Holy Week on Holy Ground

When I was a child... the Maasai Mara was a miraculous place we simply read about in our National Geographics. Even when I became a woman and my mission assignment became Kenya, it never occurred to me that I'd be able to see the Mara -- six hours and several hundred dollars away. However, a visitor's wish (and cost-sharing) coincided with a camp's off-season rates... So Anna and I spent two incredible days and nights this Holy Week marveling, often in silent awe, at God's creation. Neither of us could have done it alone, and it was a gift to cherish it together.

We traveled via four-wheel drive vehicle by day, exploring some of the 900+ square miles of the Mara with Isaac, our knowledgeable guide and a member of one of the seven tribes of Maasai. We stayed in an unfenced enclave by night, accompanied by more Maasai (replete with spears), as we made our way to the tent after dinner. We watched, we listened, and we prayed... as we traveled from near-desert to sweeping savannah to stone-encrusted hills. And we discovered that even our wazungu eyes could learn to see majestic elephants posing as rocks on ridges, playful lion cubs hiding-and-seeking in waves of grassy camouflage, and lithe cheetahs stalking their prey, unperturbed by our presence just two meters away.

Ashe oleng ("Asante sana" in the Maasai tongue), dear God. Thank you for your merciful love and your still-beautiful world. Please help us cherish both -- and one another -- as you would have us do, this and every (holy) week. Be with our families and friends around the world at Easter. And please, especially, be with our Kenyan friends, many of whom will never be able to see their own "holy ground" because $60/day (the per-person park entrance fee) amounts to two-months of pay that must feed their hungry children, instead. Amen.

P.S. Doesn't Anna's first photo look like the hand of God? More of my own will come after I get home and have broadband access to Picasa.