A Lesson in Small Things

Upon our return home, I had planned to add several more posts about our time in Kenya; sadly there has only been one to date. Welcome back to "Life in the Fast Lane" (and we haven't been nearly as busy as we're going to be in the coming months!)

There is a term for the side effect experienced by many people who return to the States after a mission trip: reverse culture shock. We had read about it in multiple books and articles and heard several personal accounts so I expected to shake my head upon coming back to our home which has way more than we "need", to be more aware of the wealth of America despite the current economic crisis, to be overstimulated by the pace of life. Despite my determined mental preparedness for the condition, my brain still shut down for about a week. It seems to be coming out of the fog and while I would like to feel as if my brain is with me, I don't want what I took in in Kenya to fade.

I will try to get to those other posts on my list at some point, but I want to start with the one I'd most like to share. Even though our trip was just under a month, there is much I learned. I certainly don't mean learn as in became an expert or even particularly knowledgeable about a specific topic(s). They're more like glimpses of lessons the Lord is teaching me.

In the one post I did publish post-trip, I referred to the tearful goodbye we had with Mercy (the chaplain for Bethany Kids @ Kijabe Hospital). I wish you could meet Mercy personally. She has a wonderful smile and a huge heart. Her love for the Lord and people is clear and I would have loved to have spent more time with her. I want to make sure it's clearly understood that the kids and I were not at the hospital for large amounts of time and the percentage of our visiting time there was relatively small, but apparently the impact was not. It was very humbling to have someone I consider to be a true servant of the Lord praise us for our meager service.  
I pray as I share this that my point comes across correctly because I want to make much of Him and little of us. 

As we said goodbye to Mercy, I asked her how she wanted us to specifically pray for the ministry there at Bethany Kids. Of course her first desire is for the Gospel to be made known and the children and families to understand and accept God's incredible love for them and His gift made available by Jesus' substitution for sin.
The second request was that Bethany Kids be a source of encouragement and community for the children with physical disabilities and their families. Many children and parents in the U.S. have experienced the pain that comes with stigmas attached to physical disabilities. In most of Kenya, these children are considered a curse and are shunned by their communities. Before their arrival at Bethany Kids, most of them have never experienced acceptance (or even humane treatment) from others. As she shared, my tears came as the scales fell from my eyes and I realized why Mercy was so touched by our presence. She saw our visits as much more than a few balloon animals and silly bands; she saw a demonstration of God's love toward people who had experienced the pain of ostracism and the heartache of isolation. I remembered a passage from 2 Corinthians that I had read a few days before:

¹²This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. ¹⁴And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

The take home for me was that even though I personally had not verbally shared God's Word with the patients and families at the hospital (aside from praying for some of them), our presence, smiles, acknowledgment of and care for them was evidence of the Gospel that Mercy had been telling them about. Being evidence of God's love is something all of us can do wherever we are and it is a wonderful lesson to teach our children.

"One of the most common mistakes we can make is to believe that we have nothing of significance to offer - that we're not rich enough, smart enough, skilled enough, or spiritual enough to make much of a difference at all, especially in the face of huge global problems....But the very good news for those of us who want to follow Christ and be part of God's plan for our world is that He uses what we have to offer, no matter how unimportant we think it might be."
- from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

 "How will the Church of Jesus Christ respond to the 'lepers' in our midst - the poor, the sick, and the oppressed, in our country and in our world? Are we, like Christ, willing to respond with compassion and urgency to those who suffer? Are we willing? Do we have the kind of faith, the moral courage, the depth of love, and the strength of will to rise up off of our padded pews to demonstrate the good news to the world?"
- from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

Last year, about 400 people who came through Bethany Kids became believers in and followers of Jesus Christ. The pins in the map below indicate AIC churches in proximity to where those new believers live. Before they leave the hospital, Mercy connects the families with a disciple in their area.  

"God works in our world one person at a time. The hungry are fed, the thirsty are refreshed, the naked are clothed, the sick are treated, the illiterate are educated, and the grieving are comforted just one person at a time. You have the opportunity to be that one person to someone who needs what you have to offer. And what you have to offer is never small and insignificant."

