So there we stood. Our last day on Kenyan soil. We could feel the sadness heavy in the air, and taste it in the tears dripping down on to our lips.
It was an awkward day. We all kind of stood around, not really knowing how to say goodbye. We had just spent the last two weeks with people, whom we’d never met before, yet made very real, very deep connections with. Whether it was Derek with Francis, Casey and Deron with Miriam, Brittany with Wambui, Andrew with Calvince, Sharon with Elizabeth, Debra with Mary, Jordan with Purity and Naomi, or me with Nester — we all had a special relationship with someone who lives a much different life than us, and in a much different place.
I know it was hard for me to admit to myself that we had to leave, so I hid behind my camera that morning. I thought if I separated myself emotionally, and did what I love to do most, that it would be easier. When I heard it was time to leave, I immediately jumped in the van, hoping to put a barrier between me and what I was feeling.
All morning, Calvince kept saying that he was looking for some rope. He said this over and over again. When I asked him why he needed rope, he said he wanted to tie us up so we couldn’t leave. As I sat cowardly in the van that morning getting ready to go, Calvince walked up to the door, leaned against it and said to me, “I’m still looking for that rope.” It was at that moment when I knew that I couldn’t just sit in the van. That wasn’t the way I wanted to leave, no matter how hard it was to say goodbye. I left the camera in the van, shut the door, and walked around, rubbing the tops of all the kids’ heads — they really liked that for some reason. We left 45 minutes later than when we had planned.
On the plane ride home, it was hard to imagine everything God had given us to experience during our short time in country. As our worlds diverged, it sometimes felt like we weren’t even there, like it was all just a dream. We had memories and thoughts about Kenya, but it was so surreal to be on an airplane flying back to the United States. Part of me didn’t want to be on that plane, but at the same time, part of me was really excited to get home. I was excited to have the opportunity to share our experiences with other people, and to make Kenya, and the kids, and their struggles and their joy, feel real. That’s what the last forty days have been about.
I never could have imagined the ways in which I was impacted, and I think that I speak on behalf of our entire team when I say that. I know it sounds cliche, but God genuinely opened up my heart towards the kids at the orphanage and at the feeding program. I never thought I would say this, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have minded if Calvince did find that rope.
We threw a party. With meat. This was a BIG DEAL. On our final night at the orphanage, for 200 U.S. dollars, we fed all of the kids, workers (who cooked the meal), and ourselves a delicious feast of veggies, stew, rice, mandazi (tastes like funnel cake with no sugar on top), chapati pancakes, potatoes, and, best of all, meat! When Lucy announced that there would be meat with dinner, the children all clapped and cheered, “Meat! Meat!!!” For the orphanage children, meat is a rare delicacy. For enough meat to feed the 120 or so people at the party, the cost was only $50. Imagine the last time you had a cookout — in the U.S. $50 worth of meat doesn’t go very far.
We sat on plastic chairs in the classroom building sharing this wonderful meal with our new friends, and as we began to eat we were surprised to see one little boy who got his plate and excitedly picked out all of the meat from his stew, ate each piece one by one, and then licked all the juice off of his fingers before diving in to the rest of his meal. Our plates were piled, overflowing with food–way more than any of us could eat. It’s a bad feeling when you can’t finish your plate, especially in Kenya, but it wasn’t hard for us to find kids to eat our leftovers.
Once everyone had finished eating and the sun was setting behind us, the dancing began! At first Lucy, Duncan and some of the kids danced in the middle of the room, but before long all of us were up, holding hands and dancing around. The older boys had borrowed the church’s sound system, so we had a radio, speakers, and a microphone to work with. Several groups of children and high schoolers had also prepared a performance for us, so we took our seats to enjoy the show! We got to see them do everything from hip hop dancing and traditional dancing to reciting sermons and singing. It was a beautiful evening and an even more beautiful opportunity for us to see the kids at their best.
As we got ready to leave that night (we knew we would be returning briefly in the morning), we hugged and cried with children and workers alike. As I climbed into the van that would take us back, I felt a little hand reach out and grab mine, and then stick a small folded up piece of paper in it. I asked, “What is it?” and the girl replied, “Read it.” It was dark by this point, so I had to wait, anxiously, until we returned to the guesthouse (the only place nearby with electric light) to read my note. When I got into a lit room, I unfolded my hand and peeked at what was inside. It was a carefully folded, albeit small and covered in the fine red dust of Gathiga, with “For Jorden” written in the middle. Penciled-in hearts encircled my name, and when I unfolded the letter completely, I saw beautiful Santa Claus stickers (which are a rarity, I’m sure) and the perfect penmanship of Naomi, one of the young girls I had befriended. We’d played a lot of hand-clapping games together, and she’d helped me do chores and shown me her schoolwork. Her letter was full of love and thanks for the party, for the donations, for visiting and caring — It was in this moment that finally, I understood my trip to Kenya. I traveled around the world to learn a lesson in the simplicity of love from one little Kenyan girl.
A lone mzungu tagging along behind a native Kenyan as we bobbed and weaved through the busy streets of Nairobi, Kenya is where I found myself fairly early in the trip. I followed along as well as I could, we were moving away from the comfortable mall, one that is almost transported from America, to walk by the street vendors and empty lots. We were headed to pay an electric bill. There was rarely a sidewalk and the cars moved past us much faster and closer than anything I had experienced at home.
At first talk was very forced, but as we walked we began to flow into normal conversation. Francis began to ask me questions about my girlfriend who was also on the trip.
“How long have you been dating Debra?”
“Almost two years now” I replied.
“Do you both go to the same University?”
“Yes, we have both been there for three years”
As we walked, Francis continued to ask about my life and eventually we wandered onto the discussion of age.
“When did you turn 21?”
“A few months ago…” I replied
“What month?”
“February…”
“No way, which day?”
