was straight out of a movie. There was the littlest old lady you have ever seen there greeting all of us. I couldn’t understand a thing she said, but I assumed it was nice because she was smiling when she said it. We were loading up the truck at the airport and I remember not being comfortable at all. We all climbed in the back of truck to ride a few hours to our camp. And when I say truck I mean this big ole’ cattle truck. I remember when it pulled up I asked Joel “Is that our truck?”. He responded with, “What? You want to walk?”. Of course Mel was in the background laughing at me. That was only the beginning. It took a while to get comfortable and it definitely didn’t happen that day." -Brian

"When we arrived in Turkana, we were relieved to get off the plane, but as soon as the heat hit my face, I knew that the little bit of air conditioning found in the plane was the last I would get for almost two weeks. We arrived to a host of people looking at us with puzzled faces, probably wondering why so many muzungus (white people) have come to their town. After getting some gas in the truck and water in the cisterns, we were on our way to the "bush", which is just another way to say "the middle of nowhere." However, the "bush" was soon to become our home away from home and what a home it was. Our boma, another name for compound, had multiple manyattas (huts) and tons of space without any thorns. Since I have been to Kenya multiple times, I knew that this boma was a paradise in disguise. This paradise would become our hotel when we needed sleep (even if it was on the ground), our restaurant when we needed food and our refuge when we need comfort. It was a great boma. It was a great home. It was Turkana!" - Ernest and Sara

"When we first arrived in Turkana I immediately thought to myself "it is about to get very real". It was uplifting to be met with such a welcome from the locals. I was somewhat nervous for the fact that I had no idea what to expect. Yet, it also was amazing to meet up with the two missionaries John and Joel for the first time since we had heard so much about them." - Travis


"The first big surprise was landing in our little tin can of a plane in Lodwar, where there happened to be no actual airport. Then the next shocker is that we will not be traveling to Turkana in trucks but instead our mode of transportation is an open topped cattle car that we have to literally climb into (while wearing skirts mind you). Sitting on bags of grain, we fry in the blazing sunlight, bumping and jolting along the so called "road." It was literally nauseating for some of the team. With bars stretched across the top, there are legs of your teammates dangling above your head. There is also the occassional warning of thorn trees ahead so that those sitting up top would not be mauled by the three inch knives that grow everywhere." -Kate

What really hit me was riding for hours in the back of that truck and looking at the horizon and seeing absolutely nothing but sand and dry bush. I thought to myself, "wow...this is truly out in the middle of nowhere...I hope nothing happens to one of our team members that requires immediate attention". At one point I saw the silhouette of a tribal man and his staff standing way out in the distance watching us as we went by. At first it was kind of eerie, but then I remembered that this was why we came. He was why we came. To reach the "least of these" that even though the rest of the world has forgotten about, our Almighty Father still loves and cherishes.