Christmas in Kenya

Merry Christmas, Everyone!


It's been a busy, full, and blessed season on this side of the world. There has been much to miss and mourn, but I've been pleased to see the Lord fill in the holes that I'd felt so profoundly impacting the beginning of this Christmas season. I'm sad to be so far away from you all, but I'm also keenly aware that the Lord is pleased to have me here.



In the days between ending the semester of school and Christmas, I was thrilled to have a chance to get out of the house and see and do some things around Nairobi that we've been too busy with work to get out to experience. One day, Amy P, Joel, Jonathan and I headed out towards school to Karen to visit the national park's elephant orphanage. We messed up with the directions at first and overshot the park, but half an hour later, we arrived within the 11-noon window that the center is open to visitors. I'm including a photo from that day here, and I've included links at the bottom of this entry to more photos on Facebook if you care to see more of these adorable little guys. I couldn't strip the smile off of my face the entire time we were there. There were about seven orphaned baby elephants there, and to our surprise, a rare black rhino. The elephants jogged about playing with one another--one was really excited about a huge black inner tube--and wrestling in a mud bath as their caretakers looked on. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.



Christmas Eve - I was an absolute emotional wreck last Wednesday. It was silly--I just couldn't seem to control myself. Anything and everything had me on the brink of tears. I was happy to have friends to spend the day with, and with the exception of my break in self-control (I opened two of the eight puffy envelope packages my family had sent as Christmas gifts--I'm so ashamed), I had done a fair job of keeping myself together. But later that evening, as we watched the Jim Carey version of The Grinch (definitely not as wonderful as the original) at Julie and Amy's apartment, Amy asked if I'd like to check my e-mail. I hadn't been able to check in several days, and so I hopped online and was pleased to see a message from my mom. But it wasn't good news. My mom had written to tell me about my grandma, whom we call "Nonnie," and some of the health troubles she's had since a recent voluntary surgery on her knee. I can't express the agony I felt in that moment (and still, even now, at this moment) to be so far away from the people I love. Things aren't going well. My Nonnie, who has lived with our family for the better part of my life, seems to be getting closer to going home to Jesus. I'll admit that I wasn't brave in the aftershock of reading that e-mail. My mom had done such a beautiful job of relaying the news and giving me the update, but I was beside myself with grief. The thought hit me in a stroke of anger with God--why does he have me here when I could be there? It killed me to think of all the time I'd missed with Nonnie, my dad's parents (who also live with my family), my parents, sister and brother. It was a difficult few hours until I got back to my empty apartment.*



When I arrived back home, all of my roommates were gone--Becca in the States, Amy in Kijabe with her family, and Jen out of town as well. Loneliness fell on me the instant I bolted the door and I rushed to my room to grab the international calling card my discipler, Kara, had insisted I purchase to talk to my family. I grabbed a box of tissues, changed into my pajamas, turned on a light in the living room, and dialed the number. When I heard my sister Leslie's voice on the other end of the phone, I knew before I said a word that the emotion would ooze out of every word I spoke. But over the next hour, as my sister passed her phone to my mom and then my dad and I listened to the joy and encouragement in their voices, I was pulled back up out of the pit again. I realized that I think I've cried a grand total of about six times over the past five months and that has just not filled my crying quota. I am absolutely one of those external processors who needs to wrestle with conflict and emotions with other people or else I drive myself crazy. It was so good to have a chance to replace that lonely void with a sense of peace and contentment. So, family, if you didn't know that day how much you helped me out, hopefully you know now.



Christmas Day - Well, obviously, if the house is empty when you go to bed, it'll probably be that way when you wake up. But the lonely little pity party I'd thrown myself the day before didn't continue that morning. I woke up, turned on the water heater to take a shower, and popped in It's a Wonderful Life as I sat under our two-foot-tall Christmas tree on the carpet in my jammies to open the rest of my Christmas packages from the States. I felt a little pathetic, but the promise of spending time with friends the rest of the day kept me in good spirits. Got some great stuff, too--books, sourpatch kids, The Office season four :), and an abundance of Sharpies and Expo markers.



