Kenya’s Kid Missionary: An Unlikely Love Story

If anything has become clear to me over the past seven years, it’s the link between love and craziness. It’s what made me the head of a nonprofit organization by the time I was fourteen and transplanted me halfway around the world before I was twenty-one.

You see, love makes you do crazy things. Like becoming a missionary to East Africa when you’re in junior high, living away from all things typical teenager for months at a time, and falling in love with children who would become your own — so much so that you change the course of your whole life.

To be honest, Kenya and I were the unlikeliest pair. To someone with both a basic knowledge of Kenya and a basic knowledge of me, the mismatch would be fairly obvious. If it were up to me, I would go unnoticed in every crowd, everywhere, for all eternity, no question. In Kenya, my upbringing, skin color, and nationality make it almost impossible for me ever to blend in. And I’m probably one of the shiest people around, with what I consider to be a healthy dislike of public speaking. In rural Kenya, due to my being white, nearly everywhere I go a group gathers and I’m asked to make an impromptu speech or presentation. I get agitated every time I have to fly on a plane, so living an ocean away from my family and my hometown would be challenging even for a seasoned traveler. Plus, any familiarity I had with Swahili came from The Lion King, and I’m terrible at sleeping under mosquito netting.

It’s a little crazy for a twelve-year-old American girl to plan a trip to Africa.

It’s a little wild for small-town American parents to support the plan wholeheartedly. And it’s crazy wild to watch a small plan grow into something you wouldn’t ever have thought to imagine: overseas trips for seven years running, a full-time nonprofit organization, outreach on two continents, and an improbable future.

Growing up I always dreamed of living in a big white house with a pretty green yard and white picket fence around it, filled with children. But now all I dream of is my beautiful home in Kenya with its tan and brown mud walls. It has a fence with a guard protecting it and a dirt-packed yard filled with dusty and giggling brown-faced Kenyan children, all calling this fair-skinned, brown-haired girl with the huge smile “Mama! Mama!”

Back when all this started, I never would have guessed that my family and I would be where we are today doing what we’re doing. But apparently God likes to showcase his wild side. Thankfully, though, in this story God didn’t reveal His wildness all at once. Instead, He unfolded things in spurts and pieces. Every small step of the way, He knew precisely how to move the plan forward without scaring me off completely. Sometimes He did that by forming important relationships out of seemingly random meetings. Sometimes He provided resources long before I could have known I would need them. And often He began changing my course long before I understood change was coming.

Possibly the best way to sum up this story is to highlight its unmistakable pattern.

Year after year I’ve seen needs that seem impossible to meet, and year after year I’ve watched God meet them.

Plenty of times I’ve gotten the sense that He’s working things out with a wink and a grin so we’re sure to appreciate the miracles. And more than once He’s turned life as I anticipated it on its head, showing me that he can fill my aching heart in ways beyond my imagining. If I could have glimpsed the plan that God had in store for me and for us and for Kenya, I’m not sure I would have believed it. It probably would have seemed too huge, too complicated, and too masterful.

I probably would have thought of myself as too young, too quiet, too average, or too inexperienced to be part of it.

So how did my life turn so drastically? Well, I have a long answer to that question. Everything started with a question, and then a trip, and then a stub of a pencil. I don’t think I could have described it then, but I know now that God was using Kenya’s kids to transform my heart. At the beginning, all I knew was that I wanted to help. I needed to help. And in looking at those children, I saw myself differently: they had what I lacked, and I had what they needed. I wanted to soak up their strength and revel in their contentment. I wanted to appreciate simple joys like they did. And although I had never thought of myself as materially rich, I could see through their eyes that I am.

This is the story of how God took a thirteen-year-old girl and transformed her into a twenty-year-old missionary. It’s the story of how He can take seemingly mismatched parts and fit them together brilliantly. It’s the story of how He can change our lives and dramatically shift our dreams. All this time, He has been tailor-making me for Kenya’s kids, and them for me: a perfect match from an unlikely love story.

Excerpted with permission from Riley Unlikely: With Simple Childlike Faith, Amazing Things Can Happen by Riley Banks-Snyder.

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Your Turn

What is the unlikely love story of your family? Are you ready to welcome God’s wildness into your story? Come share your thoughts in the comments. We want to hear from you!