Loki and Grant Swanepoel were guests at our wedding just days before relocating to Kenya to serve as missionaries there. It has been my great joy to learn from them and support their efforts among the nomadic tribes of Northern Kenya: they are precious friends and faithful workers in the gospel: parents to four kiddos, leaders in their church, and fully committed to encouraging and training local pastors to be better equipped Bible teachers. In the way of missionaries , they have found themselves developing some mad skills: like repairing Land Rovers and water pumps. Also? Grant takes AMAZING photos. I asked Loki if she would write something for us. I’m so glad she did.
With President Obama’s recent visit to his ancestral home here in Kenya security measures were at an all-time high. Even the airspace around our Nairobi’s International Airport, Jomo Kenyatta, was closed for 72 hours. Having lived in Kenya now for more than 10 years of our married life, we have experienced our fair share of security concerns and a few narrow escapes. Friends and family of ours have been shot at. Just three months ago we had to be evacuated out of the area where we live and work due to a huge escalation in tribal violence.
Writing home about these scary events is hard. We cringe especially for our parents,who have to hear about all this from a distance and can ”only pray” about it. Being a Mom of four myself, I can understand how hard it must be for my Mom and Dad to worry and pray about yet another trip through bandit country. I always think that must have been the reason why God sent us an army once in answer to my parents’ prayers.
Let me explain. During my parents’ second visit to Kenya , we were driving to Nairobi on the notorious Great North Road, which stretches from the Ethiopian border in the North all the way to the South. Sections of it have since been tarmacked, but we used to joke that the only part of the name that was true was ”North”, since it was definitely not great and not much of a road.
We had been hearing reports of a UN vehicle that had been attacked by bandits on this road a few days before our trip. As we were driving down south to Nairobi, we ran into serious trouble with one of the shocks on our Landy. You guessed it, we broke down right by the place where the attack had taken place just a few days before. The front left shock turret (a short of tower-like little part on top of the shock for those of us who are laymen) had completely torn off. We were pacing up and down on the side of the road and my Dad came to me to say ” We need to pray to find a piece of wire here next to the road. Maybe we can somehow tie this thing up and make it to the next town”. I was trying to be calm and cheerful and make the kids comfortable on the kikoy (local wonder blanket/sheet used for everything) I had spread out for them on the desert sand under a thorn tree. I was even busier inside praying and scanning the bushes for possible attackers.
A few minutes later a British army vehicle appeared on the horizon, followed by another one and another one and another one. In the end, we counted more than 25 vehicles. They were out in Northern Kenya to do maneuvers with the Kenyan Defense Force (they do training here). In the convoy there were two fully kitted out mobile ”garages” with mechanics at the wheel. They had every Landy spare known to mankind in there. Their trained mechanics got out, looked at our car and had it jacked up, new turret mounted and all back on the road again in a matter of minutes. My eyes were brimming with tears. My Dad walked up to me and said ”Here we were praying for a wire, and the Lord sent an army!”
It was the one and only time that He did this particular thing for us. I think He was demonstrating to my dear parents that He is able to do whatever it takes to take care of us.
We live in times of shootings and insecurity on every side. I am not saying that God will, at all times, protect His own. He can, but sometimes He shows His glory in other ways too. For that day though I believe He wanted us all to know what can happen if one ‘just’ prays.
Loki Swanepoel is the wife of her favourite person in the world, and a missionary who is very thankful for the gospel, since she sees her own need for it daily. She is Mommy to a prospective electrical engineer, an aspiring knight, a perpetual sunbeam and a compassionate artist. You can follow their adventures on Facebook at Nomads Pulpit, and check out more of Grant’s incredible photos on Instagram at GrantsMind.P.S. Note from Bronwyn: All photos in this post are subject to copyright and may not be copied without permission from Grant Swanepoel. You may think no one can see you… but remember, you are seen by the God who sees what happens on deserted roads in Kenya… so act in light of that, mkay?