February 2nd, 2010
Today was quite a cool day. We spent the morning gathering stones from the shallows of Lake Victoria that they will use here to build more cabins. It was so much fun working alongside the SEEK staff and just being able to really help them out. You are not really suppose to be swimming in the lake because there is high chances of getting parasites… but you know we just do what we are asked. Swim in the parasite lake… sure. I was working with a man named JP (from Arizona) and he was telling us all about the times he has had parasites and where is the best place to get tested. But let me tell you the lake was so beautiful and calm and the sun was shining and it just didn’t really seem to matter all that much…
After lunch, Alison and myself called our friend Samuel, he attends the same church as me and is a local motorcycle taxi man, to come and pick us up to take us into town. We ride with Sam all the time… he is one of the men that Paul has told us is a safe driver and we all really trust him… today however was quite the ride. He ran out of gas so we stopped so he could lean over his bike to get the last bits of fuel in the tank or whatever… then he turned it on and told us to get on fast because we had to hurry into town. We jammed and I mean jammed. Me and Alison just kept laughing as we drove down the sketch road that hasn’t ever been repaired since it was first made apparently during the colonial times… we didn’t know what else to do but just laugh and pray that we would make it safely into town. Adventure. (I am sure my mom and dad are going to love to hear about me being on the motorcycle on the sketch road speeding…but hey that is how we get around.)
Then, after we finished our errands in town, Paul came in his ‘Safari’ car that was already packed full of people to pick us up. They were quite a bit late, per usual with African time, and we were in the middle of bargaining at this little market stand for some awesome T shirts that we had found (with the thrift store final sale tags still on)… so we paid for the shirts and started running down the road to get to the Safari car. We climbed up on the roof and headed off to go to this widows house. We were on the main road for a while and then we went off toward a little village ‘off the beaten path’… literally. We were bouncing as we charged through ditches that resembled the Grand Canyon and tried to duck as tree branches were coming straight at us. We made it with just a little bit of tree debris attached to ourselves and all in one piece.
We were invited into this lady, Caroline’s, small two room house, where she was already entertaining some neighbors. We all pilled in, I offered to hold this little baby right away, named Derek, and we listened as Paul told us this woman’s story. Her testimony of prayer and Gods provision was absolutely incredible. We stayed for a while visiting and worshiping and praying together for her sick son, David. As we climbed back on top of the Safari car and began dodging tree branches and holding on for dear life I could not stop thinking about the way people pray here, especially the mothers. They have to depend on prayer and they pray with expectancy that God will hear them and move. Their children get sick and before they can do anything else they pray, and then they invite neighbors and who ever else they can to come and pray too. They pray for provision, from housing to food to transportation, because they know they cannot do it on their own. They pray for safety because they are living in constant uncertainty. They pray for opportunity because none lay ahead of them. Being here I have heard story after story of people praying desperate honest prayers and also story after story of God hearing them and answering… from every detail down to the local weather and school fees.
I think sometimes I try to solve things first before praying. I take myself to the doctor and then pray about it later. I apply to schools and then ask God to lead me. I thank God for providing food as it is already sitting in front of me. But I am seeing that I am going about it all backwards… People invite us to their homes to pray for their sick and instead God uses them to teach me how he really wants me to pray.
