While I am waiting

While I am waiting

Today as I sit here waiting for an answer to a prayer I have constantly made for the last three years, I shiver as my wild mind craft forms of the many options I have to choose from.

Because the way I see it, I have waited for way too long and it’s time to start moving,

All this while the wind around my ankles has been moving freely across dried leaves and for once I wish I had its cognisance. One that is spontaneous, powerful and unbound.

I am anxious.

The weaver birds around here are incredible and similarly resentful.

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They sing with synchronized pitches and tones for a whole hour while sharing a fraction of warmth with each other. They seem happy and I seem agitated. I guess that’s what waiting does. It gives one time to examine the ordinary and ask questions of things they simply take for granted.

I am waiting.

You see for me, whether I’m waiting for a friend to show up or for hope to return in moments of despair; the feeling is equally unsettling.

As writers will tell you, ‘expectation postponed is making the heart sick’; worse still if such expectations are unguaranteed.

In either of these the anxiety is gruelling.

It’s like a grain of sand in between the front-teeth; no pain but sufficient discomfort to keep things irritable. And the more one keeps digging it out, the more unsettling it becomes. In fact, it’s just but a matter of time before pain thrives.

Such is waiting.

Plus God took it a notch higher; I know He requires me to wait patiently in confidence and I am tempted to wonder why.

Why He seems to be silent when I desperately need Him to speak, but then I am prompted of His steadfast love and mercy,

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For He knows the number of hair on my head,

He declares the end from the beginning,

He knows that I don’t need it now; that’s why I don’t have it yet and so I wait.

Yes I will wait.

I will wait for Him even when I doubt Him,

I will wait because I know He will soon be here; but even if He doesn’t show up I will still wait.

Because even when in humanly wisdom He is way too late, He is still on time.

Mwende

Our Women

Our Women

It’s Women’s international day.

The 8^th day of March 2018; a day that exists to celebrate women worldwide, the achievements as well as highlighting gender issues that face women and by extension the entire population.  

It’s one of those days that trailers make rounds in media platforms with each year carrying with it a new hashtag.

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Today, there's a vibrant call to act towards achieving gender parity. It’s a call to motivate communities, governments and the entire world to think, act and be gender inclusive.

Then the story can be different for Cherono in Pokot County, Kenya who wrestles with realities of the forbidden cut. With blood stained hands of the perpetrator still eager to yet again sharpen their cruel knives. It’s a day she remembers with such uncertainty and resentment for a scar that has now become part of her as caused by her fellow humans. A deed that has costed her two of her new-borns.

Photo courtesy of WV

This also embraces raising awareness and acting for the sake of young women in the outskirts of Lake Victoria. A young mother has to be carried on a wheelbarrow to a nearby clinic when her labour pains recon. Residents here have been having problems accessing healthcare services for too long with Akinyi bearing the burden of such conditions. She pushes with all her might optimistic that the fragile life she now holds will survive the harsh life realities into becoming the president someday. She wonders why life has to be this difficult. But just like everyone else, she’s got to toughen up in order to survive.

CWW, Kenya  Celebrates IWD 2018

celebrating IWD 2018 with colleagues

Pressing for progress to Margie needs to be now than later. A 20 years old mother in the rural southern Kenya who bears on her skull a yawning hovel caused by a jerrican that rests on her head every single day for the last 12 years. She carries the same jerrican today while balancing a baby on her hip. She’s had to trek for more than ten kilometres to make it this far. She says she hasn’t known any other way for her and her household. Ultimately she hopes that her physical strain will be lifted off her shoulders some day when water access comes near to her then her health can improve.

Truth is something has been done.

But much more needs to be done now!

#Pressing for Progress.

Mwende

Campus days

Campus Days
I remember my campus days with uttermost humor for obvious reasons.
First because it was the only time in my entire life that I didn’t need to report back to anyone.
Secondly because once a semester was over, that was it including whatever else that revolved around it. I simply didn’t have to worry about being slammed with exam questions from previous encounters.
Plus I also learnt cool slogans like destiny is personal. I would once in a while shove a few of those to tease-off villagers during short-breaks.

One of those retreats at freedom base

To my fellow countrymen back in the village, being in campus meant prestige irrespective of whether one was hawking goodies or studying. By just being ‘in campus’ I had made it to their list of the elite.
I was indeed privileged.

Those T-shirts are fleek

And so I joined my fellow scholars to train in whatever it was that would finally pronounce me a refined journalist because dad and mum believed I could do it. I later changed to my career choice (story for another day).

I remember village women and the headman warning me of boys and naughty cliques and for these two I was a good student. I evaded them like a plague. But also because every time a boy winked at me, I thought of my mother and any plans thereof would be thwarted immediately.

I coincidentally joined one of the fellowship groups and I stuck there.
Our only goal being to serve and we sure did just like our name _ service team,
For the four years’ period I served the Lord, made lifetime friends and enjoyed blissful elements of the sunburned desert with frequent views of wildlife.
I particularly enjoyed cleaning the benches during Sunday services, articulately placing hymn books and of course serving water to the preacher of the day.
One had to have polished skills over time to serve the preacher. We would confidently hold the bottle’s waistline and prudently peel off the nylon-seal in the quietness of the congregation. We would then place back the bottle on a stool strategically positioned and that became our ritual.

At Eldoret. Courtesy of Brian Mwangi

Looking back, most of the impactful friendships I enjoy today thrived in campus.
But I’m particularly amazed by how much our lives were diversified. Each had unique aptitudes and that made us stouter because there is strength in diversity.

There were those who interceded and for them fasting wasn’t such a big deal. If I made it through the day without my defiant legs leading me to the dining hall, I surely had something to celebrate.
There were those who eloquently spoke and emceed profoundly. I remember toping the shrab-meter list and occasionally Mo’ followed closely.
There were those who set up the instruments and regulated the mics during worship sessions and services; and they did an incredible job.

After sunday service

Secret Santas were the finest.
Just knowing that someone was praying for me secretly rejuvenated my commitment,
When the time came to finally reveal our Santas, my soul thrived.
I loved the gifting sessions, the cakes, the t-shirts and sharing a meal after the service.

But above all these, we laughed, loved, served and bonded.
And that’s the whole kernel of life.

Mwende