Up the mountain - update from 1/19/08

My feet are burning tired right now. We just finished a long walk up one of the neighboring mountains here around Machakos. It’s been a while since I’ve walked that far – probably since I was a Boy Scout in my early preteen years.


This walk was unlike any I’d experienced at that time. For one thing, the terrain is significantly different here. Much of our climb was up steep inclines, often on smooth, slippery rock, or muddy surfaces. We jumped several small streams to make our way up, and frequently balanced on thin areas of clearings. If we’d fallen we probably wouldn’t have been more than muddied, but you sure didn’t want to get messy after the long climb up, because the climb down would have been even more difficult.

But there was something that stood out to me even more than the challenge of the journey. As we walked up the hill we passed by many small family dwellings. We certainly attracted quite a bit of attention. You see, here we are “Mzungu”. Roughly translated, I think “Mzungu” means – “ignorant westerner, from whom you shouldn’t expect much knowledge of Africa and life in general.” Actually, that’s a bit harsher and more negative translation than in reality, but that’s what it feels like. Regardless, I’m guessing that not many Mzungu are found walking up those mountains.

One of the real highlights of the walk was when a group of local children gathered around us and watched as our leader for this journey (an AIM mission leader) talked a gentlemen who was inebriated out of harassing us (he was more of a nuisance than a danger to us). As you saw our leader gracefully convince the man to turn and go elsewhere the children roared with laughter and cheered as the “Mzungu” successfully handled the conflict. I can envision that incident sticking in the kids’ memories for a long time to come.


Another genuine highlight came as the children (20-25 in number) ended up following along with us for most of our walk. It was like a scene out of one of those fantastic adventure dramas where the children were fascinated with us like we were local heroes. Sure, it was a fleeting moment that will probably have more meaning to me than to them, but it sure felt good… like a good dream that you don’t want to wake from.

In truth, the substance of our dream involves years and years of life-changing influence through prayer, hard work, and even general life-sustaining care for the lives of children who no longer have their family around to do that for them. These particular children seemed to have family and we certainly couldn’t have had a true lifelong impact in just a two hour experience. But, you couldn’t have told that to my heart as I walked on cloud nine today with children draped on both arms. I had time to dream a bit further today. And when doing so, the question came to my mind… “Would I give my life for even the least of these?” At least in that moment I could say, “Yes Lord, if you ask me to”.