Healing

---

hey all!

i pray that you've had an encouraging week! I personally am writing you after a doosie of a week and a half. I've had some spectacular food, a few dances with death, and a brief stroll on the road to the rest of my life, and with all that, I hope to share with you the intimacies of my time here in Kenya and encourage you the way you've been so purposeful in encouraging me. Sadly, I feel like i'm about to embark on a tale that can't be adequately shared in the few lines I've been given on this page. Nevertheless, with your patience and my stammering tongue, by grace I hope to give you a glimpse of the GOD at work over her and paint for you a picture of what its looked like when HE's moved.

Today is Friday, but last Friday I began, along with a Texan named Melissa, a polish brit named Karol, and a utahonian (that can't be a word) named Faith, a long six hour haul out to the bush of southwestern Kenya. This is where we would spend four days on safari. We were picked up at our organization headquarters early Friday morning by Richard, our Kenyan driver, and his white four-wheel drive matatu riding on 28 inch all-terrains and breathing through a well used black snorkle mounted on the drivers side of our soon to be questionable transportation. You should know that the way anyone gets around in Kenya is by matatu. You should also know that a matatu is a garage fabricated piece of steel that sometimes but not always resembles a road worthy 15-passenger van and that taking a ride in one of these pimped out creations is very very cheap but super sketchy. So in this matatu, driven by Richard, we embarked on our journey out west to the Masai Mara National Game Reserve. However, only about an hour into our trip, driving along the rim of the Great Rift Valley on a two-way road which really could only handle one-way of traffic, we felt our van drop and take a sharp unexpected dive to the left and likewise death. We assumed that we had gotten a flat, but as we proceeded to get off the road and onto one of the few patches of shoulder, the wheeling rolling by and past us on our left confirmed that we'd in fact been skidding on our axel for the past 30 meters and that our quick fix would turn into quite the ordeal. But, through some serious Kenyan ingenuity, the combined muscle of 10 natives, 1 American (me), and several large rocks, we were up and running in about 30 minutes and off again driving west. Six hours and countless potholes later we would arrive to a beautifully setting sun at the Masai Mara National Game Reserve and begin our four days of safari.

Safari was incredible. We stayed outside of the park in huts that were brought into the twentieth century with running water and electricity, both being modern-day amenities that shocked us all. However, the eating at our campsite slash resort was quality! Pineapple. Fresh, watery, explode in your mouth with sugary goodness pineapple for each and every meal. And crepes. Breakfast crepes. Syrup soaked and berry filled. We were literally a half mile away from lions ripping and slashing their bloody wildebeest supper to shreds and we were eating crepes. I love food and I loved this food, especially after 2 weeks of ugali, which is cooked maize flour and water; the less sweet and very dry equivalent of American corn bread. From our site 3 out of the 4 days we drove into the park down on a well maintained dirt rode and from there both followed the already existing tire tracks in the knee-high grass and made our own. With the combined curiosity of us visitors and the ambition of our driver Richard, we had the blessed opportunity of sneeking up on three napping cheetahs, parting massive seas of wildebeest ten thousand strong taking part in the annual great migration, letting sleeping lions lay, and in a Jurassic Park-esc moment happening upon 18 giraffes, 23 elephants, and more zebra than I could count walking and eating and sharing life together in a beautifully green valley at sunset. It redefined the meaning of the word awesome. These animals that I'd seen my entire life in documentaries and magazine spreads, accompanied by either the distanced narration of some British bloke or the superficial tag-line of an American adverstisement, living and breathing and dancing in the same valley, the lion and the lamb and the occassional hippo moving together with the rhythm of heaven, 'and a little child will lead them' (isaiah). It was rad.

After our 3 days in the park and twice getting roared at and attacked by a lioness who wasn't happy that we got in the way of her wildebeest dinner (ask me about it later), we headed north to Lake Nakuru, home to thousands of pink and white flamingos, herds of water buffalo, and the white rhinos that we had yet to see on our trip. From there we began the 2 hour journey home on a suprisingly smooth highway, trying the whole while to avoid getting suckered in to curioshops (masai tourist traps were the uninformed could end up paying $30 for an 'original bracelet') at the only available public restrooms along the way. Safari was absolutely incredible and a collective image that no photograph could ever rival (that doesn't mean that I didn't take about 400 trying!).

Returning to life in Kitengela, the town I live and work in, things have been great! I accompanied a woman named Patricia at the tail end of her 3 days in labor only to find out that she needed a caesarean section (I'm told I'll deliver a baby before I leave), given shots and cleaned wounds since this past tuesday, continued to check-in patients at the front desk with small children and even smaller lizards crawling all over my desk, and diligently pursued the Kiswahili language with my teachers, a pharmacist and a receptionist. I don't mean to scan over these things and belittle how much they've moved me, but I guess this is the part where we must both pray for patience and wait until I can sit with you and adequately describe their weight and value in my life. What you can know is that what I've experienced here has begun to give direction to my ever wandering and grace-filled heart. Where I previously knew that I'd spend the rest of my life loving people, I'm now beginning to develop a picture of what that might look like. Part of that I think has to do with medicine. Medicine, in my view, is a hugely underdeveloped and vastly misused tool in the third world and, along with education, is a basic human right to everyone from everywhere at all times. I also believe that meeting these basic human rights has to be #1 on our list of things to do and that we can't help unless we heal. The hospital I work at is seeking to heal. I've been blessed with the opportunity to be a part of that healing. The nurses here have really taken me under their wings and started to teach me what they know and with that I've gotten REAL excited about what this education and possibly an additional one back in the states might mean for me. I'm not saying that I'm on the road to become a doctor. What I think I'm saying is that by grace I've been healed and that because Jesus is in the business of healing I think I should be too. Please pray for me.

Unfortunately, because I usually head to the cyber cafe after work, I didn't bring my camera with me and therefore have no pictures to accompany this tale. Boring for you, I know. However, I am planning on getting online my Sunday night, most of your Sunday morning, to upload some pictures of safari and life around here. That means that on Sunday at 7:30 AM Western Washington time I'll be on facebook. If you're up for a chat I'd love to hear how your lives are going and being led. I love ya all and thank you again for the many notes of encouragement and love you've sent my way. The LORD has definitely kept me going by them.

Peace to you and to those you love,

Kyle

---