Baking on the Mission Field: Kenya Edition

After a 3-hour van ride to Addis Ababa, an overnight in a missionary guest house, a 5:45am wake up call, and only a 3-hour flight, my squad and I made it to Nairobi, Kenya! We switched teams for this country, and I am my team’s TL (team leader)! While in Kenya, my team was Ava, Amanda, Areonah, Mandy, and myself. Here we are!

We partnered with a ministry called Eden’s Hope that runs a crisis pregnancy clinic for teenage/young moms. Throughout our time there, we helped with a vacation Bible school (VBS) camp, led devotionals and Bible studies for the young moms and their families, and visited schools and homes. We also had the unique opportunity to use our specialized skills to pour into this ministry, which turned out to be such a blessing! Amanda was able to use her accounting degree to help our host finish all of her accounting before her annual fundraising dinner in the States. Ava was able to use her artistic talents to lead the team in painting six murals inside their office and classroom building. And I was able to use my baking skills yet again on the race, too! We are 5 for 5 countries so far!

I baked in a number of different ways while in Kenya, including baking for the graduating high school seniors, leading a cookie-decorating station during an event, and teaching a woman one-on-one who wants to open her own bakery soon, but one opportunity stands out.

We led a women’s devotional every Saturday morning with the young, pregnant moms in one group called Living Hope and all of the women over 27 years of age in another group called Thriving Hope. I was always with Thriving Hope. One Saturday morning I led a baking class teaching them how to make spiced snickerdoodles that we then packaged up for them to give to their loved ones, along with their written testimony of coming to know the Lord. Amanda and I taught on how to share your testimony as a method to share the Gospel. Each woman left with two cookies and a hard copy of their testimony to give to a loved one, so that they can share the Gospel with that person through the word of their testimony, just like Scripture encourages us to in Revelation 12:11. “[T]hey overcame him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,” (Revelation 12:11). This turned out to be such a powerful experience.

In Kenyan culture, many people claim to be Christian without really knowing what they’re saying, without really having given their lives to Christ, without really letting the fact that He died for them permeate every aspect of their lives. So we taught on how to write your testimony as a way of inspiring them to really consider how Jesus has changed their lives, maybe to find out that they haven’t let Him yet. Amanda emphasized that your life before Jesus should look drastically different than your life after, and if you don’t see a change, then ask yourself if you really gave your life to Jesus in the first place, because that’s the most important question every person must answer.

I emphasized that you don’t know what your faith is made of, or if it’s true, until you face trials that shake you to your very core. I illustrated that by sharing my own testimony of my faith being put to the fire after my boyfriend passed away a little over 2 and a half years ago. I faced the very real choice of walking away from the God who let this happen, or choosing to pursue Him and find some real answers to who He is. He is Truth regardless of what I want to be true, and He is good even when I don’t understand that. He is who He is, and it is for me to spend my life getting to know Him better and sharing with others how He’s shown up in my own life in ways that I can understand. That’s my prayer for everyone I love, that He will show up in their own lives in ways that they can understand, whatever that means for each individual.

So after baking a batch of cookies with the women in addition to the five batches I made the day before, and giving them half an hour to write their testimonies, close to forty women left that Saturday with two cookies and a testimony to give away. Of course, they and their kids each got to eat a cookie themselves, too! This opportunity to bake on the mission field was much more geared away from the baked goods themselves, and more towards the love that they can share. In a way, the cookies were a vehicle to sharing the Gospel. They opened the door to sharing the Gospel in that no one is going to say no to a bag of cookies! And now they get to hear the Gospel, too, from the personal perspective of someone they know, love, and trust. Which could be exactly what someone needed.

I do know where one person’s testimony ended up. She gave hers to Haley, our host, who graciously shared it with me. This woman shared about her history of being a victim of domestic abuse and how Jesus changed her heart and her family’s. She pointed to a clear time of when life before accepting Jesus became life after accepting Jesus, and thanked Haley for letting the Lord work through her and Eden’s Hope to make that happen. Haley thanked me for leading them in that, so that she could see more of the fruit of the Lord’s ministry through her, and I pointed it all back to God. Not my words, not my skills, not my leading, but His. He is the only way any of this is possible. He gets all of the glory!

Again the Lord has opened doors and shown me more of His goodness and intentionality. What a joy to experience Him in entirely new ways here. He has always been God here just as much as He is God at home.