The Language Helper

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in this house for almost one month. This of course included a trip to Nairobi to get some furniture and other household items and ended up being an extended stay due to a motorcycle running into our car. Fun times! (Thankfully we had a wonderful Kenyan friend help us sort it all out!) We’re glad to be back home. Our responsibility for these next months is to be diligent in language learning and we are thankful and excited for a space where we can do that more regularly instead of being on the move. When we moved in, our landlord, who is Maasai, said that he would look into finding us a language helper. Not sure if this person would be the right fit, we agreed, and he came into our home to help us a couple of weeks later. This young man introduced himself as James and I found out that he was about the same age as my brother, James. I have to say it warmed my heart a bit.

James is a high school graduate who made average grades, his mother passed away some years ago, he is the 5th of 8 children, and helps his father in the garden (shamba) day to day. He hopes to go to college to be a teacher, but can’t afford it. We have both been so thankful for James. He is humble, patient, and just has a sweet spirit about him. Our eighth time with him, he informed us that he was being drafted to the police force in Nairobi because of the recent Garissa attacks and security issues. I was shocked by the news. All of a sudden, this would be our last day with him as our teacher. I was shocked with just how I sad I was for him to not be our language helper anymore.

Corruption is very common in police work and my heart prayed that James would be able to be stand for the right things despite the temptations and difficulties that awaited him. I wanted so much to express our thanks on his last day. We all shared our daily hot beverage, and James showed us a list of things that were required for his entry to training and I remembered the many toiletry items that our dear friends the Espys had graciously gifted us before their departure in December. It was all that I had to express our thanks. But it brought me such joy to be able to give him some small things to check off his list. We dropped him off in Kimana that day, and tears started rolling down my cheeks. “He’s so young to be going into the police force,” I thought. There was just something special about his willingness to help and the friendship the three of us had already created in two short weeks. 

After this, I e-mailed a few folks to pray for James and for us to find another language helper that would be a good fit for us. We traveled to Nairobi, arrived back, and found out that not only had the government changed the police recruiting, but unfortunately, he hurt his foot and was unable to participate in the running portion of the tryout. So other than James’ hurt foot which seems to be doing fine now, we are thrilled for the good news. Ultimately, I hope to find a woman to help me in language learning too, but he has really been a great teacher for us both. Thanks for all the prayers you’ve prayed for God to bring people alongside us in this community. James is truly an answer to our prayers. Pray that we would be a blessing to him, too. Next Saturday, Chase hopes to go and play football (soccer) with him and his friends to meet more youth in the community. We think this is the beginning of a long friendship.