Day 25: Part II: The Infamous Chick Story

My first time catching one of the three newly hatched chicks

So by now this story has circulated around a bit but here is the rest of Day 25 (aka "Worse Day Ever"):

So Dylan and I finally got home, tired and still miffed about what we had to endure that morning. To lighten things up, we decided to play with 3 newly hatched chicks. Ever since they had hatched, Dylan and I often entertained ourselves by running around and trying to pick the chicks up. This task was harder than it sounds because the mother hen was extremely protective and would try to peck at us. On this day, the hen and her chicks were foolishly loitering in an open field, whereas they're normally by the house which meant they could run under things to hide from us. Easy pickings for me and Dylan. With Dylan fending off the hen, I managed to catch 2 of the 3 chicks. It was time to catch the last one, take a picture, and show everyone back home how skilled I was at picking up chicks (pun very much ended haha).

So as I'm cradling the 2 chicks in my hands, I rush at the third one. As I reach to scoop it up, I stumble over the uneven ground and trip. I drop the two chicks as I was holding...and accidentally step on one of them. The chick is immediately writhing and spasming on the ground, all the while shrieking in pain. I stare down at the creature and all I can think is, "Oh no..." Within a minute, the chick is dead. I had just killed a cute, innocent, little animal. For me, running around trying to catch the chicks was a game, but to my host family, that chick could grow into a chicken and provide food or something.

Doris, our host grandmother, comes by right then and looks down and sees the dead chick. I apologize and try to explain it was an accident, but she doesn't seem to care too much. But still, never before have I felt so much guilt. For the rest of the day, all I could think about was how I was so angry during the morning and how I killed a chick. I honestly couldn't stand the shame from knowing what I had thought and done that day. Later on in the day, Edith takes Dylan and me to her father's house (Pastor was still in Nairobi). When we're asked to share a word with her family, I let Dylan do it because I honestly was in no mood to try to say anything remotely spiritual in my current state.

So this is something I haven't mentioned yet, but by this point in the missions trip, my contacts were hurting my eyes. I hate wearing glasses though and so I still wore my contacts as often as possible.

As we're walking home, my contacts are driving me crazy and I'm still thinking about what I could do to make things right for the family. As we're heading to the normal Tuesday even intercessory prayer meeting, Edith turns to us and mentions that one of us will give a message at the meeting. I sigh inwardly because I know it's my turn to speak because Dylan had done so at Edith's family's home. Not only did I not want to speak, but I had no idea what I would even speak on. Just when we're entering the church, I feel a sudden urge to speak on Matthew 26 when Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. When I'm asked to come up to give the message, my contacts are still hurting and I'm blinking like crazy as I'm reading the Bible. But as I speak, I feel like God is giving me the words to say. So for the entire message, I speak as passionately as I've ever spoken and with the knowledge that my words were not my own. When the prayer meeting ends, I walk out feeling slightly redeemed knowing that God had still used me despite my idiocy but I still had to deal with the dead chick.

Before dinner, I decide to talk with Doris. I tell her that I'm going to make things right and that I'll buy another chick for the family. I sort of expected Doris to accept my plan and that things would be cool, but she becomes slightly upset at the notion of me buying another chicken. Eventually she looks me in the eyes and says something I'll never forget: "You're my boy. Just be free."

In that moment, I felt God telling me, "Yeah, Myron you're a complete fool but whatever grace this woman has shown you, my grace is infinitely better. No matter how many times you fail me, I'll still forgive and love you. Heck, I'll even use you like I did tonight." I stood there in shock for a few seconds at her words really hit me.

When people ask what I got out of Kenya, it's moments like these. It's not like a had one monumental experience that completely changed my life; instead, it was God showing me lessons every single day through little things. Would that I could be just as in tune with God here in America as I was in Kenya. This day couldn't have gone more terribly wrong, but in the end, I learned tangibly that God truly does remove all the shame and loves me more greatly than I could ever imagine. It only took going to Kenya and accidentally killing a chick for me to get that.

This happened a minute before I committed the unforgivable act