“February 1st, why?” I was curious as to where this was going.
“NO WAY!!! That is also my birthday!” Francis lit up with the biggest smile I had ever seen.
We talked about it for a while after that and went about our day and our trip with little fan fare after that, but later that night I was stuck on this short interchange. I was just floored, two people born on the same day half way around the world. How different was my life just because I was born in America and he was born in Kenya?
In my life I have never gone without, my parents were always there always supporting me. They told me from a very young age that I could do what I want to do and be who I want to be. I have grown up in a country that does not even know its own wealth. Francis has struggled to meet physical needs in his life. He is considered lucky to be a part of what is happening at Gathiga. In a prayer, he said he has never wanted for something in his life. His faith in God is lived daily when he believes that God will provide food or tuition for University. I think for the first time in my life I began to understand why the rich struggle so much to understand the Kingdom God. I saw the needle’s eye for the first time, revealed to me through a birthday twin halfway around the world. The most shocking part of all — I was the camel.
STORY THIRTY-SEVEN I stood in a circle of children who were praying before gulping down what was possibly their first hot meal in days–Kenyan porridge. Before the prayer, I noticed a small cut on my finger. Something had told me to bring bandaids on this visit to the feeding program in the Kabiria slum, and I’m glad I did. I carefully wrapped a bandaid around my cut, unaware of the fixated stares of children around me whose wounds had never been dressed–whose tiny cuts had never been treated with care–who had never seen a bandaid.
Later, in the midst of an exciting soccer match (the ball was flat, the kids were barefoot or wearing shoes much too large, the field had thorns and garbage lying everywhere) there was a minor injury. A young boy had cut his finger, and to my surprise, his friends promptly escorted him over to me. The friend touched my beige bandaid, saying, “Do you have another one of those?” I said yes and kneeled to look at the boy’s cut. I asked if I could use some hand sanitizer to clean it, even though it would burn a little, but the boy and his friends said, “Yes! Use it!” They seemed intrigued by the thought of having something cleaned. I suddenly found myself in a swarm of excited little eyes and arms, eagerly observing me tend to the boy. Just moments after I bandaged his hand, children began lining up to bring me other injured kids, kids with rashes, cuts, burns, and sores, injuries that my little box of bandaids could not fix. It broke my heart to shrug my shoulders at them, all I could do was say, “I’m sorry.”
At the orphanage, these same struggles appear in every form. The only first aid kit they have is one from a previous year’s team. Bandaids are a novelty. We met children who desperately need medical attention, but no money is available to help them. The government doesn’t provide medical care of any kind, especially not to orphans and street kids. Wambui (pictured above), one of the orphanage’s little girls is less than one year old. Some time ago, nurses came to the orphanage to look over each of the kids, and they discovered that Wambui has a serious heart condition and is in need of urgent surgery, but no one can afford it. So she won’t get it–unless a miracle happens. We met Karanja, a young boy recovering from Mumps, thankfully enough funding was found to pay for his medication. Dennis takes a prescription to lessen the effects of epilepsy, and I’m sure there are dozens of other children whose suffering goes unnoticed. These are preventable needs, and they were the hardest for us to watch go unmet.
As you watch the video, imagine the worst thing you’ve ever smelled. That’s about all I could think about while I was walking through the hills of garbage. It was so bad in fact, that I almost vomited. Unlike in the United States, there are no restrictions for “landfills” in the slums of Kenya. There is no lining put underneath to prevent leachate from penetrating the ground water that people drink, nor are there any regulations for what can be dumped. There are no measures to make sure the smell doesn’t leave the confines of the dump, and there are no boarders to keep people or animals away. I found it interesting that even as Steve and I walked across the garbage, flies were everywhere, but not once did I have to swat one off of me.
What you don’t see in this video is what is just down the hill from the dump (or to the left of where I was filming). The feeding program is housed just on the other side of the thorn bushes. You can hear Steve talking about the kids getting things from the trash. Things like bottles and cups to drink and eat from, and paper to write on. The kids run across the piles to retrieve the soccer ball that got kicked over the hedges, and they bring back pieces of water-soaked styrofoam to play tag.
The garbage has made an appearance in multiple stories — We hope we have made it clear that for many people in Kenya, living with garbage, literally piled everywhere, is just a part of everyday life.
Big Steve and Little Steve — that’s what they told us to call them. They were our drivers, our transportation guardians, during our time in Kenya. They protected us wherever we went, and made sure we got there safely — which if you’ve ever driven in a place where traffic laws aren’t given a second thought by motorists, getting to your destination is usually an adventure it itself.
Our two drivers couldn’t be more different. They were both from different tribes and had vastly different work experiences. Big Steve has been a driver for a long time, having three years with Mission Tour & Travel and eight years as a safari driver before that. Little Steve has only been driving for a few months. Big Steve drove the big van while Little Steve drove the little car. However, if you saw them interact, you would have never known.
It was Big Steve’s task to mentor Little Steve. Typically, newer drivers get teamed up with veteran drivers so they can learn the streets and best routes around Nairobi. They would go out of their way to keep us out of the more dangerous and crowded parts of Nairobi — a couple of times we were dodging traffic jams because some of Kenya’s officials were in Nairobi for meetings.
To be a driver typically means early mornings and late evenings. Big Steve said that he rarely gets to see his son and wife because he has to leave before they wake up, and gets home (if he gets to go home) well after bedtime; it’s a similar story for Little Steve. One night after he dropped us off at our safe house at 10 p.m., Big Steve had to pick another group of missionaries up at the airport. He didn’t get to go home that night. It’s a hard life, but it provides food and shelter for their families.
