"I'm gonna let it shine" the congregation roared and I couldn't for the life of me, stifle my smile: it was the only song sung in English all morning. Never could afford travel, but through a leadership program taking students to Africa on scholarship, I embarked on a five week trip. Ah, our first Sunday in Nairobi. I took Swahili, but attempting to read the hymnal reminded me I wasn't too skilled. A carnivalesque choir thumped through the aisles, a blur of white teeth, naked feet, and "let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!" My group and Kafuna, our guide, joined the sea of gyrating bodies. As the hymn began to cascade down, so did the people. Deacon Andrew asked us to be seated, but one woman didn't. She was tall and leonine, drenched in a yellow dress. As if drunk off the Holy Spirit, she spoke a slew of alcoholic "Hallelujahs." She slammed into pews and fanned her face in a stupor of muffled incantations. Suddenly, she bent forward like she'd been kicked in the head, shrieking, "Msaada kwangu, Mungu. Nisikilizeni!" "Help me, God. Hear me!" We encouraged, "Yes, God's here!" Her pleas grew louder, the church rejoiced, but there was something about the desperation in her voice that made me feel we had misunderstood. No. This was not the presence of God. Suddenly, she fell on her side as if asleep. Andrew transitioned into sermon. We thanked the church and turned for the doors. A wailing crescendoed from the base of the pulpit. Deacon Andrew was beside the yellow-dressed woman, cradling her to his chest. I'll never forget how he said it; he felt her name in his mouth like a jawbreaker, maneuvering it around his teeth: "Lydia." We silly Americans stood there with our incredulity and stupid cameras. Lydia had a heart attack. "Impossible", I thought. Surely, we must've known? Shooed away into a crowded matatu, we departed. Nairobi's streets were swollen with people, cigarette clouds, and the mid-July sky bruised with a rainless thunder. Kafuna held my hand, and the ring his pinky wore made indentations on the back of my palm. In a voice adults use to speak to small children, he said, "She is empty now." It hit me. Loss, I now knew, was inescapable despite geography. As much time I could spend trying to make sense of what I witnessed, it would be just as quick and incomprehensible as the next. I brought his hand to my face, weeping soundlessly into his knucklebones. "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine," I sang as we drove through the chaos.
