Lessons from Flora

The other night, my hubby and I watched a documentary film on a women living in Africa. Her name was Flora, she lived in one of the most remote areas in Kenya with her husband who was a hunter-gatherer by trade and they had 3 young children. Their village was a 4 day walks from the nearest city, it took 40 minutes to fetch water and there was no electricity, transportation, hospitals, mail service or telephone. The interesting part about her story was that she was not raised this way. She was born and raised in one of the biggest cities in Kenya called Arusha. She went to school and college there, and her family all lived there. She was a college grad, owned her own business and spoke 4 languages. Her husband was from the Dorobo tribe and had always lived in “the bush”. He probably had no education and was raised as a hunter- gatherer. She said they met, fell in love, and got married. Her family wanted her to remain in the city, but she told them” No way!! I love him, so we are going to where he lives”. And that was that. She left her family, her business, her life in the city and all the comforts that came with it. She left everything to live a life in “the bush”. Since her husband was a hunter-gatherer, he had to be gone 4 months at a time to do his trade.

This was very difficult for Flora, because she would be left alone all that time with her 3 young children and their farm. She had no family there to help her. After 11 years of this, she started to wonder if the city would be a better place to raise her children. She had not seen her family since she came to live there with her husband, and she missed them terribly. So she decided to make the 4 day walk to the city to see if it would be better to take her children there. If she did this, she would lose her husband, but if she stayed in the village she would lose her family and the life of the city.

She made the trek and when she arrived, she felt like a stranger. She went and saw her mother and sisters. They all thought that she was way too traditional and that she needed to return to the city with her children. She decided to remain in the village, because she had her husband and she loved him. She said that she felt more like a Dorobo and that it was the best place to raise her children.

After I watched this, my first thought was “Wow, this lady is hard core!” She digs up roots for food, carries 5 gallons of water for 80 minutes round trip, gathers all of the food for the house, builds and repairs their houses, and is left alone to care for the children through sickness and pain. I learned two lessons from this amazing woman. The first is love definitely is a commitment and if you truly love someone, you will go through anything for them. There are not too many women nowadays who would do the same thing. And I don’t think that her husband forced her to do it, she willing made the choice to move back to his village.

The second lesson has been a struggle for me. My husband preached a message last Sunday about covetousness and discontentment. Recently it has been brought to my attention that both of these sins have been popping their ugly heads up in my life. I often found myself wanting this thing or that, or thinking that we needed something that we could have been just fine without. Greed is another nice term for covetousness. Instead of looking at what God has given me and knowing that it is just enough for all the needs that we have in our lives, I was dwelling on what I wanted to have to make life easier.
The bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain. If you switched it around it would read ungodliness (greed, covetousness) with discontentment is great loss. It causes you to lose your thankfulness, your happiness and joy in the blessings of what you have, and causes others to do the same. If only we would realize how much God has given us. We are all healthy, our children don’t have any disabilities, we have food, shelter, clothing and many many more comforts and blessings that they are innumerable. Way more than what the bible says to be content with. In fact shelter is not even listed in the verse. Flora was content with what she had and considered it a true blessing. Thank you Flora. I am challenged and ashamed by her example because she is practicing godly principles where I am failing and she is not even a Christian. May this be a challenge to us all.