Alicia Lewin: The Bitter Sweetness

We are finally home from Africa. I never thought it would be so hard to come home from a country that's so poor. You would think I would be relieved to have a normal shower and a nice bed and a comfy home to come home to but it's harder than I thought. I'm afraid of forgetting the experience we had in Africa. It made such a huge impact on our lives that even the thought of going back to work and regular life and "moving on" to live like a regular American is so dissatisfying to me! Life is so simple in Kenya and time slows down. There is no tv to keep you distracted, there's no big stores to keep you wanting more "stuff" all the time, there's no Starbucks to make you feel like you need coffee or to make you feel like in order to be cool you need to sit there sipping your latte with a Mac in front of you. It's not so complicated. In Kenya you wake up and your only concern is if you'll have water to take a shower or if the electricity will be on so you can have light at night. In Kenya, life just happens and you hardly have to plan your days or have a schedule. You pretty much just have to think a day or two in advance for major things like, if you need to go to the store/market for food, but other than that you take the days as they come. In Kenya, when it's time for bed, you sleep. There's no tv to keep you up or no wifi to use to browse Facebook; you are legitimately tired from walking everywhere and from the sun so at bed time you're physically exhausted (which was a nice change because David and I are normally mentally exhausted from working on our computers all day at our day jobs). It really was a blessing to get to experience the life style there. We are hoping to try to slow our lives down in Colorado but life in the States is so different. EVERYTHING is so fast paced and our jobs take up most of our lives! So much that all we can look forward to is the weekend so we're hoping that everyday before Saturday goes by fast which makes life fly by. There is no time to just enjoy the moment in America. There is no time to do the things we love or spend time with the people we love. Life just comes and goes.

With ALL of that said and because the matter of fact is that David and I can't just quit our jobs and move to Africa…..(yet), we are just trying to remind ourselves that the Lord has provided so much for us and that where we are is where the Lords will is for us in this time. We are meant to be in America right now at our jobs in the cities where we work and live in the city where we live. Even though our hearts are somewhere else and now even more hungry to travel, we will be still before the Lord and listen and wait for His timing and His direction! We will be obedient and learn to love the people that are around us here while praying for those in Kenya.

Anyway, thanks for reading guys! I know this post was long. I try to keep them short and sweet because who wants to go through pages of someones random thoughts?

With love,
Alicia

On Lake Victoria in a boat

Megan looking all pretty in the boat

We got to see an African eagle. Looks a lot like an American eagle from here.

The cool rustic boat we rode in.

I made David take a picture of me because I'm hardly in any of them lol.

One of the locals boats

Some fishermen

During our travels home, we had a 10hr layover in London so we spent a couple hours in the city and saw some cool stuff as well as rode the London Eye.

Here is the train station.