Snow in Kenya!

Snow in Kenya.

Lately, I have wished for a miracle in my life. Not like Motel Kamzoil “wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles,” in “Fiddler on the Roof.” It is a wish and a prayer to complete my training, just like that. It is a miracle in fulfilling my daily goals just, like that. A miracle in daily living my calling more of a saint than sinner, just like that. Oh how I would love to love my savior simply without much philosophy just like that! Oh yes, how I might be wary of my wish for miracles, just like that. A king of mythical Greece fell prey to such desires to his detriment and to that of his one and only child-turned gold. Well, my case is different, you see. Ok, just a second, that is not the kind of miracle I am talking about. Mine is the kind that just happens like the snow which recently fell in the tropical country of Kenya. Yes, it snowed in Kenya, my home country whose regular temperatures exceed 30C. Some might not get the miracle of miracles aspect because snow is the normal thing this time of the year in the Midwest region of the United States of America.

For it to snow in the Midwest of America this time of the year is the normal thing. If it happens not to snow, some emotional and psychological crisis might occur to one and many inhabitants of the Midwest and possibly other snow prone regions of the States. And yet, seemingly, nature's contradiction has really occurred in this country of Kenya. Not long ago, just this September, it snowed in Kenya, two months ahead of Minnesota. For those of you who may not know, Kenya is in the Equator, a place where snow is unimaginable, except, of course, in the unique places such as the mountaintops of Kilimanjaro and Kenya. So, it snowed in this unexpected place of the world where the sight of snow falling sent many scampering for safety and calling for divine help in their hour of need. Others came from far and near to see, to touch, to taste and to walk on the white substance from above. What could this be? The BBC blared its prime news about snow in Kenya; the Reuters and Spiegel TV, were there too, to publish the big news:

Residents in Kenya's Rift Valley celebrate the area's first ever snowfall with snow ball fights and a day off work and school. The small village of Busara 255 Kilometres northwest of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi awoke to a strange phenomenon on Wednesday (September 3). An area of about one square kilometer was covered in what meteorologists called snowflakes, blanketing a whole hillside.

The questions of what and why filled the air. Could it be manna in the Exodus story? Others could not just sit there speculating; they went and saw for themselves this snow. So, on that unusual day of snow fall, all roads led to Busara village ( Swahili word for wisdom).

School children abandoned school to behold the sight from “above” and exercise their intellectual exuberance regarding this untimely phenomenon. Expert wisdom boomed across the nation to comfort and warn inhabitants of what this might mean for one and all in this small tropical country. Eschatological visionaries smiled and wondered if this was “the day” of reckoning. Some of us in distant lands just watched and waited and thought it was an amazing sight. Many thought that it was high time it snowed in this place and anywhere else it chose to fall, and why not?

On the other hand, if the world climate is changing, which it actually is, then we better awake to some serious thinking for action. Kenya’s own, Waangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Prize winner for peace, said something about global warming. She talked about the Congo forest and the Amazon forest being depleted, and how these forests bear heavily on the stability of the world climate, Kenya being part. Maybe then, my enthusiasm about snow falling in Kenya or the sun shining right through the winter season in the Midwest region of the United States of America, should wait indefinitely.

And so, as I sign off this writing, I am not wishing or praying for this and the other miracle, just like that, rather, I am nudged by the Great Wind of the never changing miracle of The Amazing grace; Who has been here with me all along. Thanks be to God!