After we returned from Brackenhurst, we had a few hours to get ready for Julia to leave for Sudan. Thus, there was laundry, and packing, and family pictures, and lunch. Then we headed over to village to meet up with her team, loading up her luggage, said our goodbyes, and the buses pulled out for the airport. It was such a joy to meet and visit with the team from Sudan. The work they are doing in Khartoum is commendable. The teach at a school in a strictly Muslim area of the country, braving the harsh desert environment of 110 degrees, strict dress codes, and language barriers. They were headed back the day before the referendum.
Some of you may not even be aware of the referendum. I must confess I wouldn’t have been if not for being in that part of the world. Essentially it’s a vote for Sudan to split into two countries – south and north. I may have already mentioned this vote, but it’s a difficult situation. The south wants to split because of the horrible oppression and violence they’ve endured from the Muslim north, but the north wants access to the oil-rich areas of the south. They want the land but not the people of the land. If the countries split, the north will become much more strictly Muslim, making the gospel even more challenging to share.
It’s a hard situation, and it was nearly inevitable that there would be violence. So the team was heading back the day before, school was closed the day of the referendum, and then they were just going to wait and see if they needed to evacuate.
After Julia and her team had departed, we decided to eat lunch and shop a little at Village. We had Indian food for lunch, and then went and purchased some awesome leather sandals with great beadwork. Our last stop was Nakamat for tea, coffee, juice, and some other Kenyan items. My new favorite flavor is passion fruit. I’ve never seen it in the States, but it’s everywhere in Kenya. The actually fruit was not my favorite – more like a gel-filled fruit with crunchy seeds – but the juice is amazing. So, I stocked up, hoping the boxes would make the trip back to the States in my luggage. And they did!!!!
So that was our last Saturday in Kenya.
Our last Sunday consisted of attending Ruthie’s home church (Bahati) again. This time, though, it was a normal service. We went to the first service in English. There were some Swahili phrases here and there, but I could sing along in worship this time, which was nice! We took tea and chapattis with the pastors before the service began and, in true Kenyan style, arrived late to the service. (I’ll have a video clip up on f/b of the worship soon. It looks like more people are white there than there usually are because the security team from Brackenhurst was attending. Normally Ruthie’s family is the only white one there. Haha.)
After saying our goodbyes to the people at church, we headed over to have one last round of Ethiopian food. It was a little strange not having Julia with us, but we still had a delightful lunch. It’s amazing how something that looks so disgusting can be so delicious. But it is. One cool thing about going to an Ethiopian restaurant with Ruthie’s family is that they can relate and talk to our servers in Amharic since they lived in Ethiopia. It’s pretty sweet. Habasha seemed to be the place to eat because several other M families ended up being there too. Just goes to show it’s a small world after all.
We headed back to the house after lunch to finish packing. Our flight left at 11:30 pm, but it’s wise to leave the house about 4 hours before the flight, so our plan was to head out around 7 pm. That only left 5 hours to pack, shower, have dinner, and for me to run over and talk with the director of Convoy of Hope for East Africa. It all happened though. Barely :) In the next posts, I’ll finish up telling about the trip including my chat about Convoy of Hope, our layover in London and trip home, and some of the differences I’ve noticed since being back in the States. Thanks for hanging with me this long. It’s been a great journey.
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