On the last day of our trip, we pooled our money to give our drivers a tip for serving us. When we presented the Steves (we refer to them as a pair) with our gift to them, they both smiled huge smiles, and couldn’t stop saying “asante,” which means “thank you.” Big Steve had another reason to be excited that day. On the way to the orphanage that morning, he told us that he was going to get to see his wife and son that night. He decided to go up to the village center in Gathiga with some of his tip money and get a haircut and a shave. He had also picked a flower for his bride and kept it in the cooler he uses for storage in the van. He was radiant all day!
We couldn’t show the Steves enough appreciation. No matter what we said, we couldn’t (and can’t, even as we write this) find words to describe how much we enjoyed and appreciated them. They added so much laughter and joy along with advice and protection to our every moment with them. Not once did we feel unsafe while in their watchful eyes. Big Steve even helped us track down Andrew when he was lost at the market (Story Twenty-Two). We are so thankful to have had these two angels watching over us our whole trip.
When we pulled up to the orphanage for the last time, the kids went absolutely berserk. Some were crying, others were laughing and clapping, and all of them began running around yelling “gifts!” We saw older kids running from the storage room carrying our bags over their heads, way up high so that everyone could see. Everyone on our team had brought along a bag of donations—shoes, clothes, Jesus bracelets, toys, utensils, paper, you name it, someone had donated it, and the kids at the orphanage knew the gifts were coming. It felt like Christmas, and excitement was clearly in the air! As it got dark, Lucy began calling kids into the classroom according to age and gender (to make it easy for us to hand out clothes). The children’s eyes widened with wonder at our piles of stuff and with much appreciation. Many ran to their sleeping room to try on new outfits, others tried to sneak into the room for toys, and it was hard to tell them no.
These donations will last a long time. We know this for a fact because, as some of the girls were doing laundry, one of our team members, Casey, was scrubbing away at a shirt and remarked that she liked it. When she held it up to look at it, she realized that it was her shirt that she had donated the year before, and it had actually belonged to her sister before that.
In my first week at the orphanage, I noticed a small boy holding a string and dragging it around with him, and it had a little yellow (albeit deflated) balloon attached. During the week, I saw other small children dragging their own strings with colorful popped balloons, grimy and covered in mud, dangling at the end. We later learned that a few weeks before our team had arrived, another group of volunteers had left the children with balloons as keepsakes.This memento must represent a great memory for the kids, because they’ve been dragging those strings around for about a month now. Seeing this helped us realize that more than all of the t-shirts and candies, and even beyond the shoes and school supplies that are so desperately needed, what the children will hold onto for months after we are gone are the memories and the happy moments. The same moments that we have cherished this month since our departure, and the same moments that we have tried to relive for all of you. We know that we left the children of Gathiga Children’s Hope Home with many more good memories than we had when we came.
Our second day at the orphanage, after we’d finished scrubbing the soot from the walls of the kitchen, I decided to mop. The floor had become covered with soot-filled water and mud, so I asked Calvince, our go-to person for the job, if I could use a mop. Now picture a mop—long handle, spaghetti-looking end with cotton tentacles. Now I do not like to mop, but it really needed to be done, and so I waited for Calvince to return. A few minutes later, he handed me half of a wet sweatshirt. Confusion must have shown on my face, because Calvince handed the other half to one of our more understanding teammates, who asked what exactly she should do with it. Meanwhile, I kneeled down, and began to wipe the floor like Cinderella does in her step-mother’s house. Calvince began laughing at me, saying, “No. Let me show you how to mop like a Kenyan.”
He grabbed the sweatshirt, held it by the long ends and twirled it into a tight spiral. Then, he walked to the back corner of the kitchen, bent down at the hips, and pressed the sweatshirt-mop lightly against the sooty red floor. He began to drag it left and right in a zig-zag motion, walking backwards, and pulling all of the water and dust along with him. He used the mop to push/pull the water and garbage along the ground and all the way out the door. It was beyond impressive!
Dennis wears a size thirteen shoe. He’s one of the biggest boys at the orphanage, but for days, we had no idea who he was. He sat alone on the far side of the orphanage, sometimes using a bucket to do his own laundry. We tried smiling and talking to him, but he usually just ignored us.
As our days at the orphanage progressed, we met a guy named Julius who comes to the orphanage to help after his college classes let out and on the weekends. He’s a communications major and says that the next time we see him, he’ll be on CNN. Julius told us that one night he was watching over the kids at the orphanage when a police car stopped in the drive. The night watchman and Julius spoke to the officer, who said he’d found a young man being beaten in an alley. The young man didn’t seem capable of surviving on his own, so the officer hoped the orphanage would take him in. Julius said yes, and the young man was Dennis.
When Dennis arrived, he couldn’t do laundry, wash or dress himself, and he wouldn’t speak or eat. Julius decided to take Dennis under his wing to teach him basic life skills. This ambition became complicated when Dennis suddenly had a seizure—they discovered that he has somewhat severe epilepsy. Regardless, Julius and the older kids at the orphanage patiently worked with Dennis, and it paid off. Dennis is still quiet (we’re not sure that he speaks at all), but he does his own laundry every day, washes, dresses and feeds himself, and even gives the occasional smile or high-five. Dennis won’t exercise with the other kids, but whenever anyone plays music, he starts dancing! Duncan (orphanage “dad”) makes sure to play music for him every few days to keep him healthy.
We all grew to adore Dennis. We’d brag to each other if we got him to smile, and especially if we got a high-five, but Dennis kept to himself most of the time. Our last night at the orphanage, we gave away donated items, including shoes. Dennis picked up a pair of Asics tennis shoes that someone had donated, and he fell in love with them. They were too small for his size-13 feet, but he didn’t care, and we didn’t have any shoes big enough to fit him. He crammed his feet in the shoes and walked out of the donations room proudly, the biggest smile I’ve ever seen wiped across his face.