Later that morning, we headed over to the Gibsons for Christmas brunch. Their little girls, Kayla and Emma, were excited about their toys and couldn't wait to show them off. It was nice to be with a family that morning. Kara had made a great breakfast and I tried the first eggnog, made by Eric, that I've ever actually liked. We took a family-style photo in front of their tree and fireplace, said goodbye, and headed off to our next stop--a WNS family's home.



I still can't believe that at 11 am we had a big Christmas brunch and then we headed straight to another family's home for lunch. Thankfully, when we arrived, Sue (our middle school English teacher) hadn't quite finished her turkey, and so the huge group of us (maybe 15 in all), sat around chatting in the living room and in their small backyard. Sue and Joe's daughters, Anna and Kate, are both students of mine, and so it was fun to get to catch up with them and hear about their breaks. Dinner was great--turkey, potatoes, veggies, pumpkin... And because the family is originally from Australia, we were introduced to Christmas pudding--which was really tasty.



After our lunch, Jonathan, Joel and I headed to Prestige Plaza to take advantage of the free Internet in the food court to talk to our families. I was thrilled to have a chance to talk to my family via Skype--and finally getting the webcams up and running seemed to be a novelty as well. About half-way through my chat with my family, three little boys approached me from behind and stood there, looking into my computer screen at the video feed of my family. I hadn't realized their presence until I noticed a funny look in my sister's face and I turned around to see them all standing there. My sweet family laughed and smiled and waved into the camera saying, "Merry Christmas!" as the little boys stood gaping at my laptop. I took out my headphones and held them up to their ears, saying, "That is my family in America. They want to say 'Merry Christmas' to you." The boys listened, one after the other, and smiled and returned the greeting. They stayed there for a while and when I asked them where their family was, they replied that they were at home. It was well past dark and so I realized that the little boys were there to beg. It's a truly devastating reality here--and I hate passing over these kids and telling them "no." But the truth is, so I've heard, that a lot of these kids will be sent out by adults to beg and bring them back any money they receive, which then goes towards purchasing drugs and other non-essentials for their "patrons." It's really terrible. And while my friends told me afterwards that I should have just told them to go away instead of letting them stand there for so long, it broke my heart to think of being cruel on Christmas. I hope those little guys had a lovely Christmas and that my fears had no foundation--I hate to think of them going home to nothing.



December 26-28 - Camping at Hell's Gate National Park


The day after Christmas, seven of us (Jen, Brenton, Amy P, Julie, Jonathan, Joel, and I) packed up our things and headed out to camp at Hell's Gate National Park near Naivasha, about two hours outside of Nairobi. Now, I've been camping a few times before, and I've been a camp counselor, but my family wasn't really the pack-up-a-tent-and-rough-it kind of group. So I was excited for a relatively new experience. Brenton is actually interviewing for positions to manage safari lodges and has long dreamed of becoming a professional safari guide, and so I realized quickly that we were totally lucky to have this guy along. He and Jen knew exactly what to pack, how to cook campfire meals, where to go and what to do, and how to keep the notorious Hell's Gate baboons away from our campsite.



The first night, we selected a spot and set up camp and enjoyed Brenton's famous campfire kebabs and hot chocolate and hung out around our campfire until we all got sleepy. Falling asleep to the sounds of zebras munching on nearby grass was a total thrill. The next morning, Brenton and Jen slaved over french toast (I had no idea people could eat so well while camping) and jumped into cars to drive around the park. Hell's Gate is an absolutely magnificent place. I was awestruck by the grandeur of the place--the massive plains filled with herds of zebra, gazelle, impala, and the occasional warthog and giraffe, and the towering structures of rock carved out of the hillsides. We eventually drove to the gorge--the main hiking attraction of the park. To give you a sense of how awesome this place was, over the course of several hours, I took about 200 photos. Completely amazing. We hiked and climbed our way through the gorge, a waterfall, and along and through the river, and at every turn I found something completely new and beautiful and striking. I always loved hiking through Hocking Hills in southern Ohio with my family, but I've got to say, this place totally has Ohio beat. The summit of our hike led us to a series of hot springs, all steaming and smelling of sulphur. By the time we finished our trek back up the river, we were all pretty tired out. What an experience.




