Love
. . .
Friday
Be
joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
--Romans 12:12-13
by
Maxine Covington
Two
hours south of Nairobi along the Mombasa
Highway, Esther Kitui and I waited at Sultan-Hamud for our
matatu to fill up and take us the eight dusty miles
east into Makueni district. Esther joyfully greeted each
new passenger in Kamba and then made introductions in English:
“this is my cousin”; “this is my cousin”;
“this is my cousin.”
Esther
had come home.
We
disembarked at Barazani, the end of the line, and met up
with the rest of our group who had come by hired car. As
the Westerners delighted in walking the remaining mile to
Philip and Esther’s upcountry home, we were greeted
with a smile, a wave, a nod, a handshake, a word, by nearly
every passerby – children herding sheep and goats,
men on bicycles, women carrying bundles of firewood on their
heads.
When we arrived at the house, Philip’s large family
was awaiting us expectantly. Immediately preparations for
tea were underway.
Philip took us on a stroll
around the family’s land. We walked
along the floor of a dry riverbed while Philip reminisced
about incidents from his boyhood, showed us how to make
arrows from a particular type of reed, greeted nieces and
nephews at each homestead.
Several small children eagerly led us around the shamba,
stripping the last few edible pods from spindly, yellow-brown
shrubs to share with us. Later, stepping through the shamba
gate, we watched a sheep being skinned on a bed of
mango leaves. A feast for the visitors was in the making.
Weeks later, back home in Seattle, I opened up the Daily
Nation, Kenya’s online newspaper, to read that persistent
drought was causing widespread famine in parts of the country.
Among the hardest hit, Makueni district.
What
I had been naively unaware of during our
visit, our hosts had known all too well – soon, food
would be scarce and, for some in the district, hunger would
become starvation, and starvation, death. And yet, with
abandon, they had offered their very best to their visitors
from the West.
It
is disturbing to realize how insulated we in the West are
from the raw edge of life and death, and humbling to taste
and see the kind of hospitality that holds nothing back
for tomorrow. We have much to learn from the world’s
poor. Please pray for the people of Makueni and other regions
of Kenya who, even now, are going to bed hungry.
We
give thanks, O Lord, for the beautiful hospitality shown
to us by our Kenyan family. Help us to do likewise and
love others with abandon, sharing out of the abundance
you have given to us. In Christ’s name we pray.
Amen.
An
Advent Journey