Darkness : Light

I’m a little skittish in the dark.  When I’m falling asleep at night, I like the peacefulness of the pitch black that floods the room, but beyond that, I find little comfort in darkness.  I don’t even like being alone in my own house in the dark.  Frequent power outages in Kenya have helped to lift this anxiety, and this thing with the dark has never really been a fear, per say, but it’s safe to say I prefer the light.

I’m actually writing this in the dark right now, as our power has gone out unexpectedly once again.  It’s been a bad week for power in Kenya.  Also a bad week for student PowerPoint and website project deadlines and leftovers in the fridge. 

I remember crying uncontrollably one night during our sixth grade trip to Camp Joy after our simulated experience of the Underground Railroad when I was separated from the group on the hike back to our cabins and couldn’t find my way back in the dark.  I think I was “lost” for a good 90 seconds before I figured out where I was, but it still roughed me up pretty badly.  Inconsolable.  And then I remember the recurring fear of encountering Dr. Seuss’s Grinch in dark spaces in my house when I was growing up.  I think the pleasant ending to that classic Christmas TV program was lost on me at that age… because when I was freaked out in the dark, it was always the Grinch that was grinning creepily back at me.

I think anyone who is afraid or simply uncomfortable in the dark will find that it’s the aspect of the unknown that’s what makes your skin crawl.  If darkness is the absence of light, and it’s by the light that we are able to see clearly… then darkness means not being able to see what’s there.  Pretty basic, I know.  Turn out the lights in a room and nothing else changes – you just can’t see things properly.  You’re able to imagine things that aren’t there or worry about completely inane possibilities because you can’t see things for what they truly are. 

The symbolism of light and darkness shows up everywhere – in literature and art, philosophy, and religion.  Light is symbolic of Truth.  Of goodness and joy.  Light comforts, illuminates, and reveals.  It’s optimistic.  Light is pure and moral and right.  Darkness, on the other hand, while not necessarily “evil,” is indicative of trouble and bad things to come.  In darkness, terrible things happen.  Darkness brings bad judgment, ignorance, and misfortune.  It’s associated with captivity, death, and destruction.  In darkness, there is chaos.  Darkness shrouds the truth.

It’s no wonder that there are so many references to light and darkness in scripture.  In the constant battle between truth and deception, right and wrong, good and evil – the recurring motifs of light and darkness are perfect images.  And I’m sure that we’ve all experienced periods of spiritual “light” and “darkness” in our lives as well.  I love that we have a God who uses pictures with which we can identify to reveal His wisdom and truth to us.  He’s so clever.

I’m in one of those seasons right now.  In the dark.  It’s not a period of destruction, fear, despair, or even chaos.  I’m just not able to see what’s in front of me.  And as much as I’m hoping to learn to trust that things won’t be so scary once the lights turn back on, it’s still an unnerving place to be for the time being.

I’ve mentioned that I applied for a graduate fellowship in Maryland back in November.  I understood when I began the process that it could take months to hear whether I’d made one of the twelve slots, and it was far from a sure thing.  But I hated to put the school in a bad spot, and so I prayed over it and felt confident that it would be the right thing to inform our current and incoming directors about my situation.  Both agreed that they wanted to begin the hiring process to set out to find a replacement for me, should things lead me away from WNS and Kenya. 

Living in a transient community like Nairobi has been a completely new experience for me.  Growing up, I worked my way up from Kindergarten to graduation without moving to a new district.  I only had one close friend move away in thirteen years.  Hilliard was a big place, and some friends got lost in the vastness of it all, but I never really had to say any goodbyes.  Miami brought more of the same.  Freshman year through senior year, I had one close friend and sorority sister transfer in my four years.  Friends graduated and moved on to other things, but that was natural. 

Natural.  That’s the right word.  There was something very natural about the way I spent the first twenty-one years of my life.  Life naturally progressed from one thing to the next.  Things rarely, if ever, changed.  Life was predictable.  Full of happy, predictable lighting.  Very little darkness at all. 

