Word of Life Church

As we come up on the end of our time here, we’ve been thinking back to all of the people we’ve met along the way. Without a doubt, the people who most impacted our time here are those from Word of Life Church in Diani, where we went to church on Sundays and where E taught Kindergarten. If it weren’t for that fateful Day 1 when E marched down the road looking for volunteer work and found it at Word of Life, our time where would have looked very different. Mary has been a guide for E through everything here and was the first person to invite us to church. On our first day, we stood up and introduced ourselves and said we were from the US. After the service, the pastor introduced himself as Dennis and said his wife, Allison, is American. Dennis and Allison hosted us for dinner many times, gave us tips on where/how to do things in Kenya and introduced us to Chris and Jamie Suel who are our closest friends in Kenya.

Ben was my spear-fishing partner in crime, Martin and Melanie and James and Jacinta were our Kenyan "couple-friends", and there are countless others who have shaped our time here.

Below are us with Dennis and Allison:





It is difficult living in a country with such disparity and an expectation of the “rich Americans” helping everyone they see (i.e. giving people money), so it was very refreshing to find a group of people who genuinely cared about us and didn’t expect anything from us other than love and respect.

I’m doing this rotation in Kijabe now because we were introduced to some of the doctors here by people from our church!

In case you're wondering what "Kenyan church" music is like, here is a video for you:


Obviously the words are in Swahili which is true about 80% of the time for the songs though the preaching is in English. Also, did you notice the ululation that the women does about 10 seconds in? It's a common sound in a lot of Kenyan and Arabic-inspired music and women do it to express strong emotion whether happy or sad.

Word of Life is our first church as a couple, and has truly been a surprise and a God-send for us. We’re just so thankful to have been lead to a place where we have been welcomed like family so far from home.