First Day in Kisumu

June 5, 2011

This morning I woke up in a mosquito net, which is already feeling less strange.  However, I listened to the sounds of the birds chirping outside my window and found that they were completely different from the birds at home.  It’s funny the things you notice when you’re in a different country.

We soon found out that the four of us (Me, Laura, Lydia and Camille) would be worshipping at four different places that morning.  I was nervous because it would be the first time I was on my own in Kenya and it was my first full day in Kisumu!  However I quickly found out that four wonderful Kenyans had taken their time to come with each of us to a different congregation: Linda, Barack, Leonard and Leah.  I was to go with Linda to an African Pentecostal church.

As an American that grew up in a traditional Midwestern Methodist church, I was slightly nervous about my first African church experience being an African Pentecostal church.  The tradition was so different than my own and I knew very little about Kenyan culture and less about the Luo or Kiswahili languages.  Luckily Linda, the Deputy Director of the Umoja Project in Kenya, stuck by me the entire time and helped me both navigate the church service and the subsequent meal.  I have never felt more welcomed at a church than when I was at the Pentecostal church today.  God is good.  They welcomed Linda and I again and again and had a young woman translate the entire service into English so we could understand.  There were a few prayers that were in Luo, but I am quickly learning that the Spirit really doesn’t have a language.  I felt the Spirit moving in that place so strongly I was almost brought to tears.  Every time the congregations of the church welcomed me they would say, “feel free in our church,” or “we want you to feel free.”  I thought that was a wonderful way of describing how the Spirit moved throughout that place: freely. 

I am so grateful to that congregation for making me feel so at home even among people who didn’t speak the same language as me.  (I am also grateful they allowed me to attempt some Luo like, “good morning,” which is “oyaore” and “thank you” which is “ero kamono,” if I have the spelling correct).

Later we got a chance to meet with the Umoja Project Staff, some teachers from the schools, post-secondary (post high school) Umoja Scholar graduates and our hosts for our home stays.  Everyone went out of their way to make us feel welcome and put us at ease.

The last thing we did today was finally meet THE Joseph we have been hearing about since we learned about the project.  He is the Director of the Umoja Project in Kenya.  He came to where we are staying and had dinner with us and introduced himself.  It was good to finally put a face to a name.

That’s all I have for today, I will try to keep the posts coming as faithfully as possible.

Lindsey