Steve is the man in charge of making sure 120 kids in Kabiria have a meal every Wednesday and Saturday. He’s been bringing food to the slum for three years now, but it hasn’t always been easy. Steve has such a big heart for these kids, and refuses to give in to the number of challenges he, and the children, have had to face.
Steve was really good friends with a man named James, who used to work for an organization called Fadhili. Fadhili’s vision is to empower children and their guardians in order to meet the children’s needs. James was a man after God’s own heart, and did everything he could to care for God’s children in Kenya. James brought Steve to the slum one day and told him about the vision he had for a feeding program there, and how Steve was going to lead it.
For about two years, Steve and James provided food for the kids in the slum. Unexpectedly, James was murdered after getting caught in a crossfire during gang violence. Steve was heartbroken that he had lost a great friend, mentor, and fellow brother in Christ. Steve was so grief stricken that he struggled to go back to Kabiria because of the memories he had there. But God spoke to him and encouraged him to continue to serve those kids, and so Steve returned.
The feeding program has grown from only 20 or so kids in the beginning, to presently feeding over 100 kids at every meal. There have been many challenges along the way — the feeding program has had to relocate as money becomes less available. Steve was forced to feed more kids with less money and in a smaller area than where it was located before. His resolve is strong though, and the resources have returned. We mentioned in Story Six that Jump for Joel sponsors a marathon in September to raise money for the feeding program. Last year, they were able to provide enough support to pay the rent for the space they use and increase the number of meals they serve for an entire year.
In addition to providing food for the children, Steve has been taking classes to get a teaching certificate. His vision is to raise more money to convert an area on the property he rents into a classroom so that he can educate the kids in the slum. Currently, most of the kids living in the slum receive no education. He needs benches, tables, and two chalkboards to make his dream a reality, and he plans on completing his coursework in December.
Steve truly loves the children in Kabiria, and they love him back. He plays soccer with the kids, and teaches them the rules of the game. He calls them out for handballs, and makes them do free kicks. He teaches them manners and to respect others — a lesson a lot of people in the US could relearn. The children constantly shout, “Steve! Steve!” but Steve says they don’t need anything, they just want to talk to him. The children don’t love Steve because he provides them with food, they love him because he is a father to them. Most of these kids don’t have fathers at home, so Steve fills in to show them how they can lead good lives. Just seeing the kids interacting with Steve, and knowing how much they gain by his example of love, was enough to change our hearts forever.
STORY THIRTY Half a dozen women stood beside the empty lot where the feeding program is held. They watched as we served the kids porridge, probably keeping an eye on their own little ones. After mealtime, the children would begin playing games, and often the women would join them for a round of a game similar to monkey-in-the-middle or to swing the “rope” (made of electrical tape or the tape from a video cassette) for jump rope. One of these women, Ann, has a beautiful baby boy named Gideon (pictured above). Ann was friendly and sweet, talking to us and helping Steve serve the kids. As we enjoyed playtime with the feeding program kids, one of our teammates held and played with Gideon. Some time later, our teammate told Ann how cute she thought Gideon was and Ann replied, “Do you want to take him home to your country?” Thinking that Ann was joking, our teammate responded with a small laugh—until she realized that Ann was serious.
In Kenya, everyone we spoke with asked about America. The kids were filled with questions, and some asked how much it would cost for them to fly to the U.S. Even one of our drivers jokingly said that he couldn’t come visit us because, if he did, he would never leave. When Ann genuinely asked if our teammate wanted to bring Gideon to the United States, it made us realize that she wants a better life for him–a better life than she can offer him growing up in the Kiberia slum. And we are so blessed to have just been born in the free, developed land that is home to us. It could have easily been different. We may have spent the fourth of July in Kenya, but we have never been so stunned at how much we take for-granted.
STORY TWENTY-NINE The dusty red roads of Gathiga are surrounded on both sides by brightly colored flowers that climb everywhere, skinny corn stalks growing in fields, ditches, and small backyards, with the occasional banana tree popping out between rows, and narrow walking pathways between property. It’s slow going on the red roads. Potholes cover them, vendors sell produce alongside them, and so many people walk on them that it took us a good 15-20 minutes to make the 3 mile drive.
On our very first morning in Kenya, after our team had piled into the van and headed toward the orphanage for the first time, our eyes must have been the size of saucers–we couldn’t get enough of the rugged, beautiful landscape we were seeing. Field after field of coffee trees, hillside clotheslines behind tin houses, and best of all, men, women, and children walking everywhere. We made a game of seeing how many people we could get to smile back at us—which was never a problem. In fact, we were almost always greeted by smiles and waves, and children cheering and shouting, “Mzungu, Mzungu!” They even ran after the van jumping and waving on a few occasions.
Mzungu is a term meaning, generally, “people of European descent” or just “white people.” It’s not derogatory in anyway, actually, it’s seen as a favorable greeting, and by the way the kids smiled at us, we could tell it must mean something good. We were humbled daily on our drive to and from the orphanage by the cheerful “Mzungu!” shouts and the laughter and of the children on the roads. If only we were so truly happy to see our own friends and neighbors. If only we lived in a place where people waved and smiled from the roadside when we drove by. It is in these moments when we miss the village of Gathiga most.
STORY TWENTY-EIGHT
Gathiga Children’s Hope Home sits on a fairly small lot. Four concrete buildings are home to “sleeping rooms” for the children, a preschool classroom, and a kitchen, but everyone spends most of their time outside. We’ve talked about how much work it takes to keep the orphanage functioning. Household chores like cooking (and we’re not talking about ready-made meals you can throw in an oven or a skillet), cleaning, doing laundry, and looking after the children are multiplied by more than 100 adorable little ones endlessly making messes. But, we haven’t talked about how the orphanage pays for the food, workers’ salaries, medical supplies (there are none) for the kids, or soap and household items. Duncan and Lucy started the orphanage in their home in 1996 using their own savings. Since then, it has survived from day to day on donations and sustainability projects.
