The Best Medicine

Laughter.
The themes from Port Victoria are swimming in my head as I adjust to being back in the city: "laughter is the best medicine" and "kidogo kidogo polepole" (little by little, slowly by slowly). I arrived in Kassarani with my two ministry partners, Megan and Michelle, yesterday evening and I am still processing everything that God did in Port.
Unfortunately, I don't have much time to tell you all every single blessed detail of the last three weeks - it could be enough for a novel...
Mama Rosemary is quite a character. She is one of the most incredible women I have ever met. Her big personality, her laughter, her unwavering faith is stunning to say the least. Eh, how can I even express her? There are too many words.
She spent the whole three weeks with us in her cement-block house because she has retired from her job with Africa Inland Mission in Nairobi, freeing her to be our guide and mama. She's spent almost 30 years with people from the U.S., so she always told us to feel free and be open with her. What a blessing! There wasn't a house help, so as soon as we learned our way around the kitchen we helped her make chai and most of the meals. I am looking forward to showing off my new Kenyan skills when I come back!
Apart from Mama, we had a wonderful group of friends surrounding us, encouraging us, and teaching us from the school, from Mama's church in Port, and even from the house boy, Freddie. Through all of my ministry there, I felt enormously blessed to be there with all of those wonderful people of God.
We visited Sheryls Orphans Childrens School every morning to help teachers and spend as much time as possible loving on the students. Because of the heat of Port, we went back to the house to eat lunch and rest, then on to door-to-door evangelism with the pastor of Mama's church when it was cooler. There was only one opportunity to minister to girls at a secondary school near by because Kenya is having a nation wide teacher strike. Among those, we walked everywhere so I was able to get to know many of the people along the way, especially the children excited to see wazungu (white people). Port is a very rural, poverty stricken area and I have fallen in love...again. They speak Kiswahili and the local language (Kinyala) of which I was able to learn a few phrases. My favorite thing was to shock people as I greeted them in their mother tongue - it even saved us from being attacked once. That's another story for another day.
Door-to-door evangelism was such a blessing. Out of 20 houses, we lead 16 people to salvation. Bwana asifiwe (praise God!)! That's not saying they will stick with the promise they made, but at least we did God's work and "planted seeds" in the community.
The orphans from the school were my favorite part of ministry. The last Friday, we took them to a nearby town called Kisumu - many of them haven't stepped out of Port at all and they were excited. Riding back in the bus, I was holding a three-year-old girl in my arms as she was sleeping. The other children were singing songs at the top of their lungs, Mama's mouth had not stopped moving since leaving Kisumu, and our well-being was in the hands of the bus driver swerving to avoid oncoming lorries. In the midst of that chaos, God completely and utterly broke my heart and confirmed my call to work with children in Africa as I gazed at the ebony face leaning on my chest. As a three year old, she not only had herself to worry about, but also has the burden of worrying about her old grandma who is unable to feed herself. How can God be so good and bestow all these blessings upon us, and so many children are struggling to live? This might be a question I carry to the grave. God's ways are not our ways. His way is better than Missy's way. He is working and loving all of the orphans even when I can't see it.
Being overwhelmed with all of the poverty was difficult, but Jesus gave me good reminders along the way.

I'll sign off for now.
Mungu akubariki sana (God bless you very much)!
Missy