I was happy to have a few days to relax, enjoy the company of friends, get caught up on reading for school (I'm finishing up Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe right now--great book), and see some pretty incredible things. It was a nice way to get my mind off of being "alone" for the holidays. And, all over again, I'm feeling completely amazed at God's grace and blessings as He allows me to enjoy this incredible place.



Merry Christmas to you all. I pray that you feel as blessed as I do this holiday season.



Kate

• Photos of my apartment, Lukenya, Mombasa, and Paradise Lost on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2268180&l=b8ff9&id=7703460
• Photos of the Nairobi National Park elephant orphanage: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2268183&l=02fc0&id=7703460
• Photos of Hell's Gate National Park: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2268186&l=b8492&id=7703460

*I hope you know, Nonnie, how much I love and miss you. I am praying for you--that you get better, if that's the Lord's will, and that you experience peace and contentment and that you are fully aware of how much you are loved and treasured by the people you've touched throughout your life. I wish that I could be at home with you right now--I'd give you a huge hug and we'd sit and have a chat. "Rejoice"...and keep running the race. Love you.

Gettin' Schooled

School is officially out!

Our final day of exams was this Friday, and I can't tell you what perfect timing it is! Even though most of my break will likely be spent grading the truckload of papers and projects waiting for me on my desk (the kids reminded me that it was my own fault I assigned the work in the first place...), planning for next semester, reading the novels I'll be teaching in my English classes, and finally selecting and planning for a play to produce next semester...it's still good to have a break from the school routine.

Boy, I had to give the "Just how is it possible that after 18 weeks of school, you still don't know what you're doing in this class?" AND the "I am so disappointed in you--where has your respect for your classmates gone?" speeches within the last week. Little stinkers were probably just tuckered out from all of their exams and projects and excited about the break, but man oh man. I proctored Becca's French I exam period and suffered through two hours of ninth-graders talking through their classmates' presentations, making noises, and expecting all of these ridiculous favors from me. I sobered them up pretty well with the latter of those two speeches I mentioned, and I think I am officially the "mean" high school teacher. How'd that happen? Although, as one junior student reminded me, I think I'd prefer to be "feared than loved" at this point in my teaching career. I'm just kind of amazed that I'm pulling off the "stern, serious, high-expectations teacher" role. Part of me, I'll admit, is a little sad to not be the "fun" or the "cool" teacher--but the other is kind of patting myself on the back for the little reputation I've pulled together for myself. Bottom line, I discovered that I really need a break from school so that I can like my students again :) They're good kids.. they just need to get some stuff out of their systems, I think.

Another little insight into life in Nairobi: I've been getting a little disillusioned by all of the daily corruption here. I've gotten used to being careful with my things (several friends have had things stolen), walking during safe daylight hours, locking padlocks and gates in our home and looking out of my window through bars, but some things will just take more getting used to than others. My roommates and I found out recently that someone has been stealing our electricity and water. I guess it's a pretty easy thing to do--you just hook up an extra line to our supply and meter--but what's particularly disappointing is that our security guards and groundskeeper have likely been a part of the little scam. It wouldn't be possible for someone to pull it off unless there was someone on the inside giving them the opportunity. Our electricity was off the other day for 24 hours (such outages are fairly normal, so we didn't worry at first)...and when we spoke to the groundskeeper about it, he asked us for money to "find an electrician" to fix it. Amy's boyfriend, Sammy (a Kenyan), was able to talk to him for us and he ended up telling us that the guy wanted a bribe.. and that he in fact was the one who had flipped off the electricity in the first place. Oy. This is the same guy who has been charging us 200 Ksh per car wash he's done for us the past few months when he's charging everyone else in the compound 50/-. And it's really not a question of money--after all, even on a slim missionary salary, we're still living comfortably here. I'm just saddened to realize that you just can't trust everyone here. Little glimmers of hope and reassurance do appear now and then, though. Our landlady's grandson, Warren (which, consequently is my grandpa's name.. good sign), has been incredibly helpful over the past few weeks. He's an electrician by trade, so he was able to sort out the mix-ups we've had, and he's found all sorts of odd jobs around the house to help us out with. He even jumped into our "hot tub"--the big aluminum water tank in our back yard--to clean out all of the dead bugs, frogs, and other little critters so that we're not taking showers in swamp water. He comments now and then, shaking his head and looking to the floor, saying, "That's just how things are here. So much corruption. Everything, corruption." I'm sorry that good men like Warren have to endure such things.

