Hello everyone! We arrived in Nairobi at 5:30 yesterday morning. We are currently staying at a hotel type thing that we had reserved to stay in before we left for Sudan. Today we will be checking out of this place and heading to Eugenio and Jane's house who are the nationals we will be staying with. They live in the bush, outside of the city, so we will be staying on their property in the tents we thankfully packed.
Although our plans have changed and we will no longer be in Sudan, we're excited to see what God has planned for our team in Kenya. Our hearts are broken for two reasons: the lives of the children we were going to work with and the death of a vision. We have been through very intense security training during our orientation and we have become more and more aware of the increasing danger in some parts of our world. I was excited to see what effect the instillation of the water filters would have, excited to think that that act of service would be what revealed to some of the villagers what the love of Christ really looks like. I was also excited to meet and pour into the children, ready to build relationships with the villagers. And now I feel utterly helpless. It's so hard for me to grasp why we have received such grace as being born into a culture where the gospel is readily available and where I'm not at risk of the government coming and torturing and killing my family. And it kills me that as an American with all of the resources I have been blessed with and how I am fully aware of the need and brokeness of so many in the nations and even across the U.S., yet, I do minimal to nothing to reach out to those people when the Bible, which I claim to fully believe and put my hope in, questions in 1 John 3:16-18 if we have the such resources and see the need and do nothing, how does God's love abide in us? Not that we must care for these people so broken and in need of hope out of guilt or to ensure we are saved but such actions are clear evidence of our salvation (James 2). However, in light of all of the evil that has become so much more real to me because of the Sudan situation, I am so thankful that I serve a God that is bigger than the almost unfathomable depravity that is evident in our world today. But I know that He will triumph.
While my heart is still in Sudan and breaks every time I hear new reports of violence, I am excited to see what God will do in Kenya. It is going to be extremely good for me. It will be completely out of my comfort zone since we will be going from our organized plans in Sudan to plans that are still up in the air in Nairobi. I am extremely thankful that God had us "going to Sudan" initially, even if He had intended for us to be in Kenya this summer, since I know that so many people that were praying for our team and the people of Sudan will now be interceding on behalf of the children of Hope for Sudan