It Just Doesn't Feel Right...

 

Tanzi is currently serving as a Student Missionary in Nairobi, Africa.  

It’s Christmas time and it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t even seem like we should be near December at all. I wear short sleeves and flip flops, my watch tan is increasingly vibrant, and my family isn’t anywhere near. This summer seems to never end (this isn’t really a bad thing) and when I hear Christmas music my heart seems “two sizes too small”; I just can’t seem to muster up the festivity. When I see our homemade snowflakes in the windows they seem like they are leftover decorations from months ago that no one bothered to take down. Even the anticipation for Christmas break feels more like the cravings just before summer break starts.

Some have said that the holidays are one of the hardest times of the year for SMs. My stubborn side of me testifies that this is not true. I have an amazing support system back in the States and everyone here is exceptional. I have everything I really need and my life here is nearly like walking through the “wardrobe in the spar-ooom”. I know I’m not homesick, but I do miss some things. That’s allowed, right? I miss the freezing cold, breath-seeing nights when wearing scarves and gloves are a must, I miss the Christmas lights hung up everywhere and all the holiday decorations, I miss the crisp clean mornings and all the holiday festivities (tree-lightings, cookie bakings, Victorian Christmases, and even the sweaters), but most of all I miss venturing to see my family. Today when I went into town I heard Christmas music for the first time that I hadn’t actually turned on and I realized for a split second that it is actually Christmas time here in Kenya. The feeling was so uncomfortable and I quickly left Nakumatt. It didn’t seem right.

Maybe break will make things more right for me; I’m a little drained, especially since I’ve been teaching for four straight months. However, I love my kids so much and I know that in two days I will miss them dearly, but I’m ready for a break. Along with mentally being able to refresh over the holiday, there is the freedom that will come too. Freedom to make my own food, freedom to just walk into town and get up when I want, freedom to not spend my nights in the computer lab, and freedom to just do “something exciting I guess.” I need this break, but I hope that somehow it will start feeling more like Christmas. I know it won’t be the same by far, but I do have things to look forward to and I’m still having a blast soaking up Kenya.

Post Reprinted from Tanzi's blog,  http://tanzinkenya.tumblr.com/

Daniel

Katie is currently serving as an SM at Maxwell Adventist Academy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Meet Daniel, my second grade African Soul twin.

Alright, so I know we shouldn’t have favorites and I really do love all of my children, but I can’t lie, there is a special place in my heart for this kid.

Daniel is crazy, energetic, unfocused, talkative and a whole lot like what I imagine myself to have been at his age. I remember standing in my parent’s bathroom as a child practicing contorting my faces into all sorts of strange looks, thinking that if I didn’t do this my face would be stuck in one position forever. Not a day goes by where Daniel does not bust out one of his adorably ridiculous faces. Daniel is not in my homeroom, I only teach him Social Studies and math but those eighty minutes of joy a day are some of my favorites.

Last night, at the Christmas concert as the 2^nd-8^th graders got up to perform two songs, I made my way to the front row to take pictures. As I sat down, Daniel gave me a look that signaled a mix of terror and embarrassment as if he was thinking “NO! Put the camera down! Don’t do it!” as his eyes bugged out of his head. I lost it; I started laughing and did not stop until their two songs were over. Every time I looked at him during that performance it started all over again, he was trying so hard to hold it together and doing a much better job at it than me. I found him after the program and told him he did a good job and that he made me laugh and I couldn't stop, “I know” he said “I was afraid to laugh with you.”

This is the child who always somehow gets hit in the head at recess by a passing swing or trampled two seconds into running laps in PE, the one who cheers for pictures of bugs in his book and pretends to be snoring during Social Studies.

About a week ago, Daniel got detention two days in a row (sometimes he has a hard time focusing), for detention in the elementary they have to do all the after school chores, a very effective punishment. Well, on his second day I came in and saw him once again filing everyone’s papers and said “Daniel, why are you always in detention?”

 “I don’t know” he replied.

 “You don’t know? Well, are your parents happy about this?”

“I don’t tell them! They like to be happy.”