Then I moved to Kenya.  At the end of my first year, several co-workers and close friends left WNS, along with a handful of students I’d grown to care about.  At the end of last year, I’d mourned the loss of a co-worker and grieved saying goodbye to his wife, then I said goodbye to my housemate and friend of two years, along with three other close friends from school and several more from church.  At the end of this year, my roommate, my discipler, and a great number of other people I’ve grown close to these last several years will say goodbye to Nairobi.  It’s different.  It’s strange.  It’s hard.

And I’ve realized along the way that this is the first point in my life where I’m going to have to personally elect to leave people and places and experiences and ministries behind.  There’s no longer a natural time to move on.  No matter when or how I leave, it’s going to hurt.  Tremendously. 

So here I am at the beginning of March.  There are ten weeks left of the semester, and then my third year of teaching will come to a close.  I still have no idea what next year will hold for me, and just now, as I went to check the NICS career opportunities page, I saw that “High School English” has been removed from the vacant positions at WNS. 

Somewhere out there is a man or a woman whom I’ve never met who has prayerfully accepted a job teaching at a faraway Christian school in Nairobi, Kenya.  Not just any job, though.  My job.  It’s a wonderful, terrible, joyful, completely agonizing little position they’re walking into.  In my time as a resident “jack of all trades,” teaching four levels of high school English, figuring out how to run a yearbook publication staff, and teaching kids everything I know about theatre, I feel I’ve been given a tremendous gift as a young teacher.  I’ve literally done about everything I could possibly do as an “English teacher.” I’ve worked under three different leadership teams and seen the school go through a great deal of change.  I really can’t imagine having packed in a single extra learning experience into these three years. 

And it’s all been, however imperfectly, for the Lord.  An expression of my love for Him and my desire to have Him work in and through my life.  This person is going to have their work cut out for her (I’m assuming it’s a “her,” they almost always are!).  She’s going to have some great moments and some others I’m sure will put her into a premature aging process.  God hand-selected me for this position – I’m sure of that.  And I’m confident He’s done the same for this newcomer. 

Knowing and acknowledging all of that doesn’t make it any easier, though.  I’ve effectively signed away my rights to my life here in Nairobi.  I couldn’t stay even if I decided later on that that’s what a really wanted to do.  The position belongs to someone else now.  It’s her turn.  But looking towards a dark and unknown future as all that I’ve known for the past three years starts to slip away so quickly… I find myself grieving already.  I’m grieving over the lost possibilities.  The opportunities and moments I know I’ll miss now.  I won’t be able to see my junior class graduate (they were freshmen when I was a “freshman” and I’ve seen them grow up in huge ways these past several years).  I won’t get to build into my two disciples who won’t graduate at the end of this year.  I won’t get to continue the work on the things I’ve put my whole body, mind, and soul into these past few years.  I’ll be somewhere else. 

I’m worried I will have missed huge opportunities.  I’m anxious that there will be some poor soul trying to figure things out without help.  I don’t like the idea of stepping away before I’ve truly finished.  I’m worried they’ll all forget me.  I’m worried all the dreams and hopes I have for my future won’t pan out quite like I’d planned.  I’m worried I won’t find something like this again and I’ll regret ever leaving in the first place.

These are all incredibly selfish preoccupations and I felt a little silly writing them all down.  But they’re true.  That’s an accurate list of the things going on in my head right now.  This has been my life for three years.  My first “job.”  My first vocational ministry.  The first truly big risk I’ve taken.  The place I’ve grown up.  It’s a lot to let go of all at once. 

And I know you all have been here right alongside me, too.  Praying for me, supporting my ministry financially, sending words of encouragement through comments and emails, and patiently reading all these reflections on my life and ministry here.  I thank you all for partnering and sharing in this with me – through thick and thin.  Good and bad.  Light and darkness.

