One month ago, we were boarding a plane with six suitcases, two plastic storage containers, carry-on luggage, and backpacks to fly 16 hours (not counting lay-overs) to Kenya. Now the journey to get here almost looks like a blur in our peripheral vision as the sights, sounds, smells, and texture of Nairobi race before us each day.

To describe our first month here with a pithy phrase like “sensory overload” would be an understatement, yet also appropriate. Our minds cannot adequately process all that we have seen, heard, felt, and experienced in these few short weeks. As a result, we end each day bone-tired—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Yet the wonder of living here remains new and fresh. At least once a day, I say to myself (or anyone listening), “We live in Africa— AFRICA!” It all seems so surreal, a dream-world painted by Dali, Magritte, or Picasso: sharing the road with cows, goats, donkeys, chickens, and the occasional camel; people openly staring at me wherever I go (usually accompanied by the exclamation, “Mzungu” (“foreigner”)); red soil continuously caking our feet and every surface in our house; lush grass and trees and flowers everywhere I look; the warm, equatorial sun greeting us every morning; insects of all varieties and sizes invading our personal space; monkey crossings; walking among zebras, giraffes, gazelles, and wildebeests; people, people, and more people—congregating or meandering along the roadside, lying by (or in) the street, hailing a matatu (public transport), driving almost into us as they inch into our lane.

As we begin 2015 in Africa, I pray that we would experience that word—wonder—over and over and over again, in the everyday as well as the pivotal, milestone moments. I pray that we live each day with the expectation that God will amaze us in unexpected ways and in unexpected people and places. I pray that we never cease to marvel at how God brought us here, to a land that is so foreign to us yet already feels a bit like home. Most of all, I pray that each day of this new year, we will choose to draw closer to the heart of a King who lived as a servant, a wondrous gift that is ours to share.