Charis Around the World

Childbirth in Kenya

by Jannekah Guya, Charis midwifery student

Adali, Ezriel, Jannekah, Amariah and Shiloah Guya

My Dear Charis Family,

For the past few years my children and I have been observing Advent and it has become our most precious and anticipated part of the Christmas season. It focuses our hearts on the anticipation of the birth of our Savior! We get impatient waiting just 25 days. I can’t imagine what it was like for the generations who were truly waiting for His arrival – for lifetimes, for hundreds and even thousands of years! The tension of the anticipation, the excited hushed waiting, the secret we all share - It reminds me so much of the sweet labors and births I have been so privileged to be a part of in Kenya.

It takes me right back to a warm, tiny, overcrowded, peaceful room. Waiting. Quiet conversation. A cup of tea. Waiting. Laughter. Intimate friends. Waiting. And then……a miracle. The most precious kind of gift. What could be more precious than waiting for the birth of a baby? What could be more miraculous than bearing witness to a new life entering the world? What could be more like Christmas than that?

Waiting on a birth with friends and tea in a tiny room

At Christmas time in Kenya, whole cities and towns are often quite literally left completely abandoned. Like being called away and counted for a census, Kenyans return to their ancestral homes and villages. They often endure long, treacherous, unimaginable journeys to reach their family home. Of all the Christmases I’ve been blessed to celebrate, one of the Christmases I treasure most deeply in my heart is a Christmas in the village. Kenyans celebrate their extended family being together again with feasts of slaughtered cows, goats, and chickens. The women wear their beautiful new dresses. They sing. They dance. They sit around the fire talking all through the night. Kenyans LOVE their stories. They love telling them and they love hearing them. It’s common to be greeted in Swahili with a happy, “Sema!” Which means, “Tell me something!” So often I’ve been with a friend walking, doing chores, or drinking tea, and they’ll say, “Tell me a story.”

Not surprisingly, birth stories are my favorite kind of story. But Kenyans do not openly tell this kind of story because talk of pregnancy and birth are generally culturally taboo. The fact that Kenyans are often named according to the circumstances surrounding their birth only adds to my curiosity and the temptation to break the cultural norm and ask the story behind it. Some babies are named Wafula, which means rain, because it was raining or during the rainy season when they were born. That’s pretty straight forward. Some are named Otieno – born at night, or Akyini - born in the morning. Some are named Owino, meaning the umbilical cord was wrapped around them when they were born. That’s a little more tempting to ask about. However when I found out my brother-in-law’s name, Oyoo, means born by the side of the road, I couldn’t contain myself and had to ask. Turns out his mother was on the long, treacherous, extremely bumpy journey back to her home village. She went into labor and there was nowhere to go. No houses nearby, no inns…nope, not even a stable. And sweet baby Oyoo was born on the side of the road. That’s all I know about his birth story, but one day I hope I can get up the courage to ask his mother about it and hear the whole story from her beautiful mother’s heart. Besides it being a taboo topic, I know it is a painful one for her. She was sadly not traveling home to her village for Christmas when Oyoo was born. She was traveling home to her village to bury her 2-year-old son. When someone dies in Kenya they are taken home to their ancestral village and buried there. I imagine the devastation, the stress, and the horrible roads were just more than her pregnant body could take.

Oyoo with my daughter Amariah

Which brings me back to thoughts of Advent. Oh how I long for the day when there will be no more death, no more pain, no more sadness, no more tears, no more suffering….no more longing for Home. One day we will all be reunited at our family Home for a never-ending Christmas. We will sit around and endlessly tell each other stories of His wondrous goodness, glory, and might.

In reading about Advent this year I discovered something lovely. We all know that Advent is the season observed as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity (birth) of Jesus at Christmas. But I discovered that advent also means, “arrival, emergence, materialization, and dawn” And just like only our Father knows the exact date and time a sweet baby will be born, He alone knows the exact moment that Jesus will return. In the meantime, all creation groans together as in the pains of childbirth as we await His advent. This Christmas we celebrate His first coming with great joy and gratitude! But we are also tense with anticipation, excited and hushed, treasuring the knowledge that He is coming AGAIN.
Merry Christmas!

*Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
Jannekah
*Titus 2:13 

My daughter Amariah standing on her great-grandfather's grave in her ancestral village, Otonglo

 

Our International Charis Family
Your stories from around the world touch us and we pray for your safety.
Thanks, Love and Blessings to every one of you!

 'Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the ends of the earth,
 Among  them the blind and the lame, The woman with child and The one who labors with child,  together,
 A great throng shall return there...And My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the LORD.'
 Jeremiah 31:8, 14~~~
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December 2017