I would like to ask for your continued prayer as God uses this timely season of “darkness” in my life for His perfect purpose.  I can already see that this time of waiting and listening and waiting and praying and waiting and shrugging when people ask me “What’s next?” in my life… it’s all for His good.  I’m finding peace even in the sadness and loneliness of uncertainty.  I’m finding comfort and hope even in knowing I’m moving away from something truly wonderful in my life.  And I’m confident that He’ll reveal in His own time what it is that He has in store for me next.

See?  There’s a little sliver of that light :)

Isaiah 42:16 - "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." 

"hear" kenya

My junior class is reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  A relatively simple plot, the real challenge when you pick up Huck Finn is mastering a reading of Twain's dialogue.  His ability to capture specific American dialects is legendary.  And daunting, I've found, for many a high school student.

I've taught this unit three times now in my American Literature class, but this is the first time I thought to have my students try their hands at capturing dialect on paper.  In this international and incredibly diverse environment, I realized that these kids have such incredible ears for language and dialect, but just have maybe never had an opportunity to write this good stuff down.  

So here was the assignment: Like Mark Twain, consider the unique and varied people in your life and model a character after someone you know.  As you write a short story or "chapter" from this character's story, make sure to write in a way that emphasizes their specific dialect and unique way of speaking.  They should be believable people with believable stories.  Draw your reader into their lives.

I'm getting such a huge kick out of these.  Here's just one of the stories I received.  This was written by a Korean 11th grade student who has lived in Mombasa and Nairobi for most of his life.  Read it out loud, and I swear you'll hear Kenya.

Haro, my name is Kamau Njoroge.  I am 9 years old andi I go to St. Peetah’s Primary School in Dagoretti.  I am in crass 3.  Ruby, my teacha, is vere vere bahd yani she does not ret talk andi every day we have sreeping time, but in de middle we want to go to de toiret but then she does not ret us, we always say “Teacha, me am pressed,” andi then she willer ret you.

Yestahday, me andi my friends were praying footi ball andi we came to crass late in de morning.  Teacha was waiting in front of de doah, she called owah names in front of de crass.  “Kamau, Omondi, Otieno, come heeah.”  Andi we always say, “Teacha, what did I do?”  Andi she told Omondi to go outside andi bring a nice stick, andi then Omondi brought it, she asked us how many times we wanted to get beaten andi we always say, “Teacha I willer nevah do it again.  Teacha, have mahsee teacha plrease.”  But owah teacha has no mahsee.  We know it but we just try it, you know.  So me, I always say, “Teacha, me I want to get beaten just once—just once nicely andi freshly.”  Haya!  So now we will hold de boahd, but then this is not owah fahst time getting beaten, to we have already put some papah in owah buttocks.  

Me, I catch a ma three going home—I just rive vere crose so it’s onry ten bob.  You see, when I go home I go outside andi pray footi ball with this absorutely nice ball me andi my friends made with paypah bags that wah on de street andi then I go inside de house when de sahn goes down. 

At home I have one small brothah called Kinanjui.  He is vere stubborn vere yani you cannot rie about that you know, he always goes andi tells Mummy, “Mummy, you know… you know… Kamau has eaten de shoogah you saved foah de visitahs you wah going to have on Sato.”  He is a pure mshamba.  Pure.  Last time he was arguing with me about if you brush yoah teeth aftah you have eaten oah befoah you have eaten, andi then he went andi told Daddy, “Daddy, Kamau has badi mannas.  Can you believe that he brushes his teeth aftah he has eaten instead of brushing befoah has eaten sindio?”  Even that one Daddy cannot agree, but that day, Daddy just funggaed his mdomo andi din’t say anything.

Now when we sreep, theyah ah vere many mosquitoes, so we put sahm Doom.  In Omondi’s house, they don’t have Doom.  Us, in owah house we have Doom.  Daddy will always put Doom because he does not want us to get malaria.  Heeah, malaria is so common that people will go to de doctor andi say that they have malaria on their regs.  How foorish ah they?  Us Kenyans, we have so much potential but we don’t use it. 

Ah, now me, I have reft these guys.