One of the classes I teach Daniel is math. When everyone else is busy at work on their homework, Daniel is still only half way through the subtraction problem on number one. I know he knows how to do the work but he is too busy singing and talking to himself that he just can’t get anywhere. Sometimes I have him come up to my desk and make him do a few so I can watch his steps…

“Alright Daniel what is the next step?”
“I add the ones, the 9 and the 7.”

“ok, and what does that equal?”

“6..”

I give him a knowing look and he makes a face.

“teen” he adds a few seconds later, grinning ear to ear knowing for a second I thought he got it wrong.

Anyone who knows Daniel would know that there is just something wonderful about him. His happiness is contagious. There have been days where I just wanted to do anything but explain to the second graders what the constitution is or force our way through another story problem. But then Daniel tells me that Mother Nature is George Washington’s wife, and all is right with the world.

As this year continues I have to remind myself to take a moment to smile, relax and enjoy these children and this job. I want to maintain or find some of Daniels joy and spunk, his uninhibited love for life.

 I always wondered if there would be kids who would just steal my heart, ones that I seriously considered putting in my suitcase to take home with me kinda kids. Turns out his name is Daniel and he has stolen my heart.   

How I am a Missionary

by Katie Palumbo

Kenya, Maxwell Adventist Academy

When I started the search for missions call, I had in my head an image of what a student missionary should be. I equated service with suffering. I felt like I had to go into the jungle with no electricity or running water in order to really be a “missionary”. In my mind the people wouldn’t speak English or ever have seen a photo of themselves. I searched and searched but somewhere along the way God informed me that this was not going to be the case. A few emails and a phone call later and I found myself a call at Maxwell Adventist Academy in Kenya.

Katie with a student in Kenya.

Working at Maxwell is completely different from any call I ever thought I would take. Every stereotype that I had of missionary work has been broken. This is not a bush school. I live in a comfortable home with internet and running water. My students aren’t poor, they have good homes and parents who feed them and assist with homework. They don’t necessarily need or desire to hug me every day and they can’t wait to go home at the end of the school day.

I came with the idea that I had to suffer, that I needed to be broken and rebuilt in order to truly serve, but God is slowly erasing my preconceived stereotypes. I’m learning that God’s ability and desire to use you does not depend on your living situation or how poor the locals are, you just need to be willing. He is showing me how to serve in a practical way. The needs on the campus of Maxwell Adventist Academy are different. Students don’t need my money or a bag of rice, but they do need a good example, they need encouragement and unconditional love. I used to believe that the only way to challenge myself was to spend this year completely removed from anything and everything familiar or easy. But I am being challenged in ways I never expected. I’m learning to love and to give with all my heart. I’m learning how to be patient and persistent. I am learning how to be content.

This year is being spent planting seeds, trying to make a small impact on a place and people that in eight months will move on just fine without me. Proverbs 16:19 reminds me that I can make all the plans I want but it’s God who determines my steps. Despite all my protesting and reasons not to go, I am here. God hasn’t called me to the bush or to a hut; He’s called me to Maxwell. I am a missionary. 

Magical Kenya

by Tanzi Lampert

Kenya

Tanzi loving the magic of Kenya.

Magical Kenya is what many refer to as the place I am living in for this year, and magical it is. I step out my front door and see a sunset out over the Ngong Hills every evening with the glorious rays of sunlight shining through the clouds from the heavens. I've even seen a double rainbow shimmering over the school in that same time the sun was fleeing from sight. 

As I walk out the door to go running every morning there are gazelles grazing in my front yard and birds singing. Driving down crazy, bumpy dirt roads I commonly get to see giraffe, baboons, zebra, and other "exotic" wildlife while on the more urban streets I have to dodge donkeys pulling carts, cattle being herded, chickens scurrying, and goats devouring everything. I also get to see fabric and clothing of so many variations hanging from market stalls displaying colors and patterns so enthralling that walking through the market isn't just a shopping experience, but a cultural experience, especially when the bartering and language barriers come into play. I am in awe of the three inch wide spiders that scurry along the surface of the walls in my home and wonder how I've become used to it.

In seeing everything around me and witnessing the ways in which God blesses I know what makes Kenya so magical. It isn't the wildlife, it isn't the culture or the people. What makes Kenya so magical is the Creator of the Universe, the One who makes all things new, the Giver of life and the King of Kings.