Currently, the orphanage is also home to three cows, dozens of chickens, two adult pigs, and about twelve tiny piglets, born just before our arrival. The cows produce milk for the kids to drink, the chickens lay eggs for the kids to eat and to be sold at the market, and the baby pigs are bred to sell. Nothing at the orphanage is wasted. The chicken poop gets mixed in with a special food fed to the cows to help them produce milk. The cow poop is collected (by Calvince) and spread on the crops which later grow into food for the cows and pigs.
The chickens, however, have been more trouble than they are worth–literally. They require expensive food in order to produce eggs, and they haven’t been laying enough to both feed the kids and to sell at the market. The chickens do not produce a profit unless they produce an unusually large amount of eggs. In addition, the cow food that gets mixed with the chicken waste is expensive, and is not always available, so it has to go somewhere else. The cows also require a lot of food, so one of the older boys (usually Calvince, machete in-hand) chops down the tall grass that grows around the orphanage to feed them. One of the cows is a Persian and eats more than the other two, so the older kids make jokes about her because of her size, but she easily produces the most milk. As for the pigs, they bring in just enough money at the market to cover the cost of the other animals’ needs. For every shilling earned, more were spent, but we hope that with time those figures will change.
At the end of the day, we questioned whether it was helpful or harmful for the orphanage to have the animals. Truthfully, there are a lot of situations that demand asking questions like this in Kenya. Sure a washing machine and dryer would make the workers lives easier — at least for a while. But there is so much dust and dirt in Kenya that it is hard to imagine those machines working for very long. They also require a lot of water and electricity, neither of which the orphanage has in abundance. The same goes for a pump for the well. It would make it easier to get water, but the cost of running and maintaining it (it’s broken currently) gets pricey.
Just because the tools we use in America help us, does not necessarily mean that they will help people in other parts of the world, but beyond that, the orphanage has needs so great and immediate (like feeding the kids) that feeding the chickens, although they could produce a profit if fed the expensive stuff, is secondary. Lucy and Duncan perform a tough balancing act. They must choose between immediate needs that sustain life and life-sustaining investments–between keeping the children healthy and trying to put stock in projects that will keep the orphanage afloat for decades to come.
Joel is a cute kid. You can see him here, holding a grasshopper (the kids at the orphanage thought it was HILARIOUS that we were afraid of such big bugs) and smiling for the camera. He lives at the orphanage with his sister, Faith. Both are mature and sweet beyond their years. Faith often asked me to “greet” last year’s team members for her.
Joel is the namesake of the organization that we traveled to Kenya with. In 2007, Jump for Joel became a household term on the University of Illinois Springfield campus after one of our friends went to the orphanage to volunteer for the summer. The organization is named after one of the children she met there–he was playful and lively and quickly became one of her favorites. Toward the end of her trip, she learned that Joel and his sister are both HIV positive, like many of the orphanage’s children. She returned to UIS with a passion for creating awareness about the lives of these children and, since then, she and others with her have spoken at dozens of schools, churches and camps to educate youth in the Midwest about the lives of kids their own age on the other side of the world. She and a number of others who have taken up a passion for the kids continue to work to fundraise and support the Gathiga Children’s Hope Home.
At the heart of the Jump for Joel organization lies the desire to do something meaningful–to fight against apathy. We decided to run with that idea this summer when we joined them for this trip. Clearly, we had no shortage of meaningful experiences, and the next time we feel apathetic, it will only take a second for us to remember Joel and Faith and their daily fight.
At the orphanage, the kids and workers use 5 gallon buckets for everything–from drumming to transporting food. But when it comes to laundry, the 5 gallon buckets really shine. First, it takes four bucket-fulls from the well to fill the wheelbarrow that the women wash clothes in. The wheelbarrow is missing its wheel, though, so it gets propped on a stump (it got knocked off of the stump once, and gallons of soapy, murky water drenched the person standing on that side–oops!). The well is about a 40-foot sloped walk over rocks, mud puddles, and tree stumps, so carrying the bucket back and forth is treacherous. If you spill too much water, then you have to pull more up from the well.
Once all of the necessary water has made its way into the wheelbarrow, the women pour in just a bit of powdered detergent. Then it’s time for the clothes. As we’ve tried to explain, dirty clothes are scattered everywhere in the laundry area, and mountains of them are sprawled about–under trees, next to the cows, all of them sitting on the red dirt that pervades everything. The women pick up a pile, and drop as much as will fit into the wheelbarrow. There’s only room for about four people to crowd around and scrub the clothes, so you just scoot close together, grab a scrub brush, and get to work! Although the water starts out clear, as soon as the clothes are dropped in it turns the same murky-red color as the dirt. Everyone shares a bar of soap, so you wait your turn, then wipe your clothing item down, and start scrubbing. You start on one side, remembering to scrub the insides of pant legs and pockets, and work your way from top to bottom, front and back. We were often chided for not scrubbing hard enough—these clothes are soiled through and through with red clay! The toddlers and younger children don’t wear diapers or the kind of unmentionables that we think of, so pants and dresses are often soiled with other things, too.
The first time I did laundry, it took me an hour to wash one shirt. What a feeling of accomplishment! Another time, though, I had spent an hour scrubbing a jacket, and Jane finally took it from me, put it in one of the rinse buckets, and told me she would finish it later. The rinse-bucket system (for lack of a better term) is brilliant. Seven five-gallon buckets sit next to the wheel barrow. If enough people are scrubbing, the extra helpers are stationed at the buckets. The first bucket is where fresh-scrubbed clothes are tossed immediately after they finish their turn in the wheelbarrow. The bucket-person dunks them underwater repeatedly, wrings them out, and repeats. Then, the item is passed to the next bucket, where it goes through the same process—and this is repeated until the item reaches the final bucket. By this time it should be suds-free, and is tossed into bucket number five. Bucket five is for clothes ready to be hung on the fence.
