The soles of my shoes gained an extra 3 inches on the walk home from the villages’ secondary schoolâ€"in pouring, Kenyan rain through ankle-deep mud. The students laughed at us as they held our arms, supporting us when our Chacos slid all over the squishy road.

“You need shoes that hold your feet inside,� laughed one of the Kenyans.

“Whoa, those are the shoes that Jesus wore!� the girl on my right realized. The rest of the teens clicked their tongues in excitement (Kenyan thing) as they examined the hunks of mud that used to be my feet.

And I’ve grown to realize not only do I now understand how muddy and colorful Jesus’ feet must have become (He didn’t have Pampers Cool Breeze Baby Wipes), along how amazing a foot wash was back in Biblical times, but walking as an evangelist and disciple of Christ, we’ve encountered so many things that mirror the travels of the Big Twelve.

Spiritual warfare…it’s real. Demon-possessed boys…exist. The Holy Spirit is living and breathing and real.

Our ministry involves hours a day of walking through corn fields with local Kenyan missionaries and stopping at each house along the way. “House� meaning anything from a mud hut to grass gazebo, some the size of my closet, some as big as my bathroom. Recently, we’ve been on the nicer side of town, and the houses have furniture and posters on the wall.

The best part has been meeting the people. Each family has a story, some that can be revealed just by taking the time to look in their eyes. At first, just spending half an hour in their homes and reading a Psalm didn’t seem to be very effective. “But even just by walking by you make a difference,� Mama Joyce (our caretaker) told us. “They’ll wonder where a white person is from, what you’re doing here, and could be led to Jesus just because you took the time to smile.�

And the heavy feeling in some of the houses isn’t just the heat. The second we start praying a drastic peace fills the house, one that I’ve never felt before in the States…because the devil hides so well there. Behind distractions, through so many things that blind our lives.

But here? A baby will physically shake when we pray over him. A look into the red eyes of a crippled boy will make you want to run.

However, each one of those encounters only serves as a miraculous sign to show that God is real. Healing a brain tumor, malaria, hopelessness…that wasn’t me! And prophecy, speaking in tongues, the power of a spoken prayer really does work. The things that I used to scoff at and think that couldn’t really be real is here, happening right before my eyes.

Just small little thoughts I’ve had as I walk in my Jesus shoes.