When I was young, I was fortunate that my life seemed full of almost mythological, inspiring stories. In Kenya, the first place we lived was at the AIM mission station at Litein.  As I understand one of those big stories, more than twenty years before we arrived, when the first AIM missionaries came to the area, those missionaries asked the local elders where they might live and build a health clinic and school. Some of the elders were wary. They said, “you can have the hill that gets struck by lightning so often that people who try to live there are often killed. No one lives there.”  The missionaries agreed, asked for God’s protection, and began to build what is now AIC Litein. Although there was still a lot of lightning, no one was struck. One dramatic day, I remember running hand in hand with mom through tall wet grass on a stormy afternoon. Lighting had struck a huge tree. It had split in half and fallen across a road, just missing a car driving onto station. The man driving stopped, got out of the car, and run to tell others, leaving the car near the huge split tree. The air smelled of tree sap, rain, and burnt wood. Everyone stood and stared and then prayed, thanking God.

There were Kenyan friends in this new world.  They were from a people who spoke the Kipsigis language. I learned the greeting “Chamgei”.   The first time I told them that my African dolly’s name was Kikuyu, two of the young men almost fell over laughing. I felt frustrated and humiliated. Later someone told me that Kikuyu was the name of the language of another people group that our people didn’t like much, a bit like calling a dolly “French” if you moved to England in the 1700s.

Dad was good at building things. With no running water, each house had an outhouse. At first my sister was terrified of the big hole, so dad made a new outhouse seat, carefully smoothing three sizes of holes, large for adults, medium for me, and small for my sister. There was no electricity.   Litein is over 6000 feet above sea level (around 1900 meters), so it was cool in the evening. Our house had a fireplace, and the cedar and eucalyptus firewood smelled lovely.  We had a grey rocking chair that was great to cuddle and rock in with mom or dad. I still have a button from that chair for good memories. The cedar hedges were so dense I could walk on top. You can see our house in the background of the photo of me standing on a hedge. The corn got so tall that mom and dad sent home a photo of our garden.

One of the other families had several boys. My sister and I often played with the one closest to us in age. We spent a lot of time climbing trees. At first my sister watched from the ground being too little to get into our favorite loquat tree, but soon she could climb too.We climbed other things too. Once he and I were up on the kitchen counter at his house. My sister was looking up at us.  Somehow, he tipped pepper into my sister’s eyes!!  I have a vivid memory of trying to get my poor screaming little sister home.  Whew!!  

We were taught to call the adults aunt and uncle. The photo below was labeled, “Christmas at our house.” I’m walking across the room. My sister and I are in identical outfits.  Mom is on the middle of the couch behind me. Aunt Niki is next to mom. Aunt Niki always walked fast with big strides and with great purpose. She was part of several of those big inspiring stories.  Aunt Niki had been a key part of establishing the medical clinic at Litein. Eye infections that caused cataracts and blindness had been common in the local population.  Aunt Niki had helped to change that by treating the infections and enabling cataract surgeries to restore sight.

 Aunt Niki was also part of another story. Historically, near Litein, twins had been regarded warily. It seemed that if there were two identical babies, perhaps an evil spirit had made a demonic copy.  Since no one could tell which twin was demonic, twins were often “thrown away” in a patch of "evil forest" thought to be haunted by unfriendly spirits.  Sometimes other family members would tell Aunt Niki , and she used to go to the forest to rescue babies. These twins were raised on the mission station, and some were there in the school when I was little.  Fewer twins were thrown away as people came to follow Jesus, lost their fear of demons, and were taught more about how twins are conceived. However, change comes slowly.  When I was writing this, I looked and found a relatively recent article by a Kenyan journalist indicating that in some areas this destructive fear of twins continues.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12280109

To me, my mom and dad were part of these the big dramatic stories of people boldly serving God.  Mom and dad's understanding was, and mine still is, that the Bible is the word of God.  It was written down in the Middle East and is equally appropriate for people of all cultures. The goal was not to impose western culture, but to bring God’s word. As 2 Timothy 3: 16&17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”  My father had greatly benefitted as a teen through the challenging activities and teaching in Christian Service Brigade. He collaborated with others to set up something in Kenya that enabled that kind of discipleship but in a uniquely Kenyan way.  Apparently the organization is going strong, happily culturally Kenyan, and using the same logo dad made.  Found this when I searched the web to see what was happening with this organization. https://www.facebook.com/100083151948871/videos/1072806894393860?locale=en_GB

Mom and a good friend of hers did something similar for young women.  The girls program also taught homemaking skills. As I understand it, a group of adult women came to mom and her friend and said, “Could you make a program like this for us? We want to learn to do all these things.” These women had grown up in a world where baking in an oven, sewing their own clothing, knitting, and so on had not been an option. Mom and her friend worked with the women to set up a program they called Usharika wa Wanawake waKristo” (fellowship of women in Christ) that spread across Kenya.  The program had a “badge” for making a musical instrument, and many women made tambourines. I believe that last part of the badge was to use their new instrument to share in worship. Worship by a group of happy African women with tambourines was a bit of a shock to some very conservative missionaries to had strict ideas on the appropriateness of dance in church!  They just had to adjust to where they were now living.  When I was writing this, I searched the web and found quite a few recent fun videos of this organization today. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxnqxUxRKW_l21QoHFv9xOklDSO7ampBPH?si=nxp5iXPKc_jD1XtU So fun to see where God took this.