Barbed wire fences surround the orphanage and littered across them are all of the t-shirts, shorts, pants, jackets, and so on that belong to the orphanage. The final step in the laundry process is carrying bucket seven over to the fence and carefully hanging each item. Water drips down from the top row onto the clothes below it, but the African sun will dry them all in no time. As our team hung clothes I saw shirts and pants hanging on the wire that were covered in holes and nearly torn in half–in the U.S. we would have called them rags and gotten rid of them ages ago, probably not even donating them because of their condition. Yet here they were, being scrubbed clean for hours and then carefully hung to dry on the fences before being worn again and again.
Sarah, Laura and Jane (pictured above with teammate Brittany) are the beautiful, laughing women who live and work at Gathiga Children’s Hope Home. They spend their days helping the children dress and wash, preparing, cooking and serving each daily meal, washing pile after pile of soiled laundry by hand, and working to maintain the orphanage as a whole.
I can say, with unfortunate confidence, that as long as there are children at the orphanage, these women will never catch up on laundry. When I say piles, I mean mountains. A large area to the side of the orphanage buildings is used to grow food and to do laundry, and mountains of dirty clothes sit all over the ground waiting to be washed. Even though the older children wash their own clothing, the younger children account for well over three-fourths of the Hope Home’s population, so it barely makes a dent in their daily workload. The preschool teacher at the orphanage once taught the kids a lesson on doing laundry, and it’s more involved than you may think.
These women work at the orphanage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Like everyone, they are just trying to support their families and offer their children better lives. Take Sarah. She is standing on the far left if you are facing the photo. Sarah has five children, who range from age five to twenty-two. Her family lives many miles from Gathiga, but because she is new to the orphanage (she started working there in March), she won’t get to go home to visit them until August. Nonetheless, she is always in high spirits. All three of the women laugh and sing as they do laundry (they were usually laughing while they watched us struggle with the clothes and buckets of water), and we know we’ve never met more cheerful people with harder lives.
We loved these ladies. They were funny and lively, often asking us to do silly poses with them while someone took a picture (Sarah and I did a whole series of boxing photos) or dancing around. The guys in our group learned the hard way that when Sarah picked up a bucket to begin doing laundry, they should look away. She would catch one of the guy’s eyes, smile and wave them over…and then ask them to pull water from the well! It takes A LOT of water to do laundry, and pulling water is hard work. Our guys pulled a ton of water—and Sarah loved them for it.
These three women taught us what hard work really looks like, but that it is still possible to rejoice in all things.
Before leaving, I asked Sarah a lot of questions about her family and where she comes from, and she asked me why I wanted to know all of this. So I told her, I want to write a story about you to tell our friends in America–her eyes lit up and she gasped saying, “Me? You want to tell about me?” Laughingly I said yes, absolutely. The next day when I hugged her goodbye for the last time, she was crying, and she said, “You’re going to tell them about me?” Yes.
At the feeding program and at the orphanage and on the streets of the slums, we saw children who laugh and play jump rope using tape from an old VHS video that they found in the dump. We have seen kids who swing on a loop of rags tied together and hung on a tree branch, they build pinwheels out of twigs and two pieces of paper, carefully put together. They make their own soccer balls out of paper and string, and they play jacks using rocks from the roadside. Creativity flourishes in their minds, and no limit is placed on their imaginations. They can be anyone, do anything.
In the U.S. we often discuss how children seem just as happy to play with the box as they are to play with the toy that came in it. The kids in Kenya are living proof of that sentiment. On one occasion at the orphanage, Lucy opened the door to the small storage office and brought out a large cardboard box. The box was filled with shoeboxes, each wrapped in brightly colored Christmas paper — all were empty. And the kids loved them! They filled them with rocks, carried them around, tore the paper off, put it in the box, hid the boxes under their beds, and played with them until they fell asleep outside.
We have been given much, and we give our children, nieces and nephews the best we can. Can you imagine seeing your children, dirt-covered and barefoot, playing games with broken plastic cups from the trash, or chasing roosters in the street? What would you do? We did the only thing we could think of–join them! We got dirty, dust-covered and torn up, we jumped rope, played dodgeball-type games and lots of soccer, and we loved every minute of it.
So you want to know why we went on this crazy-amazing trip? As we quickly learned, our purpose in going to Kenya reached far outside of the limited projects and goals that we had the time and resources to plan for. Let me explain: In the U.S., people are crazy about before/after scenes. Whether it’s a t.v. show–”Move that truck!” or a makeover, we want results. We want to see how a group of people or a product can completely change a thing, making it better or beautiful or like new. As we drove toward the orphanage our first day, we had those thoughts. What are we going to do at the orphanage? What major project can we do to improve life for these people? How can we serve to make things better? Yet, on the long ride home, it was not what we did for the orphanage, or how we helped them that truly mattered. They made life better for us, and they continue to.
About a year ago, Jump for Joel built a kitchen for the orphanage. Here’s their kitchen before. The new kitchen is wonderful, but with one flaw: no ventilation. The former kitchen had so many air leaks that ventilation was never thought of, but in the sturdy cement structure Jump for Joel built, the workers soon discovered that ventilation was a desperate need. When we arrived, though ventilation had been added, the walls of the kitchen were completely black, charred by smoke and use. You can see the cooker in the corner, this or an open fire is used to prepare all of the children’s meals. We spent days cleaning all of the soot off of those walls, applying two coats of paint primer, applying the actual paint, and painting a border around the bottom. While we were at it, we painted one of the boys’ sleeping rooms–they were surprised! Every day as we got a little further along on our project, the children would come home from school and peer eagerly through the door of the kitchen. They would look around in amazement, and when we asked if they liked it, they responded in the Kenyan way: Eyes look deep into yours, eyebrows raise, “Yes!” their strong statement rings out, and we know they mean it.
