Currently I am writing to you from a dark candle lit room. The power in my apartment building went out about an hour ago, and I have been sitting here sometimes scrolling through social media, but mostly just reflecting, praying, and staring into the candle flames. 

Any time the power goes out I am immediately reminded of my time in East Africa. power outages were a daily occurrence in any town that we were staying in. And not even just a once a day thing, but multiple times a day for several hours at a time. 

One night in particular comes to mind. A moment that I know that I will never forget. We were staying just outside of a slum near Nairobi Kenya. I mean JUST over the railroad tracks from the slum. We all went to separate places for the night with young adults from a local church. 

I had the pleasure to stay with sisters Happy and Omega. Their parents had passed away and Omega worked to support the family while Happy stayed home and took care of their younger siblings. At that time, their siblings were all away at a boarding school so it was just the three of us for the night.  

On our walk home from the church, we stopped at the market to buy some things for dinner and while we were there the power went out. Of course, since this is a regular occurrence, we continued to go one with our business as if nothing had happened. 

We got to their house and the power was still out. They had a small mud-wall house with a tin roof. It had two rooms, a living/entertaining area and then a bedroom/kitchen/closet/storage area. They shared a “bathroom” with the rest of their neighbors.

We hung out in the living room for a while and chatted and they would from time to time yell at their next door neighbor to turn down his battery powered radio. They laughed at him as he only turned up the music louder. 

They invited me into the bedroom/kitchen/closet combo and they began to make us spaghetti for dinner (ironically I had had spaghetti the 4 nights before as well…yes, in East Africa), and get this. The power was still out. But we just sat around in the light of a candle cooking over their tiny gas powered camping stove and chatted like giddy girls at a slumber party. Three girls with two completely separate backgrounds brought together by God’s hand just over the railroad tracks from one of the world’s largest slums. 

So whenever the power goes out, instead of groaning or whining about not being able to connect to the wifi, or worrying about my cell phone running out of battery, I stop myself and think of my brothers and sisters in Christ that I met along the way in East Africa, and say a prayer for them, and thank God for the rarity of power outages, and for my clean water and ample food supply. 

What a beautiful gift I had tonight for over an hour to remember this sweet moment and thank God for all he has done.