6/27/98: Lazed around and did not much of anything today. The hospital campus was decidedly slow in activity, I guess because it was the weekend, and we had no formal assignments yet. Frustration is building…
NOTE: The photo above shows landscaping somewhere on the campus of AIC Kijabe Hospital and Rift Valley Academy. The overcast weather and damp fog seemed ever-present in Kijabe, but the beauty and color of the place could still be seen, if you looked.
6/27/23: Like the photo above, there was a chilling fog that seemed to cloud my experience in Kenya. I had a growing sense of unease, since we had nothing to do yet and had no definite plan either. And that foggy frustration started a negative feedback loop that began to build into annoyance. We had been told that on Saturdays local subsistence farmers and vendors would come by the guest house plying miscellaneous grocery goods, but by 11am we had only been visited by someone selling root vegetables. We bought some potatoes and carrots, but in my darkening mood this seemed paltry. Ever hungry, we walked into Kijabe town looking for a restaurant that the Bill & Carol J. had mentioned, but could not find that. We did see a place called the “Chicago Cafe” but it looked questionable as far as cleanliness was concerned, so we passed. Finally, we went back to our room and I grumpily made some eggs and a heap of fried potatoes.
Looking back, I laugh in embarrassment. But even now, I have much to learn about seeing through the fog of my own emotions and reflections. Thankfully, clarity is a gift that Christ gives. And it grows in the trusting:
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
—1 John 3:2-3“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
—1 Corinthians 13:12
On that future day I look forward to singing songs like Johnny Nash’s 1972 single “I Can See Clearly Now…”