Neema

I am a sister, mother and friend to twenty one orphans in the town of Ngong, Kenya. Aging from eight to eighteen, they are the reason I am who I am today and talking about them is enough to reflect my true heart. To explain myself apart from them would be dishonest because they are on my mind constantly. I spent only eight days with those precious children two Junes ago and found myself completely in love. Their smiles were captivating, a window into the most open and trusting hearts I had ever witnessed. They sang of struggle, knowing the word all too well and held my hand tight enough to tell me they would never let go. From the moment I met them, they allowed a relationship to be built, one that I had no idea I needed until I was connected in a bond that truly knows no boundaries.

Half-way around the world, I still feel their love as strongly as I did when I was shivering in that hard dining hall for a movie night, a rainy night, with a green plastic chair to sit on and little Sharon asleep on my lap, Grace leaning on my shoulder. I cherished every second of being their shelter that night and they did not leave my side for the rest of the week.

I felt weak to leave them in Kenya, like I wasn’t strong enough to take them home with me. Home. I don’t think I really understood the meaning of that word, and so many others before I met the girls at Providence. They re-defined every single characteristic I thought I had or wanted to acquire. They had faced trauma like no one I have ever met to get them to the orphanage, to a safe place. Yet their hearts were full, so full. Their faith unshaken, like no hunger, rape, disease or death would ever stop them from loving their God. To think I was there to minister to them. They taught me more about myself and my faith than they nor I will ever understand and as if the hand-written letters in broken English, foam pictures of butterflies and hearts, threaded bracelets with colorful beads and drawings of the important things in their life, of me, of them, of me with them weren’t enough, their laughs and tears left a mark on my heart that no American luxury can take away.

No matter how appealing the ability to drive to the grocery store, shower with warm water and sleep without a mosquito net around my head are, I would give every single day living in Nashville if it meant I could spend my life with my family in Kenya. The hardship there is real, more so than the first-world problems that I find in this country of comfort and pride. They get it in Kenya. They understand the true meaning of life with spiritual richness and no material fluff to distract them from how they should live their lives. They have the kind of undying faith that God wants all of His children to have, the kind He sent his son to teach us about, the kind that Jesus died with and for. The girls in Africa understand that.

A dark face looked into my soul and gave me a name that I have since not forgot. She called me Neema and I was her best friend. At the time I thought she was just saying Megan in Swahili. I found out later that the name is an African baby name meaning “born in prosperity”. I can’t help but think of the true meaning behind this title. Maybe it was meant as a reminder, to not only be grateful for the blessings I live with but to be inspired to help others do the same, or maybe it was meant as a wake-up call. I now know that I am called not to this place but to another, to the land of red dirt and black skin. Whatever the meaning is, I am willing to find out and hopefully sooner than later. I am not just another Megan on the street. I am Neema and I belong to the children in Kenya.