On the morning of my fiftieth birthday, my family and I, along with seven other team members from Crossroads Church left for a missions trip to Kenya. It was my first visit to Africa and the most authentic mission experience I've ever had.
We stayed at a base camp, miles from civilization in the bush of the Maasai Mara. We were surrounded by African wild life - Zebra, Giraffe, Elephants, Gazelle, Wildebeest, you name it! We slept and dined in house tents, spent our mornings and evenings around a blazing campfire and used the bathroom in a cho (My least favorite part of the trip!)
Every morning we packed into our vans and traveled across the Savanna to visit the Maasai in their bomas (several dung huts in a circle where the families live). We spoke with people who have never heard the Name of Jesus or been presented the Gospel before. We met children who had never seen white people before and they tried to wipe the color off our arms! We would share the gospel with them through the most simple presentation and they received it with gladness. Dozens were saved!
We visited an outreach in Nairobi where every day, our tithe dollars from Crossroads Church feeds children and give them an education. Many live in the orphanages because they have been left on the trash heaps to die in the slums of Nairobi. The children are beautiful and I can't get their faces out my mind!
We did an open-air crusade in the slums, setting up a stage and a sound system, preaching the gospel in one of the poorest places on the earth. Many responded, some literally hanging out of the window of the block they lived in to pray with me.
We were allowed to share the gospel with hundreds of children in the schools. Every child who could read was given a New Testament! They were so excited to receive those Bibles!
In addition to all the incredible outreach, we got to visit one of the largest game reserves in existence. God gave us favor and we stayed in the hotel where US Presidents stay when they visit the reserve! He also blessed us with the opportunity to see what the Africans call the big five: Elephants, Cape Buffalo, Rhinos (which are endangered and rarely seen) a leopard (again - rarely seen because they are nocturnal) and lions! Going on safari was such a wonderful treat!
The scheduling of this trip was totally out of our hands and arranged by our missionaries, Mike and Marigold Cheshier. It just so happened that they booked us to leave on a Tuesday (I've never left on a Tuesday for a missions trip before) and that Tuesday was my birthday. The Sunday before our trip the Lord reminded me we were leaving on my birthday and He told me He arranged that. He said, "I wanted you to spend the first few days of your fiftieth year in one of the most exotic places on earth so you would know that this next era of your life will be a great adventure!"
How exciting!
