Coco and Chai

My team kicked off our ministry in Kenya by spending our first week in a place called Rare (said Ra-ray) in the Great Rift Valley. We did outreach door-to-door, in schools and the rock quarry. On Wednesday, my serve team, a smaller group within my team went hut-to-hut with our translator. He took us out to a hut far away from where we were staying and yelled "Odi, Odi!", which means "Knock, Knock!". A very, very old and beautiful Maasi woman came slowly to the door singing praises to God. She could hardly walk, but made it to the door and propped herself against the frame so she could shake our hands and talk to us. She was so delighted to see us and remembered the last AIM team that came to Kenya. She told us we were welcome to ask her whatever we pleased, so we asked her how old she is and she laughed and laughed. She said was so many years she had lost all of her teeth and most of her sight. She said maybe I am 150! Then her daughter who was inside died in a fit of laughter. The lady introduced herself as Coco and greeted us warmly, thanking us for coming to see her and praying blessings over our ministry. We asked if she was saved, though it seemed obvious and she told us the simple story of her realization of her need for salvation. 

When we asked her if she could share one of her favorite Bible stories with us she said that she could not think of one because she does not have a Bible. (Most of the older generation cannot read and if they can they only know Swahili or their native tribal tongue so providing Bibles is difficult.) She said that while she would like a Bible, she knows she doesn't have to have one to know Jesus. She explained how she knows Jesus is the Word and Jesus lives inside of her so she has the Word in her. How marvelous is this woman? As she radiated love for us and we finished our conversation, tears began to well up. It wasn't a far walk to meet the other groups for lunch, but it didn't take long for the damm to break and flood my heart. I began to cry. Here is a woman who has almost 100 grandchildren, lives in a hut and struggles to find enough food for each day, yet her wisdom and faith put mine to shame! Coco, like Paul, rejoices always because her relationship with God is not dictated by an intellecutal concept or religious experience. She knows the Father's love for her and she knows her calling is to share that love with others.

Too simple a theology for you? Sounds like Jesus to me. He hid the simple truth from the over-religious intellectuals, but said let the little children come to me. He only asks us to have faith just as small as a mustard seed, but it still has to be faith. Faith is trusting without seeing, knowing, or understanding. It is blind belief and abandonment of our prideful ideas. The goal is not to constantly have things figured out, but to humble ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit to come in and be our teacher. 

John 14:15-17 says, "If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you. I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can't take him in because it doesn't have the eyes to see him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!" And in verse 23, Jesus says a loveless world is a sightless world.

A few days later we went back to say goodbye to Coco before we left the town and she made us Chai tea and gave us Maasi jewelry to remember her by, calling us her American granddaughters. Coco, we found out is actually not her name, but the Maasi word for grandmother. She is Coco to me.

May we believe blindly, until we come to see the unseen! Amen!