Typical

"Typical," I found myself saying quite a bit recently. As in I would hear "A cop was trying to get a bribe off me today," or "my group couldn't open a bank account because their documents didn't have official stamps," or "today I waited for 3 hrs for a meeting with people who never showed up," and my response would always be a quick "typical." A small word that says quite a bit, a word filled with assumed knowingness on the part of the speaker, and a bit of disdain on top. A word that allows the speaker to say, "that's not the way it should be," with no commitment to addressing the problem or acknowledgement that more might be going on.

You know what's really typical? My distinctly American arrogance. My tendency to judge before understanding, to pretend understanding before wrestling with the issues, to make, believe, and act on barely hidden "generalities" that are really nothing short of racist bigotries is incredibly typical. How easy it is to pretend to have the answers, or even to pretend to understand the problems? Or worse, to pretend to understand the individual image bearers of God who we rush by and bump into in daily life?

Everything is so different here. And the easiest way to deal with diversity is through simplistic judgment. But somewhere in between my thoughts of how "typical" the complicated bureaucracy or time management around here is, Jesus broke through in the lives of miraculously beautiful individual Kenyan men and women. John, a young man lame in both legs who gets around by peddling a bicycle/chair with his hands, but who speaks perfect English and is a leader among the Kirinyaga farmer's group. Hezekiah, Monene, and Chege, the leaders of the Mang'u farmers group who visted over 25 farmers in their group to encourage them to get back on track with the group and to keep working hard. The thousands of young children who've grown up with more adversity than the average American experiences in their whole lives, yet who still smile and laugh and play like they haven't a care in the world, and the literally millions of Kenyans who keep returning to their farms year after year, to sow and to reap, to stake their livelihoods on a career dependent on fickle weather patterns, and who have so very little, but who never fail to stop and offer two rich, arrogant, Americans a cup of chai and whatever food is available.

What's typical is how quickly we forget that we don't know everything, and even more importantly, that God is telling us something beautiful in every single person we so often rush past throughout every busy day of our lives. And sometimes it takes going to Kenya to remember.