Baptist Women of Kenya and me

I asked you to pray for me while I attended the Baptist Women's Convention, and I know I need to give you an update on how it went. But I’m struggling to find the words to faithfully describe it in ways that communicate my experience. Oh, let’s be honest. I’m sorta struggling to process it for myself.

It was incredibly hard...and incredibly sweet.

It was 100% Kenyan…in every wonderful and every challenging way.

I went to be a blessing…and I ended up being blessed.

I had moments of wonder at the beauty of what I get to partake in, and moments of tears over the sacrifices it requires.

I actually truly enjoyed myself, even as I wondered how I wasn’t curled up in a fetal position. Actually, that’s the only thing I know for sure—I felt God’s grace sustaining me through it all. I knew my flesh was weak and my determination could only take me so far—God did the heavy-lifting to make me joyful.

The conference started with an 8.5 overnight bus ride to Western Kenya. It then consisted of 3 days of prayer-time, singing, and sermons that started at 5am and ended at 10pm, with 30 minutes for meals scattered in at random times. While sitting on a metal chair. All in Swahili, so I was unable to understand more than a word here or there. We slept in a poorly-maintained dorm, on old mattresses with bed-bugs, and used outhouses and bathed out of buckets. We ate a boiled sweet potato, corn, and bread for breakfast, beans and rice for lunch, and a corn-mush (ugali) with greens for dinner. And it wasn’t just me that was uncomfortable—the Kenyan women from cities also struggled with the conditions.

But I got to sit in a room with nearly 500 women representing tribes from all over Kenya, all singing and worshiping our God. I couldn’t help but see it as a foretaste of Revelation 7:9; like a practice session for the Kenyan contingent of heaven. It was amazing. And I spent time on the lawn eating and laughing with women who asked me questions about why I am here. Ladies who told me of the phenomenal ministries they are leading in the different towns they come from. I witnessed ladies from rural areas donate their last 20 shillings (less than a quarter) to support the convention, and I talked to ladies who had to travel 18 hours by bus each way to get there.

Before we even left, a woman asked on the Nairobi group-chat how to get to the bus station from the same part of town as I live. I offered her a ride—you know, to be generous and bless her. As is so often the case, she ended up being the one who blessed me. Anne took me under her wing and made sure I understood where to go and what to do. She found me the newest mattress and insisted I use it. She took me to town to buy a bathing-bucked and a sheet to hang up for privacy for while I bathed. Long after I feel asleep, she hauled buckets of boiling water for me so that when I woke up I had still-warm water to bathe with. She found me a spoon to use, and tracked down a cup of warm chai (tea) to save me from caffeine-withdrawal, even though the cooks said the tea was finished. The other ladies started calling her Nanny Anne, and I supposed I could be offended at the implication. Except they were exactly right—I was like a little child, unable to understand any directions and fully dependent on others. It’s humbling, no doubt. But it’s also a lesson in trust and dependence on both God and God’s people. Americans are so independent! We can sometimes refuse to lose ourselves enough to depend on nationals like loyal Anne.

I admit that the first thing I did when I got home was take a long, hot shower. And the second was to have a good cry. I went to be incarnational…and it forced me count the cost of just how painful that is sometimes. I don’t share this to be arrogant, as if somehow I’m particular. There are missional women of every nationality, living in every other nation, at this very moment choosing to do the hard thing of dying to self so as to live incarnationally for others. That’s how much Jesus loved us. 

So go; cross that boundary of tribe, or nation, or color, or socioeconomy. Be the hands and the feet and the ears and the heart of Christ, incarnationally, with others- where they are, instead of requiring them to come to you. It's hard, and it's worth every second.