In Total Darkness

July 3, 2007

Well, after ten days of being completely cut off from my team I finally have access to email! Praise the Lord and keep your fingers crossed that nothing else happens to disrupt the internet signal. It’s been a frustrating fight this past week. I spent six hours waiting in line on Friday to get a wi-fi signal loaded into my laptop so that I (and the team once they get here) can email back to the States. The signal was working when I left the shop but as soon as I got it home, the connection was lost. No email. So I went to plan B and caught a ride down to the cyber café to use their internet. The power went down. No email. Okay, plan C. I went to ANOTHER cyber café all the way across town where there was power and got online. But the connection was so slow that it was taking 15 minutes to load one page. So after an hour and a half I had only gotten to my main Yahoo page and the cyber café was closing. No email! Since all my contact information for people had been in a notebook that was lost when the car got stolen I was completely sunk. No email and no phone numbers for people!! It’s funny how the little things, like communication, are conveniences that I take for granted. I spent another three hours this morning back at the internet shop and finally got a wi-fi signal put on my laptop. It’s slow, but it’s working!

These past ten days in Kenya have been extremely frustrating and emotionally exhausting. Three nights ago we awoke to the sound of someone banging on our front gate. That is never a good sign. It was the night watchman from Crossroads who had come to tell us that the church had been robbed and everything was gone. Sound equipment, microphones, musical instruments, computers… everything. Everyone of course was upset. It just seemed so unfair- here is a church that has struggled to build itself up and just when it seemed like things were starting to go well, Satan attacked! The mood that day was heavy. Between the break in and the hijacking I have become more and more paranoid, constantly looking over my shoulder for an attack. I’m sure that’s what Satan wants- to distract me from the excitement of having the team out here.

Last night we went out to celebrate Nathan’s parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. We had dinner on a boat and went sailing out into the Indian Ocean to enjoy the quiet, calm sea. About halfway through the meal, Nathan’s father realized his mouth was feeling tingly and he was having trouble breathing. Apparently there had been shell fish in the rice mixture we were eating and he is terribly allergic to this. So there we sat, miles out to see, no medicine, and he was getting worse by the minute! All we could do was pray. We got a bit closer to the shore when one of the other patrons came over and told us he was a doctor. He had enough medicine on him to get things under control until we could get back on land and get to a pharmacy. What a night!

Please keep us in your prayers. It seems like each new day brings a new trial. We have a saying here in Kenya, “Hapana meneno,” which means “No problem.” Everywhere I go I hear this. I went into town to pay for the vans we will have when the team arrives. The driver I had hired told me, “Sorry, my company has gone bankrupt and I am no longer in the transport business. Hapana meneno.” I went to pay a deposit at the apartments the team and I will be staying at and the lady behind the desk said, “Sorry, our computer is down and we cannot take payment. Come back next week. Hapana meneno.” Every time someone says this to me I feel like screaming, “It IS a problem!!” But this is Kenya and in Kenya there are no problems. I have to stop and wonder if God ever looks at us and simply says, “Hapana meneno.” Everything is in His control and although sometimes I fight it, I have to stop and realize I cannot do anything in my own strength. Alone I am weak. I make mistakes, I fall, I fail. But I do not have to fight alone and with Christ, I hang on to the promise that I can do all things.

Tomorrow we leave for Tsavo and from there back to Nairobi. My two weeks down in Mombasa have been less than productive. I feel like I am leaving with more things on my to-do list then when I arrived. But… hapana meneno!!

Hopefully more later,

Tina