Week 4: Confused

This past week was a strange week.
One of our colleagues at the office started his vacation this week, and my host mother also was also away. So ordinary routines were changed a little. For example, the colleague who went on vacation also happened to be the one who usually had the keys to the office and would unlock it in the morning. Come Monday morning, we arrived at the office to find that two of our coworkers each thought the other one had the key-- oops! After some clever maneuvering we did manage to break into the office, where we found the keys on the desk.

That was what began our week and seemed to be a feature of the whole time. In our office we began to refer to it as the "confused" week. It began confused and continued in the same way for some time. For example, one day we went for home visits only to find that every single person we tried to visit was not even home.

I have only been here a few weeks, but in those few weeks a rough routine was set up, and this week deviated from the routine quite a bit. For example, this weekend, a couple of our bosses from Canada visited. This was actually a super joyful time, but was so different from an ordinary weekend here.

Visitors from Canada at the equator!

We took the visitors to the resource farm. Did I mention this place is basically paradise?

The view of the brooding Mount Kenya from the farm

This Sunday, we ended up going to a certain church service we had been invited to and without going into many details, I really did not enjoy it. I have been to a few churches here so far and over and over I am hearing a a "prosperity gospel" being preached: follow Jesus and you will always have success in life! You will win at everything you do! Ask in the name of Jesus and you will have everything you want! etc etc. Meanwhile I work every day with people, many of whom are followers of Jesus, who struggle daily to survive. So in a way I can see why this prosperity gospel thing is so popular. When the life you know is full of challenges, someone offering a quick solution to those challenges can  be so tempting. But I also see why it is so wrong. The people who get taken in by this are really the most poor, and I think it's a really damaging thing to tell someone who's poor "Just believe and you will be rich!" Because of course that's not true.

I was so livid at the teaching at church. When I was a child I had such a fierce temper. That rarely shows itself nowadays but yesterday I came pretty close. The pastor used John 14:12, where Jesus says "whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these", to justify pastors having private jets and mansions and all that. I always knew leaders like this existed but never experienced one for myself. 

I am not saying all churches in Kenya preach this false gospel. It's just that for some reason, these are the ones I have visited. And even in those churches, I am sure there are people just trying to follow Jesus. But to me it just seems like such a selfish faith: Why follow Jesus just for what he can do for you? He already did so much. Just knowing him is enough. 

But, I am convicted because even after judging these pastors and these churches for their selfish faith, my faith is not exactly selfless either. I have come from a place of such wealth. Materially, I am rich. So I cannot say honestly say that is wrong to be rich. Would I give it up to follow Jesus? I sure hope so, but I never have. Anyway, I am feeling a lot of tension in this way as I struggle to find a church community here.

But anyway. Enough angst about church. In fact many good things have happened. For example, we got a kitten! We have a bit of a rodent problem here, but I am not sure when this little guy will be big enough to fight off rats. By the way, get ready for me to become one of those people who is always posting cat pictures (I am looking at you, Gabby and Tucker).

   

Also today (Monday), the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, came to town. This was a very exciting time but scary for me because the crowd was just very lively. There were times when I was afraid I would be trampled/mugged/groped. It made me understand the story of Zacchaeus in the Bible, though, as there were even people climbing trees to get a better view of the president. I can't imagine if Uhuru stopped his entire motorcade and went to talk to one of those people in the trees. It would be madness. It just makes me think of Jesus' MAD love.

And I think that is where I will leave it for this week. A faith that is based on anything else besides Jesus' mad, sacrificial, supernatural, unconditional, unending love for us is wrong. Jesus' love for us does not manifest itself in always having success in life or in getting all the things we want. It manifests itself on the cross and in His daily presence with us. For Zacchaeus, following Jesus actually meant losing many of his riches! But he gained something much better. Jesus came to his house.