Amy and Sammy had a bunch of their Kenyan friends over Saturday night for dinner while Amy's mom and sister are in Kenya for the holidays. Early in the evening, some of us sat down to listen to the NTV news. Meg, Amy's sister, and I watched the pictures and video, but we depended on James (Sammy's brother) and Shiro (his wife) to translate the Swahili for us and get us up to speed. I guess that there's a new scam that thieves in Nairobi are using to rob people in town--something about some substance they put on their hands that, when they shake hands with someone, will paralyze them temporarily while the thief takes their money and valuables. As the newscaster spoke, Meg turned to James and said with a sarcastic smile on her face and said, "Boy, you Kenyans..." James smiled and pointed at the screen and said, "Oh no--that's human beings." I answered with an "Amen," and we all laughed. But it's true. This is a corrupt, messy, fallen world. And while I find myself now and then missing the safety and security I enjoyed in the States, I'm also very aware that there is no place on earth that you can escape evil and injustice. That's human beings. That's our world.

For a long time, I looked around my surroundings here in Kenya thinking, "Wow--my values are just SO different than people here." I considered America as a nation of greater integrity and compassion and justice than my host country. I might have even considered myself superior--thinking that my disappointment in what I witnessed here was an indication of my better nature and character. I didn't consciously think these things--but I wonder how that attitude might and must have affected my early experience as an expat here in Nairobi. I wonder if people noticed. I wonder if I just added to the problem that's been afflicting this nation and the world for so long. I don't want to be self-righteous. I don't want to be ignorant. I'm disappointed in what I see, but I'm realizing that if that points my focus towards loving people and hating the evil in and around them, that's a good thing. That's kind of the thing, isn't it?

Please pray for Kenya--and for its people and the people working to see real, meaningful, and dynamic change in this place. I'm trying hard to be one of them.

Isaacs on the Altar and Various Sleep-Over Shenanigans

Friday night, Becca and I held a lock-in for the high school girls, and what could have been an exhausting, poorly-planned mess turned out to be a really lovely evening. Becca and I had been discussing the idea of holding a girls-only lock-in at the school for several months, and it finally worked out for this weekend. The students have one more week of class and then a week of finals, so it seemed like a nice time to sneak in some celebration and fellowship. The girls have been begging for a lock-in all semester, and Becca and I were happy to plan one. It has been important to me this semester to establish myself as an authority figure and ADULT role model for my students, and so I’d been a little anxious about the idea of having a slumber party with my students. Pillow talk and waking up with bed head and all that didn’t sound like great ways to reaffirm that role. But the idea of spending intentional time with these girls DID sound like a great opportunity…

