Real Life

It is very easy for me to sit at Neema and think I am in this magical world. But that’s not always real life. Real life is a 19 yo mom of a one month old with no job, no money, and no family who is living in a 5×8 room a friend is paying for. Real life is a man pointing a knife at you.

 

On Tuesday morning I was going with Ema, one of our amazing staff members, and Mariya, who is working in our MAP program, to go and check on this young mom to see about getting her in our outreach program and possibly helping her start her own business.  We gathered up rice, four, sugar, tea, and ugali and off we went to see her.

 

As we left Neema that morning, I climbed in the front seat because Ema was driving. As we were making the 45-minute drive over to this momma’s village I thought to myself, “I love when Ema drives. It’s a lot less stressful for me.” He always gets us to where we are going safely and I don’t have to be on the watch for motorcycles running into me, cows crossing the road, people walking into the car, or a billion other things. I could leave all of that to him to deal with and enjoy the ride!

 

So we were on the main road from Arusha to Kenya where we found ourselves stopped at a newly installed stoplight. Ema and I were talking about the stoplight and that it is nice that Arusha is getting more of these. Just as I was getting my phone out to take a picture of the stoplight I see out of the left hand corner of my eye a young man and a blind man walking towards the car. I continued to look straight ahead in hopes that if I acted like I didn’t notice them they would keep going.

 

My looking away didn’t work. He started asking for money and not in a kind way whatsoever. Ema was telling the man that this was no way to ask for help and no one would want to help him if this was the way he talked to people. Just as Ema was wrapping up this conversation, the man put his arm down on my window sill. Ema told him to not touch the car. (I’ll remind you that this was all said in Swahili so I’m sure I’m missing parts of what was said). As the man moved his arm away, he placed a knife pointed towards me on the window sill.

 

I have never sat so still in my entire life. I trust Ema and I knew in that moment I needed to let him handle it and all I needed to do was be still – to not freak out. While we were in the middle lane of a ton of traffic, Ema put the car in park and got out of the car yelling and running towards the man. The man ran to the side of the road and picked up a huge rock. I had the doors locked and my window up by this point. I cried out to Mariya, who was in the seat behind me, “What do I do?” – ‘cause I was fixin’ to haul butt to anywhere else. Before she could even answer me, Ema had run the guy off. Ema told me if the car hadn’t been parked in the middle of traffic he would have chased him down and….well… I’ll let you guess what he wanted to do to this man.

 

Ema got back in the car and we started off once more on our drive. I found myself biting my lip as tears rolled down my face. Maria had her hands on my shoulder from behind and Ema had his hand on my arm. Guys. This scared me. Life isn’t always about cute babies. It is about cute babies a lot of the time for me, but bad people are all around our world. It doesn’t matter if it’s a gunman in a church, a car driving through Big Bear, or a poor man trying to take five bucks with a knife. We must have our guard up at all times.

 

After seeing crazy knife man AGAIN the VERY NEXT day (this time I was able to very quickly drive away as he was staring at me), I started saying that I have a nemesis in Arusha. Then, today I was listening to “What a Beautiful Name” by Hillsong and got goose bumps as I sang along with the song, “You have no rival. You have no equal. Now and forever, our God reigns.” PREACH. We have so much power living in us as people who follow Christ and we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whatever it is you are facing, remember He has no rival and no equal. He has ALL of the power.

 

Real life is 19-year old moms who desperately need help. Real life is thinking multiple times a week, “At least I’m up-to-date on my tetanus shot.” Real life is kissing abandoned babies goodnight cause otherwise they wouldn’t have anyone else to do so. Real life is people begging for money with a knife. Real life is having a mountain of laundry staring at you. Real life is the stress of owning your own business.

 

Real life is hard. Though the nemesis we each face may look different, we can and should be praying for each other. Be praying especially for safety – for you and me and all of our loved ones.