- from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns 

"In the end, God simply calls you to be faithful to the things He has given you to do. He doesn't require you to be a superstar, just faithful and obedient, by praying, loving, serving, giving, forgiving, healing, and caring - doing small things with great love."                                                                                                                          - from The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

Home and Re-entry

There will be some more posts and pics from our time in Kenya, but I wanted to post an official "We're Back." Tuesday night before we left, we enjoyed dinner in Kijabe Town with the Shirley family. Ever since we had arrived in Kijabe, the kids had been eyeing Mama Chiku's Hotel (FYI, hotel = restaurant) asking for a chance to try it out.

Family-style dinner at Mama Chiku's

Wednesday morning before we left, we made a short visit to the hospital to say good bye. We had a tearful moment with Mercy (more on that during a later post) and admired the many improvements being made to prepare for the visit from Kenyan President, Kibaki, which was Friday.

David with the team in the Nursery (similar to NICU levels here)

Jonathan, a Samaritan's Purse driver, picked us up from our apartment at 4pm and we headed to Nairobi. After so much time in Kijabe, driving through Nairobi during rush hour was quite overstimulating (think African equivalent of Mayberry goes to LA). Our plane took off from Nairobi sometime between 10:30 and 11:00; for the 30 min we sat at the gate John asked, "Are we in the air yet?" Apparently he had forgotten how much the planes move during take-off. We made it into Amsterdam early Thursday morning and had a 4-5 hour layover. Thankfully, there is a wonderful play area where the kids could run and burn off some energy.



The kids spotted these teacups when we went through Amsterdam on the way to Kenya and had been looking forward to dining in one. Thank you to the couple who offered their seats.

John and Abby were very eager to pose with Ronald in the airport.

Geared up for the last leg of the trip, we boarded the plane headed for Atlanta. David's parents and my mom were there to welcome us home. The kids really were troopers and made it to the car before they crashed on the ride home. When we got to the house, it had been over 32 hours since we left the sitaplex in Kijabe. I couldn't help but give our moms a hard time when they commented on how long the day had been!

Friday morning we woke up and started unpacking. Unfortunately within 2 hours, I started feeling quite ill and in another hour I was back in the bed. Though it was not good, I was VERY thankful whatever it was did not hit on the trek home. David seems to have had a more mild version, but we're much better now (the kids were not affected.)

We're adjusting to the time change. John is no longer asking for breakfast at 3:30 or 5:00 am (remember, we are NOT early morning people).

Abby, John and I headed to Atlanta early this morning to surprise my sister and welcome her home from Liberia. It was great to see her and hear a little about her trip. The quality isn't very good, but here are 2 short clips from "Welcome Deedee" this morning (pause the Sprayblog music player at the bottom of the page before watching).

David heads back to work tomorrow (Tuesday), the kids have their homeschool co-op, and hopefully I can finish unpacking.

Thank you again for your prayers for our safe travel home. We look forward to sharing some more pictures and stories soon.

This and That

Sorry it has been almost a week since my doozie of a post. I know many of you faithfully check our blog daily only to find I've been on hiatus. Preparing and getting a post actually "published" here can literally take hours; I do look forward to cutting that time down with our connection at home.

I'll try to give a little update with what we've been up to the past few days. Thursday, the kids and I went on a "field trip" to Nairobi with Megan and her oldest two, Claire and Ford. Our 1st stop was the Giraffe Center. We have some great pics to share from there (if you're on Facebook, you've seen some of them); if not, I apologize that you'll have to wait until we're home to see them b/c we still have quite a few action items on our To Do list before we leave.

After the giraffe encounter, we took a tour of Kazuri Beads. A company that makes beautiful decorative beads from clay. My favorite thing about the company is that they started to provide jobs for women. They now employ over 200 single moms.

We topped off our visit with lunch at a fabulous restaurant, The Rusty Nail. We ate on the terrace and the kids were able to explore the beautiful gardens and grounds before and after their meal.

Friday - Saturday was a marathon cooking stretch. I made chicken potpie (Abby helped me make the crusts), baked potato soup (John acted as head chef for that one), High Altitude Deep Dish Brownies (Super yum! We made these again Sunday), Saturday morning, 3 batches of pancakes, and Saturday night, spaghetti. Whew! Cooking is not nearly as bad as the clean-up, especially when EVERY item is handwashed (in very hot water) and your delightful family somehow uses 25 cups in one day!

