You know when you come back from some place far, far away and everyone asks the inevitable question: "so, how was it?"
This is such an impossible question to answer. It's not that I don't enjoy sharing my testimony or a story or two from the trip, it's just I never know how to answer it properly. In my mind I'm thinking, okay, so does this person want all the details or just a simple "it was awesome" statement? And if it's the former, I start thinking how i should go about explaining all the amazing things God did, and that in itself is completely overwhelming.
As a result, I have decided to take this time I have today to just type out my best possible response to this crazy open-ended question, and if it gives you just a glimpse of what I saw or learned in kenya, then praise God.
Kenya is a beautiful country. It is still light years behind America, but in many ways, I envy that. Here at home, thanks to technology and whatnot, we have become 24/7 people. We live and die by our schedulebooks, keeping ourselves as busy as possible. One of the first things we learned when we got to kenya is that "Westerners have watches, but here in Africa, we have time." They take time to rest, to catch up with people, to do all the little things, and that is something i think we have all kinda lost sight of.
I think I am one of millions of people who call ourselves devoted Christians yet live with a dangerously segmented mentality. Sure, everything looks good on the outside, but sometimes we get so caught up in the logistics behind it all that we forget to consider the most important part -- the heart. Let God time be God time and me time be me time, we say, perhaps because we've forgotten what following Christ entails. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" What if we really acted like new creations? What if we lived every minute of our day for Him and His glory?
I saw a billboard sign that read "Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever," and then I came across the exact same statement in a book I was reading. I find it amazing how no matter how far you are from home, no matter which language is being spoken, no matter what the people look like, the story of Jesus never changes. In some of the places we visited, we were the first Chinese people that they had ever seen, and they seemed to regard us with a sort of frightened curiosity. I suppose that we were like aliens to them -- the children might have read about China or seen a few pictures in school, but I guess we went a step further and brought Area51 to them. And yet, even though we may have been Asian pioneers, God still beat us there. We worshipped the same God, called the same Jesus our savior, and were filled with the same Holy Spirit. I saw that there is indeed no place I could possibly go that He hasn't been before.
I met thousands of passionate kids who reminded me to always live with an uninhibited childlike faith. Luke 18:15-17 states:
"People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.'"
What would it look like if everyone took this to heart? How different would our lives be if we all received the kingdom of God like a little child?
I think I will leave you with that wonderful mental picture.
