My Borrowed Life – Moments from Kenya
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:!2
I have another life. It’s a life I love but it’s not a life I own. It’s a borrowed life; on loan from the African soil. It isn’t mine to keep.
It’s a life where a rooster unapologetically announces the morning and simple moments tug at my arm to take notice. Home cooked breakfasts invite me to linger and uneven steps warn me to walk cautiously. My pace slows. My eyes adjust to absorb markets strewn with yellow bananas, hanging meat and local wares. Clothing lines dressed in vivid colors don the landscape while preparations for someone’s dinner fills the thick air with smoke.
The drone of convenience and comfort that normally dulls my senses is replaced by jarring doses of inconvenience and uncertainty. They demand I draw from dormant reserves of ingenuity and patience.
Patience. A slowed, different life.
Patience when water doesn’t flow, turning a shower into an event. Patience when each meal is painstakingly selected from market to table and cooked from scratch. Freshly cut mango, stewed okra, seasoned rice, boiled cabbage…patience when tilapia is served whole and succulent pieces of fish must be carefully separated from bone. Patience to sip homemade masala tea, rich with warm milk and spices. Patience when Wi-Fi is scarce and conversations across a dinner table eclipse the addiction to the Internet.
Patience when riding in a car driven by someone who is – thankfully – exceptionally adept at crossing dirt roads deeply rutted by the African rains. Someone with a story; a story that steals my heart like a thief. Someone like Livingston, who faithfully provides transportation to serves his church, and in turn, me. Patience while he waits in faith for God to heal his wife from infertility. Each morning my drive includes a smile, a kind word, and a gentle nudge to expand my Swahili.
Every corner tells a new story: women whose bravery exceeds any courage I have ever known, and whose prayers reveal a depth of relationship with Jesus I honestly covet.
Women like Jane, who fights a difficult battle with heart problems yet designs breathtaking jewelry for God’s glory – all at the tender age of eighteen. Her maturity humbles me. Women like Terry, who survived a brutal rape on her wedding day only to tragically lose her husband a month after she eventually married. Her radiant spirit wrecks me.
I stand in their shadow. This is a borrowed life. I borrow their strength, their dignity, their resolve, their tenacity, their wisdom, their beauty. I marvel at the grace God has appointed to them and the anointing that has come at such a price.
These people. This place.
The unspoiled land of the Maasai Mara whose glorious sounds and austere silence simultaneously leave me awestruck. Where crickets sound like wind chimes and the horizon stretches farther than the eye can see. Truly, we all only borrow this place. A slowed, different life.
Patience in the tan grass to see if the stealth cheetah will attempt a run at the gazelle. Patience on the Mara Riverbank while thousands of wildebeests and zebras choose their moment to cross during migration. Patience won after eleven hours of driving and waiting on these indecisive, complicated animals. We witnessed the truly magnificent. “Timing and patience matter.” Wise words crafted by Robert, my game drive guide, at the end of our unforgettable day. In a phrase, he summed up the lesson God taught me from this trip to Africa.
These moments that press themselves so intensely into my heart I feel as if I cannot breathe. This undoing that has forever marked me. This captivating call that has ruined me for a life with any hint of complacency. This borrowed life that pulls me toward patience, mostly with myself. Africa has wound her fingers so tightly around my skin, I can only wear her home. I can only hope I step into these shoes I have borrowed and walk worthy of all God has allowed me to see. To hear. To know.
Africa has been my teacher, my friend, my most unlikely companion. She reminds me to live this one life I am given with reckless abandon and ridiculous gratitude. She loves me without hesitation and teaches me to love without reservation.
This is a life we can all borrow: one that lives wisely and loves well.
Make Your Life Matter No Matter What
With Love,
Angela
