Coming to America
Guest blogger Kristine Ndirangu is visiting Summit from Nairobi Chapel in Kenya for three months as part of a church staff exchange program. This is the first of a series of blog posts Kristine will be writing during her time here. She’s looking forward to sharing her experiences on the blog!
When Nairobi Chapel, the church I work for back in Nairobi, Kenya, informed me that would be leaving for the States for three months, I was really apprehensive and scared. You see, I have never really traveled anywhere, and this was going to be my first time coming to the U.S. and leaving everything behind for three months. I questioned God about this, and it was all green lights from Him. So I processed my papers, hopped on a plane, and headed out to the land of coffee-drinkers, large-portioned foods, and the best roads I have seen in my 30 years of existence.
You see, I am an introvert, and it was not easy for me to just wake up one day, pack my things, and leave my normal schedule to come to a foreign land. But as I was doing my Bible quiet time one day and read about how God called men and women to leave their comforts behind and start on amazing, life-transforming journeys that He alone knew the final outcome, I felt challenged.
My great call came in the form of a three-month staff exchange program that Nairobi Chapel conducts with some of its partner churches. The staff exchange is designed to further improve the relationship between Chapel and its partner churches—in this particular case, Summit.
When I got here, I was received with so much warmth and cheer by the leadership team as well as the staff team. It’s amazing the way God works, because as I was going to discover later, Summit and Chapel are similar. From the people who attend Sunday services, the ministries, the staff team, and even the leadership values that make up Summit, are all similar to Nairobi Chapel. So you can imagine how easy it was for me to settle down.
My prayer is that in the next two-and-a-half months, God will use me as a medium to further strengthen the existing partnership relationship between Nairobi Chapel and Summit. Back at Chapel, I work in the Communications department as the Assistant Communications Director. I specialize in graphics and web design, as well as IT. During my visit at Summit, I shall be serving in the Communications department as well as learning how the other ministries function. It’s my prayer that when my time is up and I go back home, I will have gathered as much information as I can to better impact my job, as well as lending helpful capacity to various teams here at Summit.
Let the transformation begin…
Keep an eye out for Kristine's next post!