Kucheza Wimbo

Recently I ventured back to Kenya on a medical mission trip 3 years after my first trip there. In a way, it felt like going home. I left a big part of my heart there, and for so long my heart had been bursting to go back to reclaim the pieces I had left behind. I missed everything about the country. I missed the people and their smiles. I missed the smell of the crisp air in the mara. I missed falling asleep under a million stars to the sound of hyenas and elephants roaming in the night. I missed having red dirt in every crevice of every article of clothing I owned. I missed being the good kind of exhausted, the kind of exhausted where your bones hurt from working for a purpose. But I think what I missed most of all were the maasai children. 

The maasai children are very unique from any other group of kids I’ve ever encountered. They uphold a sense of honor for their elders. Whenever one approaches an adult, they bow their head and wait for the adult to place a hand on their head as a sign of a blessing. They are unceasingly grateful. They get excited over the smallest things- stickers, bubbles, bracelets, face paint, beanie babies, soccer. They love to play and play hard. Their energy is unmatched and contagious. And they especially love to sing. 

I learned some basic words in swahili in my time in Kenya. But probably the most important words I learned were kucheza wimbo: play a song. And when we wanted to keep going, I would say, kucheza wimbo mwininge: play another song. They would erupt in traditional maasai songs and even english songs about Jesus. And they would dance and smile and laugh with a joy so pure and wonderful. It was contagious. 

At first, I felt a little silly when they would ask me to dance and sing with them. But looking back on the experience, I’m reminded of something Rob Morris, founder of Love146, said once when he visited a safe home: 

“When the broken ask you to dance, you dance.” 

These kids really have so little. Many of them walk for miles to get to school and more to get clean water. They have just enough food to get by. Their clothes are few and torn. They have little access to medical care. They have no electricity, no running water. And many come from families of very broken circumstance. 

In the eyes of the world, these children would be considered very poor and very broken. But when I looked them in the eye while they were dancing, I locked eyes with the richest human beings on the earth. They were abundant in the joy of their father, of their mungu baba. I, the middle class American, was the one who was empty and hollowed by the mundane cycle of conformity to the western world. The broken asked me to dance, and in turn, my brokenness was exposed. But the sweet thing about dancing, is that when you dance, you dance with abandon. All brokenness is taken aside and healed when you dance in the center of joy with the Father. 

I’m so grateful the Father asks me to dance with Him. For the joy that was set before Him, He was broken for my sinfulness and conquered death so that I may have life in Him. So that I may dance with Him. He invites the broken to dance with Him in the center of joy. And in that perfect joy, that sweet dance on our Daddy’s feet, there is healing. He asks the broken to dance. And the broken are made whole. 

Press In

The two most dreaded tasks of babysitting are changing diapers and putting the baby to sleep. Changing diapers explains itself. But the true challenge comes in trying to calm a restless baby. They kick and cry and squirm. They muster all the strength a small human can gather to resist falling asleep. And all I can do in these moments is hold them closer, sing over them and try to calm them down. Regardless of whether it takes five minutes or thirty to soothe them, it feels like a life time before they finally give in and sleep. 

While it can be one of the most dreaded tasks, it can also be one of the sweetest moments. One of the best feelings in the world is when the baby finally gives into rest and presses her head into your chest. It’s the epitome of peaceful. You feel so content and accomplished because something you tried so hard to pacify is finally at ease. 

Sometimes I wonder if God gets the same sense of satisfaction when we receive Him and rest in His presence. It can be easy for us to fall into a trap of resisting rest as we pursue our own ways. We fight and kick against anything that feels restricting. And even when we fight against God, He still chooses to love us, still chooses to hold us. He sings over us and pulls us closer. And the sweetest moment comes when we give into His embrace and press into His presence. In the quiet of surrender, if we listen close enough, we can hear His heartbeat as our head rests against His chest. How sweet a moment this must be for both the Creator and the created.  

God delights in us when we choose to rest in Him, when we give into the call to simply be still and know that He is God. He takes joy in being our protector, in being our perfect Father. He holds all of the oceans in the hollow of His hands, and with these same hands He reaches out to calm the storms in our souls. There is incomparable peace that comes when we press into the heart that beats to the perfect rhythm of grace. All we have to do is be still, listen in as He sings over us and rest in His unmatched peace.