Friday night, seventeen of the twenty seven high school girls attended (Only twenty seven total—can you believe that? What a teeny tiny school!), and so we didn’t have our hands too full. A bunch of the girls had soccer practice after school, and so from 3:30 until about 5, Becca and I ran around getting things ready, and a few of the girls helped us hang up a screen from the library balcony to use for movies that night. Until pizza arrived [side note: there is NO good pizza in Kenya. Well, I take that back—I had some tasty pizza at a really nice American-style restaurant a few weeks back. But anyway—no good delivery pizza. Put that on the list of things we can do this summer. Donatos, I miss you.], Becca sent the girls out on a scavenger hunt to seek out items that began with each letter of the alphabet. To give you a little idea of how our little school works, some of the items included “Storm Drain” for S (mind you, they had to actually bring the items back to our little “home base” for credit), “Very big leaf” for V (a palm branch), “Cement” for C (a bag of it from the chapel construction site), a “Wheelbarrow” for W, and various Swahili words filled in the random letters that girls couldn’t find items to cover. After dinner, half of the girls ran down to the soccer pitch to play tag and do cartwheels and run around with flashlights, while the other half plugged an ipod into the speakers we would use for the movies and had an impromptu dance party. Becca and I had brought along our house’s metal fire pit and one of the girls and I built up a campfire—using ONE match, by the way. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

My favorite part of the evening came when Becca and I rallied the girls around our fire for s’mores (using cappuccino-flavored marshmallows and “hobnobs”—granola biscuits covered on one side with chocolate). After the girls had settled down, Becca and I began our little campfire “encouragement” talk. As we’d planned for the evening and discussed messages we thought the girls needed to hear, we both realized that the story of Abraham and Isaac and God’s request of Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice as a test of Abraham’s faithfulness and willingness to put God first above all others, was an important message in each of our lives. So we began the talk by reading the story from Genesis. After that, we discussed how each of us has “Isaacs” in our own lives—the first and greatest of which is our life itself. The act of surrendering our will to the Lord in response to Christ’s act on the Cross is the first Isaac that we place on the “altar” as Christians. But that doesn’t mean that the offering of Isaacs is over. I explained to the girls that in our lives, when we take an Isaac—something that we treasure, love, and invest in…be it a positive thing or no—and offer it up to the Lord, saying “This doesn’t belong to me. It’s yours, and I want You to do what You will with it,” only three things can happen as a result. One: God might give it right back to you, as He did with Abraham and Isaac. Two: He could exchange your Isaac for something even better—something you hadn’t even known possible. Or Three: God could burn it off. Kill it. If that Isaac is something destructive in your life—a relationship, an addiction, or whatever—God wants to get rid of the things that pull us away from Him. And so if it’s not satisfying and glorifying Him, He’ll get rid of it. None of these options, we reminded the girls, is a bad deal. In each situation, God is demonstrating His perfect love for us.

Becca and I then spent a few moments sharing personal Isaacs in our own lives. I mentioned the guilt and anger that I harbored coming out of high school, my desire to be loved and get married, and my plans for my future. We encouraged the girls to think of their own Isaacs and write them down. Some of the girls pocketed the slips of paper, and others tossed them into the fire. We reminded the girls that should they ever want to talk about anything—their Isaacs, spiritual questions, concerns, whatever—that we were there for them. I could never have imagined having that opportunity as a teacher with my students. What an incredible thing!

At that point, Becca and I passed around some gifts for the girls that the moms in touch group had made for them. Becca and I had written personal notes to each of the girls and the moms had attached little necklaces with the girls’ first initials on them and made bouquets of flowers and home-made truffles to offer the girls as reminders that “God wants to romance” them. The girls were delighted—all smiles. I then played them a song that I used for years as a camp counselor as a first-night bedtime ritual—“Beloved” by Tenth Avenue North, a song that my sister Leslie introduced me to years ago. If you haven’t heard the song, the lyrics are written from Christ’s perspective, and they sound like wedding vows. It goes like this:

“You’re my beloved/Lover, I’m yours/Death shall not part us/It’s you I died for/For better or worse/Forever will be/A love that unites us/And it binds you to me/It’s a mystery…Love of my life/Look deep in my eyes/And there you will find what you need/I’m the giver of life/I’ll clothe you in white/My immaculate bride you will be/Oh, come running home to me…”

Later on in the song, there’s a refrain that reminds us how much pain the Lord feels when we turn away from Him towards other things:

“Well you’ve been a mistress, my wife/Chasing lovers that won’t satisfy/Won’t you let me make you my bride?/You will drink of my lips and you’ll taste new life…”