Everything in Kenya is done with community in mind. In the final days of the project, some of the older kids would take the paint brushes from us to give us a break, and they would do their best to help cover the areas that needed paint. Even Josh the security guard, who was so uncertain of us at first, was wrist deep in stirring the paint and breathing in the fumes along side us. It’s not that we didn’t give them a spectacular before/after scene, or that the kitchen didn’t look beautiful, but the kids and adults of Gathiga seemed to love spending time with us more than any project we could have completed. Together, we made each other better.
It is the morning of July 6th, 2010 and we are sitting in the dining room getting ready to eat breakfast. I volunteered to pray and said the basic prayer for food, but I ended it with “Lord, keep us alive not safe.” I did this kind of jokingly, but God had plans other than a joke for me that day.
We had plans to go to the market and then to the monkey park, I was excited for both because I wanted to buy souvenirs for my family and I was so pumped to go to the monkey park and have monkeys climb all over us. We got in the cars and headed towards Nairobi to go to Westgate Mall to check out the market there and have lunch. After having lunch and quickly browsing through the market, we realized two things: this market was not for us because it would be expensive, and if you are from Illinois then you obviously have to know President Obama. So we get in the car and go to a traditional market that Amelia, our team leader, had heard of but never actually been to.
When we got to the market the van parked close to it, but the car that Casey, Deron, and I were in had to park on the other side of the building which was about twenty yards from the market, so not too far. We got out of the car and immediately got mobbed by about fifteen guys asking us questions about everything and anything. We walked to meet the group at the entrance of the market where we were deciding how we were going to go through the market. We said groups of at least three would be the best way to walk around.
Right after this we were getting ready to go through the market and Derek said “let’s go.” When Derek said that, I moved slightly outside of our little circle and quickly got pushed from behind by one of the guys who’d mobbed our car, who I later learned is called a broker. A broker is someone who says they work for the market and they walk you around the market and let you pick up the things you want to buy and then sit you down to discuss the price you want to pay. I thought the group was behind me and that we had all started walking, so I did not think anything was out of the ordinary. By the time I realized I was by myself, I was more than a football field away from the group and had a broker in the front, to the side, and behind me.
As I walked around the market some more I was getting a little freaked out, but not too much because I thought after we walked around for a bit I would go find the rest of the group. That unfortunately did not happen. The group was nowhere to be found and I had to sit down with three guys I did not know and try to get out of there without spending a whole lot of money. He priced the group of things that I wanted and offered me 48,000 shillings. That is roughly 600 U.S. dollars after the currency exchange, he was charging way more than I had ever even thought about spending in the market. So after bargaining with him for a while I realized he was still going to charge me way too much for my items. I decided to try and get him to price the items one by one. I picked up an egg and a stand for it and asked him how much they would be, he said 5000 shillings, I got him down to 1000 shillings and told him I would pay that and then he would give me the items. He agreed, so I handed him the money and he put it and the egg in his pocket saying, “When you pay for the rest you can have them.” I paid for two more things and tried to end the deal there.
That’s when he told me I had to go to the bank to get him the money I owed him. I said I did not want to buy anything else, but he insisted that because I said I would pay for it, I had to go get the money for it. I decided if I was going to get out of there with the least amount of hassle I was going to have to go to the bank. He said it was close, so I was like whatever let’s go.
The bank was about a fifteen minute walk from the market. About halfway there I was terrified and freaked out, but couldn’t really run because he still had my stuff and I was surrounded by three guys as we walked. Even though I was scared, the thought of being robbed at the bank never went through my mind (which is really good because if it had I am sure I would have been freaking out even more). When we got to bank I told him that I did not want the mask (it cost 8000 shillings), and to give me the bowl I had picked out. I walked over to the bank, while he stood by the entrance, about fifteen feet away. This made me feel a little more comfortable about the situation. I walked over and handed him the 8000 shillings and then he handed me the bag of items. He then asked me to go get more money out of my account to pay for the mask; I quickly told him that I did not have any more money in my bank account–and thank God he believed me (because it was true).
After that we started walking back towards the market and at the bottom of the hill I saw Jordan, Jeremy, and Steve (our driver) running toward me. I was so relieved because I was truly frightened by the whole experience. After walking with them holding me by the arms, I really felt like God was teaching me a lesson about not taking my prayers for granted, that He is in full control of my life and that I should respect that. After this situation, I have truly come to respect and not take my prayers for granted, no matter what they are about. God showed me that when I pray to be alive not safe, He will make sure that I am alive not safe to teach me a well-deserved lesson.
The people of Turkana live in the arid, northern region of Kenya–a place too remote to get to by foot. Ages ago, the people were nomadic, but because of development in much of the areas around them, many of the people suffer from malnutrition and illness. One evening, we sat in the cozy Kenyan home of our new friends, pastors at a local church, Susan (who will be getting married and moving to Kentucky!) and Geraldine. Our van drivers had pulled up to a large, square building hours earlier. We’d walked into a small courtyard surrounded by tall bushes; a clothesline and buckets sat in front of the building–shirts and sheets swaying in a light Kenyan breeze. We walked up steep cement stairs and knocked on the left-most door. Susan greeted us warmly and, noticing the pile of shoes in the foyer, we each removed our own shoes and entered their home. The walls of the main room were lined with couches–and we happily piled on them. Delicious smells of spices greeted us. Bible verses and pictures hang on the walls of each room, and we noticed a framed picture of last year’s Jump for Joel team sitting on a shelf–seeing that photo and talking with Susan and Geraldine made us feel like we were becoming reacquainted with old friends after a long absence.
