Guest Post by Justin Snell.
As I was going back through my pictures last night I came across this photo. The more I flipped through the pictures, it has become one of my favorites from the trip.
As you may know, our trip was to invest in the men of Ngaamba. Specifically our team came up with the following mission statement: “To inspire and lead the men of Ngaamba into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ through the local church.” We wanted to engage the men in a way that created community for them in the context of their faith and encouraged them to be better leaders. When we met with the men on Monday we talked underneath a tree outside of the church for a couple hours. When school let out the children were walking home and as they passed by they stopped at the fence to see what the men were doing. What they saw was a group of men talking about becoming better husbands, fathers, church and community leaders.
The little boy in the top picture is Kyalo (pronounced cha-lo). At first glance it’s just a picture of a boy looking across a field shielding his eyes from the sun. But what the picture doesn’t show you is the group of men that he’s watching. That same group of seven Americans and probably 15 to 20 Kenyans playing American football. It’s a tangled mess of shouting, instruction, laughing, and playing. Perhaps he’s captivated by this strange game that doesn’t involve kicking a ball. Or maybe he just wants to hold the football in his hands and see if he can throw it and catch it like the others.
His interest, whatever it is, is piqued. And it’s piqued because he sees American men engaged and interacting with Kenyan men. When I look at the picture I can’t help but wonder if maybe Kyalo wants to do more than just play a new game. I wonder if he was one of the boys that stopped at the fence to see what the men were doing. Intrigued that just the men were meeting, as men.
I think more than just a new game he wanted to be a part of the group of men. I can’t help but think that the gaze you see in the picture shielding the sun, is the gaze of the next generation of men in Ngaamba becoming the leaders God has called them to be because of what happened on that field.
