Manila Envelopes

But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 

(Philippians 3:20, New Living Translation)

This coming Friday, I leave home for my eighth trip to Kenya. Every time I've gone, I think to myself that this will be the last time I make that journey. As I left home in October of 2022 with Val and a friend of mine, I thought the same thing. 

Our previous trips to Kenya had all involved some form of volunteer work. We ambitiously built a chicken coop, taught the life cycle of chickens and rabbits at one of the schools, or cleaned storage rooms at the volunteer house. Other times, we talked with our partners in Nairobi about how to proceed with current and future projects to help various schools, orphanages, or villages. Val and I had worked so hard on building our own nonprofit, but with that no longer viable, we had told our Kenyan friends that the trip that fall would be just our vacation. 

          For some reason, our flights into Nairobi always arrive late at night. Again, as on all the other trips, we arrived at our accommodation after midnight, slept the sleep of the exhausted, got up by noon, and started our day. The first day we spent shopping for supplies (mostly snacks) and visiting with our friends who run their own nonprofit there. 

          Early the next morning, we piled into the safari van for the long ride out to the Masai Mara. We weren't going on safari this time; we'd all done that enough times. We just wanted to be out on the African plains, relaxing at the safari camp and enjoying the views. And for Val, drinking Tusker, the Kenyan beer. 

          One night we sat outside watching the beautiful sunset, the crepuscular rays of light reaching to heaven. Val told us that when she was a little kid and saw those glowing yellow-orange rays in the sky, she thought it was people's souls in manila envelopes going to heaven.      

          At the time, we laughed about it, thinking it was pretty silly. But three years later, Val's soul slipped into one of those manila envelopes and rode the rays to heaven. I would never look at a sunset the same way.