Tim Keel's Blog: In Nairobi - a Warm Welcome and a Surprise

We've been in Nairobi for two days and depart this morning for Kericho, then Pokot.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and after settling in at the Lanana Guest House (the same one we stayed at during the Nairobi Amahoro field trip last year), we joined Pastor Edward Simiyu and his family for dinner at their home. Edward's wife Beatrice prepared a wonderful meal and we enjoyed a time of eating and catching up with one another. A few people we met from City Harvest Church also joined us. It was very good to be back in Edward's home only one year after last being there.

On a kind of random note, I don't ever associate positive experience with passing through an airport. But passing through Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta airport on Saturday we had not one, but two great experiences.

After an uneventful flight we made our way to the visa/customs counter. We were intercepted by a Kenyan official who ushered us to an unseen, unoccupied line just opened. All six of our team passed through customs in less than five minutes. In another ten we had our luggage and were passing out into the arrivals area looking for whoever was picking us up. Phyllis Njuguna and Peter (?) were waiting for us with a "Jacob's Well Church" sign. It was unnecessary. We recognized them and they us. We were greeted with warm smiles and embraces.

Looking around the place I slowly/quickly realized that I had seen something that, on a subconscious level, didn't seem right. I rescanned the area my eyes had passed over and realized that a good friend of mine from college was standing ten feet away from me. I looked over now and saw my friend Sean Sheridan.

Sean lives in Colorado Springs and is a writer and filmmaker. He does all kinds of different projects with his company, 4:Minute Media. A few years ago Sean began traveling regularly to Africa making films for World Vision. The work of his that I have seen is very compelling. Before I left I knew we were going to be in Africa at the same time, in fact our time in Kigali was going to briefly overlap. We exchanged emails leading up to our departure but then were never able to connect. I was bummed, but I figured we'd eventually reconnect over email upon our return. It's probably been five years since I have seen Sean. I was hoping to see him, and also to surprise Ruthie Harrison, who was also in the same community of friends from college. I didn't tell her about the possibility of seeing Sean, wanting to surprise her. Now knowing that it wasn't going to happen, I told her of my frustrated plan while we were waiting for our luggage. Then less than ten minutes later there he was - right in front of us.

Apparently Sean had arrived that morning at 5:00 a.m. He had two flights cancelled and wasn't departing until sometime after 11:00 p.m. He was killing time and decided to leave the secure departure area for some variety. The story gets better still, though. When I approached him, he was talking to a very young woman holding a baby. He introduced me to her as Rhoda. Rhoda is a refugee from Sudan. Sean had met Rhoda sometime in the previous couple of years when he came across her working on the crisis in Sudan. I think she may have even been featured. In the same place we discovered each other, Sean had discovered, amazingly, Rhoda. It was good to see them interact. I didn't get much of her story because we only had a short time and everyone was going in separate directions. Hopefully I will learn more.

Seeing Sean was a really surprising and good gift. It seemed like God allowed a number of circumstances to align in such a way to give me a really good gift. In fact, I was trying to surprise Ruthie but it was me who was surprised...

This morning we attended City Harvest Church's worship service - another sweet reunion. I had the honor of speaking there. This humble group of people are really engaging their community with opportunities for spiritual, social, economic, and physical transformation. In other words, the gospel. I will write more about our time with them in the coming days.

For now we are packing up again and preparing to head out to Pokot with some of the people of City Harvest. We don't really know what to expect. When we tell Kenyans where we are going they get a confused look on their faces and ask, "Why?" I am not taking my computer, but will be recording my experiences by photo and journal. When I return I will transcribe some of our experiences to the blog. I think we all miss home, but our time here is good and we are grateful to be here.