Testing

This past week was exam week. Many of the schools in Kenya were closing for the 1-month break and conducting the same kind of finals that children seemingly dread worldwide. At the same time, Steph and I were tested in all the lessons we have been learning from God the past two months. We were tested again and again in patience, in keeping our eyes on God, on loving people even when we wanted to either hide in our house or snap at everybody. Through it all, God has been faithful. This week we also decided to re-commit ourselves to daily prayer together and as we prayed for strength each day, we were blessed with all that we needed to make it through the day.

After a wonderfully relaxed 2nd anniversary on Monday, we realized our fridge had been fried for the second time since moving to Najile. We began the hurried process of planning to get the fridge to Nairobi and the food that was left eaten. Tuesday took me to Ngong to meet with one of our partners. A two hour drive ended with me finding out the meeting was cancelled because another meeting had been scheduled in its place. On Wednesday, Steph was feeling sick most of the morning, which made hosting a training on surveys catered with all that was left in the defunct fridge difficult. After the training, we found a dead mouse in one room-and the mouse had been dead for awhile. Thursday and Friday were without power most of the day and of course the water has been off most days in July (fortunately our reserve tank has held us through). In all these things God has been faithful.
On Tuesday, I had the grace and patience to not only get shopping done while the other meeting went on, but also to travel with our partners all over Kajiado district to visit their project sites with a visitor. I found out the visitor and I had a lot in common and we were happy to have connected. On Wednesday, Steph felt better in the afternoon and was able to clean up the mouse remains without any major problem. On Thursday, Steph sat in on a meeting of adult literacy teachers and found great joy in helping teachers, one of her great passions. At the same time, we learned about an MCC choir visiting in early Nov. Steph will be able to work with the choirs here to prepare them, which again got Steph excited to be teaching music. While plans changed again and again, all week we remembered what God has been teaching us about keeping our eyes on him. We are so blessed to be here and a dead mouse should not affect our joy here.
So did we pass our test? I’m sure there’s much more for us to learn, but I praise God for showing us that He can grow us and bring us to a place where we can truly reflect Him to others. We pray that these lessons will stay with us for years to come.