Sunday morning, we were excited about the opportunity to attend AIC (African Inland Church) Kijabe. Unfortunately about 15 minutes before we left, David got a call from Casualty (ie, the ER) that a baby had come in with a temp of 107. Yeah, not good; he headed down the hill to the hospital and the kids and I went up hill to church.

Thankfully (and shocking to many of you), we arrived a few minutes early b/c the place was eventually packed out. RVA's chapel does not meet the 1st Sunday of the month, so staff and kids attend AIC. We chose the 8:30 service b/c it is English/Swahili while the 11 am is strictly swahili. We loved it (& the kids did well for the 1 hr 45 min service). Because David wasn't there, I got to stand up (from my seat) in front of 500-600 people and do our greeting: "Hello, I'm Amy Sprayberry. I'm saved. We bring greetings from Watkinsville Baptist Church in Georgia. We are here b/c..."

Yesterday (Monday) morning, the kids went to school at RVA. David had met the Titchie (lower school) principal and he had invited the kids to come for a half-day. The kids really enjoyed it and I was able to get a couple of hours work done here to jumpstart our packing. When I went to pick them up for lunch, they didn't want to leave. We ate lunch in the cafeteria and they played with some of the kids until classes started back at 1 pm.

Yesterday afternoon, we worked on some things around here, "walked" some errands, and finished decorating the rest of the name cards to take to Mercy today.

Today we will pack, I'll attend Bible Study, take the kids to see Mercy and some patients at Kijabe Hospital, pack, distribute things remaining here, "walk" the rest of our errands, go to dinner at Mama Chiku's tonight with our cousins, and pack.

At some point tomorrow (hoping to get that time soon), a Samaritan's Purse driver will come pick us up to take us to Nairobi.

Likely, the next post on this blog will be from the US. There's still a lot rattling around in my brain. I started reading and have almost finished The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns. A must read and a very interesting one to work through while on African soil.

If you haven't done so, check out David's blog (see link on the right). He's finally been able to post about some of his experiences.
Please continue to pray for my sister in Liberia. Mom got a brief email saying they are doing well, but extremely busy and she doesn't expect to able to email or call again until they touch down in Atlanta Sunday.

Thank you again for your support of and prayers for us. I continually thought of all of you Sunday during the sermon about partnership in missions: pray, give, encourage. We have experienced each of those blessings.

Grace and Peace, amy

One Week

There are more posts from our safari weekend that I would like to write (probably once we get home). For now I want to switch gears on posting topics. While the safari was wonderful and a dream come true, it is not why we chose to come to Kenya at this point in time in our lives and it represents little of our activities here.

One week. That's the amount of time we have left. Next Wednesday, we will go to Nairobi and get on a plane to return home. Feelings are mixed. I’ll make mention here that the thoughts and feelings I’m sharing are primarily mine and the kids. David has not had much opportunity to process his own thoughts, much less share them with me!

Of course, there are many positives to home: seeing, talking to and spending time with family and friends (and our dog); our church; not having to remember to turn the hot water heater on before we need it; not feeling like I need to buy something from everyone who asks; having access to a dryer, dishwasher, high speed internet and my favorite drive-thru (Chick-Fil-A). However, when I look at that list, most things are mere conveniences, things we could do without.

There are some things I do dread about returning home. Primarily, my tendency to be bombarded by the pace of American life. While doing everyday life here is not easy, it is much simpler. I’ve been asked if it has been hard making so many meals; at home I’d never cook and prepare as many meals in my kitchen in the same amount of time I have here. However here I don’t have a car; outside our initial grocery run, any errand I’ve done was accomplished with a short walk. Here I don’t have NEARLY the same amount of laundry, house, and stuff to juggle. Here I can be in any room of our apartment in about 15-20 steps (for David it’s about 10). Here I have some help with the house work. We have had another worker, Winnie, come in to help a few days and I am so thankful. Monday, she ironed for 3 ½ hours!

The reason I most struggle with leaving is the people. It is so easy to see the need here. It’s not that we are the only ones skilled to do the jobs, but the workers are few. I’ve shared that there has been a big need in the pediatrics department. Paul, the wonderful family medicine doctor we mentioned who had been running peds, has unexpectedly had to return to the States on an indefinite leave due to a family situation. Thankfully there is another short-term pediatrician coming on the 12th to serve for a few weeks. Please pray for the call to be answered (my request on 10/2 on our prayer calendar).

