Looking Up

[disclaimer: I hate my camera. It takes horrible pictures in Kenya and I every time I play with the settings it makes it worse. In this case it really is true that the pictures don’t do the real thing justice, not even close]

As you know I live on a big hill. So most days I walk up this….all the way to the top

Sometimes when I’m coming from town I take an alternate route up the other side of the hill. There’s path that goes along the hill and eventually comes out at my house.

This is not an ideal path. It’s rough, uphill, uneven, dirty, and has lots of protruding thorn bushes. Before the rainy season the ground was incredibly dusty and loose and now after the rain its incredibly muddy and sticky.


So much so that this is what happens to your shoes when you attempt to walk it in the rain.

Before the rains came, a few weeks ago, I was walking this path. I was having a hard day, drowning in loneliness, homesickness, self doubt, and my inadequacy at changing anything. The dirt was so loose and dusty and I struggled with every step as it sunk beneath my feet. I had to focus on the ground and the path as not to make a wrong step. However, eventually I loss my balance and I fell down hard. As I stood up I started crying and through my tears and frustration I asked God, “Is this really what you had for me?” As I looked up and out I got my answer…

It was beautiful. It was as if God was saying, “yes this is exactly what I had for you.” Sometimes I get so stuck in the difficulty of it all that I forget to look up and see the bigger picture.

Yes this is hard, yes I’m lonely, yes I feel powerless. Yet there is also so much beauty in this experience. There is beauty in the faces of the children I encounter everyday. There is beauty in the independence and strength I’m gaining. Beauty in realizing my powerlessness, that I can not “fix” everything. There is of course beauty in drinking chai tea at all hours of the day with wonderful Kenyans :-]

This life is beautiful…I just forget to look up and see it.

It’s true of this country as well. It’s so easy to just focus on the muddiness. Yes there is a lot of corruption, yes there is a lot of poverty, yes there is a lot tragedy. But there is also so much beauty to be found. I don’t say this to make light or lessen Kenya’s problems, but to remember that there is more to Kenya, more to Africa. Much, much more.

So I encourage whenever you are to remember to look up…