Sketches from Quarantine in Kenya — Journey with the Starks

Change of plans

At long last, here we are at our Tenwek home. Our path to get here was different than what we had planned.

We landed in Nairobi earlier this week at about 10 pm, welcomed by our “mentors”, a veteran missionary couple who will guide us through the first year in Kenya. They helped direct us and all our luggage to our hotel for the night where we and the kiddos passed out asleep. The plan was to remain at the hotel for the next few days, making trips with our mentors through Nairobi, purchasing items needed for groceries and furnishing our house, then take it all with us to Tenwek.

Our plans changed as we woke the following morning to an email informing us that we had been exposed to COVID just a couple days before our departure, and we would need to get to our house in Tenwek immediately for quarantine. Thankfully, the team at Tenwek were able to pivot with us, and do some of our basic grocery shopping for us, and allow us to use some WGM furniture and appliances in our house during quarantine.

We have heard folks from WGM quoting Proverbs 16:9 again and again, “We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.”

So here we are in our new home, unpacking, getting situated as a family. We were hoping to spend some of our first days at Tenwek walking around outside as a family and learning the area together, and getting to know the other families in the area. Those moments of introduction have been limited to folks appearing on our doorstep, dropping off meals for us. We are thankful for the ways our team has been looking out for us, and we are very much looking forward to developing further relationships with them, and our neighbors.

The other part that has been delayed is our ability to interact with our new surroundings, including the markets, neighborhoods, roads, and people around the Hospital area. We can’t wait to go out and see the community firsthand. But in the meantime, we wait and remember that God is good, He is in control, and He is with us. We trust that this same God is determining our steps.

Thank you notes to everyone who provided meals for us. Maps included!

“Going Dark” Deferred

In our last newsletter, we told folks that we were planning on taking a break from communicating with people from home, so we could make a concentrated effort for the first couple months to be present in our new home and our new community. Quarantining has pushed off our “going dark date”. We will initiate that when we are able to get out of the house this weekend. For now, we are still communicating, because what else are we to do while we are not leaving the house.

Isolating Outside

The yard immediately outside our home is shared by all our neighbors. It has a tree swing that we have seen multiple neighbor-kids using. We have told our kiddos that it is not yet time for us to use the swing, but soon they can go out and meet and play with their neighbors. For now, the Tenwek WGM team has allowed us to take our kiddos to a fenced-in yard of a currently unoccupied house to get our wiggles out in isolation, and it has been a LIFE SAVER. This yard even has a tree-swing of its own.

4 Tortoises live in that yard. They have become our friendly acquaintances.

Ndudu!

We have had some interesting introductions to the local insects of the Tenwek area. We have learned the importance of mosquito nets at night. One of our children initially rejected the idea of having a protective forcefield around him at night. A couple days of scratching and looking like he has the chicken pox have started to change his mind.

I slightly remember that during our Swahili tutoring in the US, our tutor did not speak of ants in an approving manner. We didn’t give it much thought at the time, but our kids got to understand what she was talking about this week. Ransom and Gideon unknowingly climbed on a tree swarming with these ants. The “ndudu” made their pinching presence known, and our children screamed their way home, taking off their clothes and jumping into the bathtub. We were able to laugh at it later that night. It certainly changes how I think of the phrase “ants in your pants”.

We have been told that an important element that keeps families healthy through the transition to a new country is the ability to laugh together. We pray God grants us the perspective to laugh at ourselves as we make mistakes together.

We have been posting our yays and yucks for each day on the wall. This day’s yuck was unanimous.

Game on

During the past few months, I went through multiple phases questioning whether the amount of board games I was packing was ridiculous or not. While, Moselle would still likely argue that the amount of games we have is ridiculous, they are already proving their worth. We plan to play at least 1 board game a day as a family until we get out of quarantine. I am so thankful for the ability for us to gather together and have fun in this way.

Race against the rain

We found out we are in the middle of one of two rainy seasons that happen in this part of Kenya. Nearly every day here during this season begins with a clear, bright sunrise, transitioning over the morning to rainclouds that dump sometime between noon and 3 pm. This creates a crucial early morning window for hanging out clean clothes to dry. Folks here are able to work with the sun/rain schedule to ensure dry, clean laundry at the end of the day. Moselle and I are not quite there, but this week has allowed us some time to experiment with our timing. Some days are successes. And other days we are either too late or too ambitious, leaving us with quite a bit of damp laundry that will need to wait until the next day for another attempt at drying. Thankfully, we have a covered back porch where we can store our failed experiments.

Memories in the making

Veteran missionary families have told us time and again that they look back at the first weeks and months of transitioning as a family to a new location with fondness. I am starting to see what they are talking about. This is a unique time in our lives where everything is new for all of us. This brings big highs of discovery and adventure, along with matching lows that also come from times of great unknowns. We can see even now that God is with us, guiding us through all the unexpected bumps and twists in the plans. We are so glad to have so many people praying for us, and there have already been countless times where we see your prayers at work, and God is making the path straight for us.

We may not have another update for a little bit as we do actually, go “dark” for a bit. But I promise there will be more stories to come when we return to communication. Next week we start a 3 month season of intensive Swahili learning.