Our children see the need, too, and have expressed concerns about leaving. They do miss family and friends, but have loved their time here. Tonight at dinner Abby, the one who most often mentions seeing others back home, said she was sad to think about leaving. It has been interesting because they haven’t spent significant amounts of time around the same people (other than Helen and Winnie). We have been able to see Megan and Rhett’s kids quite a few times and they always enjoy that. They’ve played around kids a few times at the playground, but rarely the same ones more than twice. More often we see the workers, vendors, and some staff at the hospital. The chaplains have been very verbally appreciative of their visits to the children at the hospitals.

Today before lunch we were able to make another visit to CURE and this afternoon a visit to Kijabe (Bethany Kids). There were fewer children in the CURE playroom so after a while Phoebe asked if we would walk down the hall to visit the children who were in their beds on the ward. Madeline, again, was fantastic churning out the balloon animals and hats. A 9 year-old boy named Peter really took to John. He had met us in the playroom. He was extremely polite and spoke very good English. Once we went to the ward, he showed John all around and introduced him to everyone. It was very hard to tell him goodbye. Phoebe was so kind and encouraging to the children and me before we left. She told us that our visits had not been in vain and that we had made a mark. It made me teary and I told her that we were so encouraged by her work and heart for Christ and the children.

John and his buddy Peter

John, Abby and Madeline with Phoebe and Peter at AIC CURE

We went to Bethany Kids at Kijabe Hospital this afternoon to give Mercy more of the decorated name cards to put over the patient’s beds. She walked the kids around until they each spotted one of their cards in use. We were able to make a few more visits and balloon animals.

Madeline in front of 2 pieces of her artwork.
Sidenote on this "smile": After the 1st few pics I took of her here, I mentioned retaking it b/c she wasn't smiling. She kindly informed me that, yes, she was smiling. I gave up - not wanting to pester her into a Garfield grin. Of course, whenever I uploaded said smile on the blog, I worried people at home would believe her to be unhappy here.
Today while we were at CURE, Peter borrowed Abby's camera to take some pictures. While trying to snap a shot of Madeline, he peeked out from behind the camera and said, "laugh". It worked for him; I guess I need to try it :)

Abby's artwork (sorry it turned out blurry)

John's artwork.
Mercy told the kids that since using their name cards, the patients are taking them home when they leave.

Mercy and one of the patients at Bethany Kids.

I want to interject here that I have been very proud of my kids on these visits – for a few reasons, but one very important one that I want to share:

There have been at least 2 times that Madeline, Abby and John have seen children who most of us would find difficult to look at. We just don’t run into that many people with severe facial deformities. Mercy had asked them about it before the 1st visit and they said they wanted to try. Today, it wasn’t planned; we met the little boy when we went to find Mercy. The kids and I talked about strategies to use in this situation, but we also talked about “God’s eyes.” We love the Brandon Heath song, “Give Me Your Eyes” (if you’ve listened to a few hours of Christian radio in the past 3 years, you’ve probably heard it; oh yeah, it’s on the blog, too – almost forgot since the music doesn’t load on dial up unless you’ve been on the page for 30 minutes). I have prayed on my own and with the kids that God would give us His eyes for these children and that we would see them as He does. “Give me your eyes…for everything I keep missing …. Give me Your love for humanity; Give me Your arms for the brokenhearted, the ones that are far beyond my reach; Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten, Give me Your eyes.” I’ve listened to that song thousands of times in the past few years, but have never experienced it so literally before now.



I’d like to share a few answers to prayer, and a few more specific requests.

I haven’t talked to my sister, but I know she arrived in Liberia safely. Please continue to pray for her while she is there. If you haven’t done so, check out her blog: http://deedeeeubanks.blogspot.com/

Our friends Barry and Mike made it home safely. We had hoped to see them last weekend as we were all in Masai Mara, but it is a VERY big place and our camps were not close. We look forward to swapping stories when we get back home.

David is on call this weekend so he will be working the next 6 days. He seems to be feeling more comfortable each day though he still spends time most every evening reading his texts. I’m certain he hasn’t read or studied medicine this much since he took his board exams in 2004.

If you've made it to the bottom of this post, thank you for reading and praying.