after the rain

Thankfully, the rain stopped about the time we began drinking the chai Joyce offered us (not like the spicy chai—Indian chai?—from America’s coffeehouses and store shelves but still tasty). When we took our leave, we were very glad it was no longer raining because that would have made the road back to Linda’s house even more treacherous.

I was also glad for my Chaco’s sandals. Their reputation at least made me believe I could traverse the mud safely and then clean up easily afterward. As we picked our way downhill from Joyce’s house to the “main” road/lane back to Linda’s house (a five minute walk under non-wet conditions) and mud clung to mud clung to the bottom of our shoes, I joked that I was going to take the entire road back with me. I was mostly just afraid of slipping into that reddish mud in my light khaki skirt—one of only 3 skirts I brought from home—and taking out one of my carefully selected pieces of clothing so early in the trip. And, actually, I’m really already (hopefully just temporarily) down to just 2 “home skirts” anyway because the zipper broke on my very practical jean skirt. So, you see, the stakes were high.

High stakes abound around here, it seems. Toward the end of our chat with Joyce, Rachel entered the house. Rachel also lives in the little community of houses around Joyce. She’s part of the Bible studies Linda coordinates and has helped feed (likely from her own meager means) Joyce and her family.

Rachel’s heart is very heavy these days, Linda and Sammary explained to me. (Neither Joyce nor Rachel speak English. Sammary translated their Kipsigese into English for Linda and me.) For 20 years she prayed for her alcoholic husband to become a Christian. Months ago he finally did! And he quit drinking. He’s stayed away from alcohol for four months! But over the past week he’s begun drinking again, to the detriment of himself and his family.

It’s been striking these past two and a half weeks to listen to the stories of women in Ghana and Kenya and discover the ways their stories are similar to those of women in America and elsewhere. When husbands do not let God direct their lives, their families suffer terribly. There are so many women around the world trying to be faithful wives to men who refuse to love them well, who refuse to let God into their lives, who refuse to let God refine them into men who will love well.

Please pray for Samuel to have the strength to give up alcohol again immediately. Pray for Rachel. Pray for husbands and wives around the world caught in the suffering Rachel and Samuel’s story represents.

Joyce, Rachel, Sammary

me, Joyce, Sammary

the two neighbor girls, the neighbor boy, two of Joyce's sons