Doesn’t that lyric just hit a place deep inside of you? Oh man, it strikes something deep in me. So often, I fool myself into thinking that my life is about me. About my wants—my desires—my so-called “needs.” I seek out what I think will satisfy me, and I live my life like an adulteress bride, giving myself to everything and everyone but my bridegroom, who loves me perfectly. Completely, patiently, fully loves me. Every time I remember that part of the Lord—the part that loves me like a husband loves his bride—I feel a deep sense of shame, regret, and remorse. I mourn the lost time—the poorly-invested moments and seasons. I remember that God loves me like a daughter, like a sister, and like a friend—but he’s also desperate to romance me. And he wants my whole heart. My whole life. Not just bits and pieces of it.

I wonder if the girls realized that night how much their teacher needed to hear what she was trying to teach them. They’re pretty insightful—I’ll bet they did. It’s hard to be anything but truthful around these kids, because they’ll sniff you out. And that’s a good thing, too. Keeps you honest. After our planned fellowship time, Becca and I asked the girls if they had any questions for us. And wouldn’t you know it, these high school girls wanted to talk about boys. What a surprise :) They also wanted to know my age. Apparently, I’d “promised” a couple of them months ago that I would tell them how old I was at their lock-in. I have no memory of that, but they seemed pretty determined to find out. I guess that since I have students who are 18—and a few even older—I’d figured it was wise to keep it quiet that I’m only 22. I never mentioned my specific age, but I did tell the girls that it was my first year of teaching. At that, one of the sophomore girls said, “But that’s okay! I think you teach really well, Miss Weiant. I like how we actually do things, instead of you just lecturing all the time—we actually learn stuff!” Bless her heart…not sure with this particular student whether that was a sincere statement or if she was just brown-nosing, but I appreciated it all the same. Another questionable compliment came in response to my revealing that I’ve never been in a relationship [a response to a question about dating]: “But you’re pretty! Do you know that?” I responded by thanking her and saying that being attractive or not didn’t really have much to do with my situation, but thanks for the encouragement. Oh, high school…

Prayer requests:

• The high school girls. After our lock-in, I just pray that some of these young ladies would be excited to address their "Isaacs" and turn their lives towards the God who loves them.
• Wrapping up the semester. As finals approach and I quickly run out of steam and motivation, please pray that I would remain focused in my teaching so that my students will learn and finish well.
• The holiday season. Pretty sure I'm going to miss you all a great deal over Christmas. This will be my first Christmas away from family and friends, and I'm not exactly looking forward to that part of this break...
• My church situation. Because I don't have a vehicle of my own, I rely upon roommates and other teachers to help me get to church each week. It's been difficult to find a place that really fits, and consistency in my attendance at any location has also been complicated. I really sense my need for a church home, and I'm just hoping and praying that the Lord works out a good place for me to commit.

Love and miss you all, Kate

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I’m Thankful…

- For adventures. And change.
- That the Lord anticipates my needs before I realize there’s something coming.
- For kindred spirits and shared experience.
- That the void created by distance can’t and doesn’t make you love someone any less.
- For turkey, Stove Top stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie shared over big laughs and meaningful conversation. A welcome change from last Thanksgiving when I roamed around Zurich solo and bought a McDonald’s chicken sandwich and a cup of cider on the street for my dinner.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone. Can’t tell you how much I miss you all. This season has absolutely snuck up on me. I’ve been completely blindsided by the realization that it’s December. December. I’ve mentioned before that it’s been bizarre to step outside each morning to green on the trees, flowers, dust in the air, and—despite the occasional monsoon that serves as a reminder that we’re on the brink of rainy season—generally sunny, warm weather. I stepped through some dead leaves at the Nairobi Arboretum last weekend while my roommate and I were on a little Saturday excursion and about squealed. What a delicious reminder of the season. Crunchy leaves. Mmmm.

