Email: Rachel Brown

To my dear Friends and Family,

Several months ago, Icaciri invited students from the African Nazarene University to conduct a “Weekend Challenge” for the students. This was to be a weekend of worship, preaching, and saving. I cannot say that I’d ever had any Pentecostal experiences before. In fact, I was so nervous that I had my answers prepared (“Are you saved, Rachel?” “Yes, it happened on Easter Sunday a few thousand years ago.”)

What originally drew Shurie and I out of the apartment were the blood-curdling screams coming from the school. Because Icaciri is a boarding school, we occasionally hear noise coming from the school-side of the compound, but never had we heard such a fuss. We left our apartment at around 8:00 p.m. to find the hundred-or-so boarders stuffed in the chemistry lab, some on chairs, some on the lab tables, some hanging out of the pane-less windows gasping for air and all dancing with flailing arms, singing glorious, Kenyan praise songs.

In all the excitement a few students had taken to screaming and fainting, filled with the Holy Spirit. Thus our work began, catching girls and fanning faces before the ministers could guide them safely to the “recovery room.”

A tall man sauntered to the front, his legs bending in all kinds of twisted directions, like a marionette. He huffed and puffed into the microphone, dabbing the sweat from his brow, all the time bending and straightening his legs.

Watching him made me tired. He must have noticed, for the same minute that I began daydreaming he glanced at Shurie and I, saying “Visit-oooors yes, introooo-duce yourselves!” Maureen jumped in and introduced us before he said anything else. “At least I can say that they aren’t visitors. They are ours, and they are from Icaciri!”

His remarks to me began slowly with comments like, “There is nothing-ah wrong-ah with the way you are made-ah, right Rachel?” and “You may tell me that I have funny teeth, but I tell you that I am made-ah in the image-ah of the LORD. Can I get an Amen, Rachel?” I don’t know if it was just because he couldn’t remember Shurie’s name and somehow mine stuck, but he just wouldn’t let me alone. It seemed as if every other remark was directed towards me.

The topic was not something unusual for a girl’s boarding school; every teenage girl needs to hear that she is beautifully, wonderfully and uniquely made. Every teenage girl needs to understand that she was crafted for a purpose and to have confidence that one day that purpose will burst forth. But I’m not a teenage girl anymore.

As I listened to his sermon, I was so affected that I began to cry. It was very un-Kenyan of me, and I could not understand how I had been so touched by a sermon filled with fancy Pentecostal jargon meant for high-schoolers. But I was changed, and for the first time in my life I actually believed that there was nothing wrong with the way I was made, physically, mentally, or emotionally.

Now, as I am followed with a chant of, “Mzungu! Mzungu!” when I walk by the nursery school in Gatundu town I remember that minister’s words, confidently acknowledging my differences with a smile and a wave.

My experience at Icaciri has been formed around hundreds of unique conversations. Every day I stop to talk to Martin, our school carpenter, about the new project he’s working on. I love saying hello to “Obama,” the worker who always wears an Obama hat or asking Baba Njeri about the different kinds of trees he cuts for firewood. I can remember when these conversations felt forced and filled with too many empty silences. I can now see how much I’ve grown. Why wouldn’t I stop to ask Martin what color he’s painting the store?

One of the greatest changes I’ve made this year is in the way that I approach relationships. The friendships I have made here are so important to me, that my experience is defined by them. I could never convey my life in Gatundu without telling you about the time I woke up to the sound of Kathy’s “Hodi!” (“Anyone home?”) at our door just after dawn, or the look on Keith’s face when Shurie and I gave him his very own story book, or the time Maureen, Keith, and I had a speed-walking contest back from Mrs. Kariuki’s house. It is difficult for me to imagine a day without seeing these friends. In fact, they are not my friends, they are my family, and I will not forget them (in the words of my dear Form 2 students,) “until the termites have a great feast on my body.”

Leaving Maureen, Kathy, and Keith will be one of the most difficult separations I’ve ever experienced, and knowing that I may never see them again makes me deeply sad. In my sadness I plea to God, because I just want to be promised that this is not the end.

Hebrews 12:1 reminds me that though my journey to Kenya is coming to a close, I must still “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” I know that God cannot promise me those things which I long for, but He can help me continue to live and grow in the relationships I’ve made this year. He can help me to remember Maureen and her family and to find the words to tell others the stories which are so dear to my heart.

The Lord sent me out last September, and as He draws me back home I pray that you would open your arms to receive me as the new person I’ve become. I pray that I can find the words to share my experiences with you and that you will open your ears and your hearts to my stories. Most of all, I pray that I will have the courage to keep on keepin’ on, with the hope that I will encourage others to do the same.

Peace in Christ,

Rachel