First, we moved houses. This was a bittersweet transition. We had been living with a lovely host family and had actually become quite close with them. But our plan had never been to live with a host family- it had been to have our own place. So when the opportunity came up, rather suddenly, we took it, and within a day, we had moved. While we miss our host family, our new house is perfect for the two of us: just a little cottage made of metal sheeting with vines crawling up the side, next to a lazy river. When we entered the house it just felt like home already. We are also already becoming close with the neighbours who share the compound with us, including a little dog who is pretty much our shadow. I like this place.
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| The new place- excuse the iPhone panorama fail |
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| Our faithful companion |
The other day I took a walk down a road near our new place. Since we had lots of time off I took lots of walks exploring the town. On this day, while exploring our new neighbourhood, I found something that really excited me: a metal sheeting building with a sign in front: Nanyuki Vineyard Church.
One of the struggles I have had here in Nanyuki is finding a church. I have visited many different churches but none of them quite felt like home. As I have written before, the prosperity gospel is quite common here and it has been hard for me to find a church that does not preach that. I love living in Nanyuki and have thought on occasion of staying here for good but knew that just would not be possible if I could not find a Christian community here. After weeks of "church-hopping," I was really starting to be discouraged, and resigning myself to the fact that maybe I would not find a church home here. That was until I went for a walk and stumbled upon Nanyuki Vineyard Church.
I grew up going to a Vineyard Church, probably up till the age of 16 or so. I have a lot of memories of that time, good and bad and confusing. I think anyone growing up in the evangelical tradition has those kinds of memories. The church I grew up in was particularly tumultuous and its birth, growth, and decline more or less coincided with my childhood.
It's been a while since I have been part of a Vineyard Church, but still when I saw that church sign it spelt H-O-M-E to me. I made a plan to go there this Sunday.
So on Sunday, I headed over to the church. I did not know what time the service started or even if it would be in Kiswahili, English, or the local language. Literally all I knew was the location of the church building. I just showed up at the church at around 10am.
I am so glad I did. As I met people, sang worship songs, and listened to the sermon, it became more and more clear: this would be my church home. This was such a relief, I was almost crying. It has been such a struggle to find a church home. It's hard not to have a church. It's so sweet to have one.
And I felt like there was some sort of poetry or symmetry to the whole thing. Because the Vineyard is, to me, Mama Church. My first memories of church are all wrapped up in Vineyard songs and Vineyard quirks. I was baptized in the Vineyard church: or rather, baptized in the Northumberland Strait by a pastor in the Vineyard church. There are a hundred Vineyard songs I know by heart. I want to know you/I want to hear your voice/I want to know you more.
It has been a while since I have thought about how those early church experiences have influenced my faith. But I sure thought of it on Sunday, singing "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, your love makes me sing" with a bunch of Kenyans, in a little church on the outskirts of Nanyuki. I am thankful for those early church experiences, despite how confusing they sometimes were for a child. Because even if I did not realize it at the time, those experiences demonstrated for me what being a Christian meant. I internalized those lessons, though maybe nobody knew they were teaching. I just watched the way the church lived. I internalized the lesson that being a Christian meant believing that the Holy Spirit would show up in your life; that being a Christian meant caring for the poor and forming meaningful relationships with people on the outside of society; that being a Christian was something that you did not keep to yourself, but that it was worth telling others about; that being a Christian meant being free to worship God however you best could. And our church was far from perfect, let me tell you that. But those lessons have never left me. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned was who is part of the church. Our church was a ragtag band of misfits, people who did not feel like they fit in to the established church or who had been wounded by her and people with mental illness and people struggling with addictions and people who were just lonely, in search of somewhere to belong. The people in my church growing up did not tend to pretend they were anything else but messed-up people desperate to know Jesus. That was my first experience of church.
And so I feel a certain affection towards the Vineyard Church. It does feel so much like family. Even in Nanyuki.
So I feel God's grace so much. Because I know that if we had not found this new place to live, I never would have found this church. It then feels like he is orchestrating this all! He is so good to me.
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