Well, this post-Obama world has been a real trip. In my last blog entry, I asked you to keep Kenya in mind as you prayed over the election. If you hadn’t heard, nearly an hour after the election results were announced here in Nairobi, President Kibaki declared November 5 a national holiday to celebrate their Kenyan brother. The eve of what we American expats have christened “Obama Day,” several of us went out to dinner at the local Yaya Centre and I’ll tell you what, we nearly got ourselves a free dinner just because folks were so excited about Mr. Obama. It used to be that we would walk along and now and then hear shouts of “Hey Mzungu!” [white person] on the street, but that week the calls changed to, “Hey! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!!!” Personally, I think the people of Kenya are in for a little disappointment when they realize eventually that despite Obama’s Kenyan and Luo heritage, there really won’t be many perks for his “brothers and sisters” out here in Africa. Sorry, folks.

Another prayer update: our accreditation process went beautifully. Oh, I can’t tell you how thankful I am for all of your prayers and encouragement! We are all absolutely excited and relieved. A lot of work went into preparing for the ACSI accrediting team’s visit a couple of weeks ago, and it seems that that has paid off. We won’t know for sure of our accredited status until January when the ACSI folks back in the States process and approve the team’s report, but things are looking good. There were four folks who came and spent the week poking around the school—one was a teacher and administrator at nearby Rosslyn Academy, another is a teacher and administrator at a similar school to ours in Cameroon, and the other two team members work with ACSI in a more direct manner. I got to know one of the ladies over a dinner we had for them at a local Italian restaurant, and I really don’t think the woman could have been any friendlier. Really sweet gal from North Carolina who’s now living in Budapest. She came and observed my English 10 class as the kids were giving persuasive speeches (a la Atticus Finch…we had just finished To Kill a Mockingbird), and just had the kindest things to say about the class and the kids afterwards. Totally took some of the sweating bullets pressure out of the whole ordeal. She even gave me a hug a few times, which I hadn’t expected from a team member meant to come and “verify” our accreditation documents and scrutinize the inner structure of our school. But I thought, “Hey—I’ll take it!”

So now I find myself officially three weeks away from my first Christmas break on the “educator” side of education. Glorious feeling. We’ve got two more weeks of class (I am working frantically to get my kids through Taming of the Shrew, Antigone, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), a week of finals, and then whiz-bang-boom: done! I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting over how this semester has gone, and while I can absolutely identify some spots where I really just had no idea what the heck I was doing, I feel really blessed at the Lord’s provision and intervention in my classroom. I am so impressed by the kind of thinking so many of my kids are doing. And I think the biggest pat on the back I can give myself (and by “myself,” I really mean Jesus…) was the call I made to rearrange my curriculum in my English classes and center each unit on a central question and theme. My students are getting ready for their finals right now in which I’ve asked them to do a take-home portion where they’ll identify an issue or topic or question that they’ve considered during their work in my class this semester and generate a “Multigenre Paper” (thank you, Dr. Romano and EDT 427) in which they’ll explore that focus through several different “lenses” (genres/perspectives) to express to me as their teacher exactly what they learned from their English class work thus far. Should be interesting to see what the kids turn in. I’ll let you know. The break will be such a welcome opportunity for rest and getting ahead for next semester. I think we’ve settled on heading to Maasai Mara in early January for a few days with a bunch of folks from school—so I have plans in order for my first official safari. Every now and then I’m reminded that my life here really is pretty cool :)

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Departing now a bit from the typical contents of these blog entries, I just want to take a moment to be a little transparent with you all and share something that’s really influencing and changing my life at the moment. Now, maybe I’m being a little too frank in sharing this with you, but I’m a big fan of transparency, so here goes. Recently, my comrade in singleness in my house has switched over to the other side and I’m now finding myself as the only single girl in a house of four. It’s a situation with which I’m pretty unfamiliar. While I’ve lived with some roommates in the past who have been in relationships and had friends who have dated people and even saw some friends get married over the past year, I’ve always felt like I’m in a solid group of people experiencing totally “normal” singlehood. Most of my good friends in college weren’t in relationships and I remember my sorority pledge class joking near graduation about how not a single one of us was engaged. Being single was standard. Typical. Normal.

