Kenyan Devotion

I know it has been way too long since my last post. I guess I'm still looking for my motivation. The following devotion is something I prepared to go into a booklet about the Tumiani Orphan Care Program based in Kibwezi, Kenya. It's on a verse I've already written about, but I think this looks at the verse in a different way - placing emphasis on hope this time, rather than solely love. Maybe it can help you see things differently too. Enjoy!

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
-1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (The Message)

The stars. All of you would love the stars there. The night sky is nothing short of glorious. The air just feels thinner, for lack of a better word, when you’re laying down on the ground on a cool Kenyan evening. The space that separates the heart-wrenching, poverty-ridden, mistake-filled earth we inhabit from God’s heart-lifting, poverty-free, love-filled heaven starts to fade away. Ironically, those nights after the sun went down were when God became most visible for me. It was energizing and calming at the same time. Those were the moments when God granted me a much needed chance to hope and pray for what the next day might bring.

For me, finding that same feeling of hope during the day was more difficult. It is hardly impossible however – you just have to know where to look. The light of day is pervasive and unforgiving in the dry, dusty, drought-stricken town where most of the trees are all but dead. Daytime reveals the poverty and struggle which the stars at night so gracefully hide. But remember, hope is not lost. I manage to find it again in the hearts of the children whom the rising sun would usher onto campus. While watching those kids you get the feeling that every problem in the world can be solved (at least for a little while) by just tossing a soccer ball into the middle of a field. I think that most of us have forgotten that feeling (if we ever knew it at all). For a few minutes these kids smile like they don’t have a care in the world. They smile like they somehow know God will take care of them. They smile like they have hope despite all of the forces working against them. The fact that these kids could continue to hope unswervingly in an environment of such adversity gave me the hope I was looking for.

You would be hard pressed to find better adherents to what Paul commands in 1 Corinthians 13:13. The Kenyan students taught me more than I ever could have hoped to teach them. First, I learned that you have to give everything in your life up to God, and have faith that he will take it and use it for the good of the Kingdom. Next, you strive for an unswerving hope that God will take care of you in return. Lastly, the Kenyans teach us that loving one another extravagantly requires little more than a smile and a soccer ball.

Awesome God, grant me the faith to trust in you, the hope that you will take care of me, and love to share with the world.