Desert life

Exodus 6:2 (NASB) God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am the LORD..."

This place in northern Kenya was desolate. The ground was dry and hard. Vegetation sparse. A small crowd gathered to welcome the boxes of booklets on the backs of camels and to dedicate the newly translated Bible portions of Genesis and Exodus. The singing began and the dancing started. Mothers with infants sat under the whispers of shade given by a lone acacia tree.

I looked around at the level land stretching farther than I could see and considered the stories now available in the tribal language. Moses, herding his flock when a burning bush caught his eye. Joseph, left for dead in a pit in the desert. The children of Israel wandering and wandering, year after year in the wilderness. At that moment I considered how I must use my imagination to picture each of those events, but how familiar these stories will be to the camel-herding nomads of eastern Africa. They will know parts of God’s goodness and character that I, from my university-trained, interstate-laddened western perspective, will never quite comprehend.

Later other books of the Bible will be translated and they will learn of David the shepherd and Jesus the Christ. But for now they will know of the God who created the heavens above their heads and the earth beneath their feet. And who travels with them across the deserts of land and life.