So you can imagine, perhaps, my initial dismay at finding myself alone in being alone. I don’t know, I guess I had just predicted that I would be surrounded by a bunch of young single folks out on a similar stint like me—not worrying about relationship status and ticking clocks and all that. I wrote an e-mail home to my parents and mentioned this change and how I was initially reacting to it and laughed out loud when I received my most recent Thanksgiving puffy envelope from home and pulled out a copy of Jennifer Marshall’s Now and Not Yet: Making Sense of Single Life in the Twenty-First Century. Now I realize that this wasn’t a novel entitled, Old Maids: What to Do When You Realize You’re a Hopeless, Manless Wreck, and I know that my family loves and respects me in all the ways a daughter could hope for, but I’ll admit that my initial reaction to the gift was tinged with trepidation and disinterest. In my experience with perpetual singleness, I’ve grown weary of feeling like there’s something wrong with me—either something unattractive to the opposite sex and therefore keeping me from a relationship or else something altogether “off” about the way I’ve lived my life. And I’d expected to find companions in this journey here in Kenya, and found myself a little disappointed in getting slapped once again by the hand of Expectation.

But you know, the Lord is really, really good. In this little stretch of my life where I really could be feeling kind of sorry for myself and mope around all “woe is me, why can’t I find a man?”—instead, I’m reveling in this sense of purpose and possibility and calling. I suppose I can attribute much of this to that little book from my folks that sat on my bedside table for a few hours before curiosity got the better of me and I picked it up and started to read. I keep thinking or daydreaming up all of these delightful little perks of being not merely in an “in between” stage, but instead in a “not yet/here and now” kind of stage. My desire to one day get married and have a family has always, as I’m sure it is for many girls, been one of those dreamed-about shadows that, while it lingers just barely out of reach, is somehow something worthy of planning your entire life around. I’ve never been in a relationship before, but somehow I’ve still managed to impress upon myself that my value—at least in part—is equal to what men see in me. I’ve felt incomplete because of my singleness. Incomplete and wrong. But the Lord is stirring up something new in my heart. Something exciting. I’ve asked myself to think about what my life could look like if I were still single five, maybe ten, years from now—and instead of feeling dismay or disillusionment, I’m filled with this sense of “Well—that’s not necessarily what I’d choose for myself…but that could work.” I’ve imagined all of the adventures I could go on—continuing to work at West Nairobi School or moving on to something different. I could live in some big city and, despite my lamentable lack of rhythm and muscle memory, take dance lessons—or art classes or something. I’d have shelves full of books I’d actually read and not just thought about reading. I could devote my time to service and ministry in my community. I could get a dog. Run a marathon. Invest in real estate. Meet new people and try new things. I could be “cool Aunt Kate” and make up a guest room for my little nieces and nephews and have them over on weekends to take advantage of them at their best and when they start to get cranky, send them back to their mommy and daddy. I could travel the world. I could write a book. I could do so much.

What a revelation. I’m telling you—I haven’t felt this content in where God has me in ages. What a tremendous gift to have that weight of “wrongness” and doubt lifted. He has me exactly where He wants me, if only I’ll let this be that place. Things are still difficult and complicated and I certainly haven’t let go of the dreams and hopes that I have for a “someday” future, but wow. It’s great to know that I don’t have to wait around to live my life. That my greatest purpose is not in what’s five, ten, twenty or more years down the line—but in how I’m living my life for the Lord in the here and now. And boy, I don’t want to rush what God’s got planned for me. I want to soak up whatever it is He’s got in mind for me from here on out. No more silly girlish pining and whining. This is where I am. When something else comes along, I’m sure God will make me keenly aware of it, and then it’ll be time for that something else—whatever it may be.

My wish for you, dear friends, family and readers, is that God would give you peace and comfort in your circumstances, too.

Thankful for you all,
Kate