As our evening began, Susan told us stories of how she and Geraldine began working as pastors. She told us that when they moved in to their apartment, they didn’t own a single piece of furniture. They were trusting God to provide their rent every month, let alone enough funds for a table or beds. Now their apartment is filled with half a dozen couches and chairs for welcoming guests, and they have enough bunk beds to host entire teams of mission groups, but the best part is it was all donated to them by friends and members of their church. The two women have done a great deal of outreach all over Kenya. From preaching and helping start churches in the slums, to traveling to the far reaches of Kenya to meet those on the edge of civilization.
And that’s when we learned about Turkana. As the night wore on, we sat in the dim room finishing one of the best meals we ate during our trip, and listened intently as Susan spoke. She and Geraldine travel to the Turkana people every year with a small group from their church. They take a matatu (public transport van) as far as they can, and hitchhike/walk the rest of the way, for as long as it takes. When they get to Turkana, they are greeted by an ancient people. The children may or may not have clothes and they often have no food. They do not keep track of the days, they simply exist in time.
Since their people have been forced to occupy a small space, the government provides each family with monthly rations–from what Susan said, the rations aren’t nearly enough to feed even a small family for more than two weeks. Some groups have tried teaching the Turkana people to fish, but with limited success. Susan and Geraldine’s group teaches them about God. Susan laughed as she told us about missionaries who had brought a video screen to the Turkana and, after telling them about Jesus, had shown them the Jesus film. The Turkana people were infuriated when they saw Jesus being harmed–especially after learning who he was and what good things he’d done. Having never seen a video before, they had no concept of what it was, so they began throwing rocks at the people who were hurting Jesus on screen. They quickly destroyed the screen and the missionaries had to work hard to explain not only that the video on the screen is not real, but also the purpose of Jesus’ death and his resurrection. Susan also told us about her journeys to the Masai, a people even more remote than the Turkana. She said that the Masai live in a place so remote that the Kenyan government doesn’t count them during the national census. Instead, they just estimate how many they believe live in the region–Susan says there are many more Masai than the government reports. When she finally arrived, on foot, in a Masai village, she set up a small tent that she had brought with her to sleep in. When she awoke, dozens of Masai adults and children surrounded her in amazement, asking, “How does a woman carry her house on her back, and then build it in one night?” They were stunned by her flashlight, thinking it was fire that didn’t burn.
We sat around Susan and Geraldine, equally stunned by what they had seen and experienced. Those are the kinds of sights we’ve only read about or seen on Discovery, and here were two women who have walked as far as it took to reach these people with the news of the Gospel. Their courage and commitment left us speechless as they recounted story after story of their adventures.
It had grown late as we absorbed everything we could about Susan and Geraldine, and although we didn’t want to leave the warmth and welcome of their home, we knew we had to. We will forever have friends in Susan and Geraldine–and if we ever go back, we know who we’ll dine with. Maybe next time we’ll join them in Turkana.
STORY TWENTY You’ve met Lucy and Duncan at the orphanage. You’ve read about Purity and Naomi. You’ve seen how the well gets pulled. You’ve heard Dan’s story, you’ve seen the kids at the feeding program, and we have a million more stories we could tell (but we promise we’ll keep it at twenty more). This post marks the halfway point in our project. We’ve had a great time putting these stories together–it’s helped remind us what we learned and teach us new things as we process Kenya. We want to take this moment to say thanks to all of you for reading, liking, commenting, and encouraging us. We are so happy that you have an interest in our stories and, more importantly, in the lives of people on the other side of this planet.
So today, we want to introduce you to a few people you haven’t met yet…our team! Here’s to Jump for Joel’s 2010 summer team — made up of Brittany, Derek, and Debra, all UIS Seniors, Sharon, a teacher at Rochester Middle School, Andrew, a UIS Junior, Casey, an SIUE Sophomore, Deron, SWIC Student, and us–Jeremy and Jordan, UIS Alumni. When we arrived in Nairobi, we met up with our team captain and fellow UIS alum, Amelia, who will actually be working at the orphanage in Kenya until late September (you can check out her blog here).
Although we started the trip as acquaintances and friends, it became obvious as we headed home together that we’d learned and grown a great deal through our shared experience. In Kenya, we were amazed to see how God had given each of us a gift — some kind of knack that ultimately perfectly met one of the needs we had. We watched in amazement as God provided us with organizational skills, leadership, people who take initiative, people who keep working even when we thought we’d done enough. God provided us with constant encouragers, people who could be counted on for a laugh. He gave us inquisitive team members who always looked at things a different way, and asked questions about the deeper issues at play. He gave each of us the trust it takes hold little hands and love smelly, grime- and dirt-covered kids. God provided us with Sharon’s teaching skills to help lead the children, she actually got to teach a lesson at the primary school!
Together, we did our share of laughing (picture bomb!), crying, sharing, and supporting each other. God showed us that He could use our gifts (no matter how “normal” they seem) to the benefit not only us, but our friends in Kenya.
One of the most common warnings when people travel to another country is “don’t drink the water.” That is certainly the case for people traveling to Kenya, too. We were all instructed to bring water containers that we could fill up with bottled water every morning before we set out for the day. The second day we were there, I was pulling water from the well, and as I did, I wondered what made the water so bad? It looked clean and clear coming from the bucket that plunged the over 100 feet down into the well. Families in the United States drink water from a well in some places, so what was so different. A lot actually –
As a team, we got to talking about the location of the well. The property the orphanage is on slopes downwards from one side to the other. The well sits just about in the middle of the slope. However, above the well, elevation wise, is the choo (toilet). The choo is just a deep hole dug into the ground. This inevitably seeps into the ground, and may even seep into the water that ends up in the well.
Earlier that day, I had passed by the temporary kitchen the women had set up (more about that project later — I like foreshadowing) when the woman cooking asked if I would like to try some of the food. My initial reaction was “Yes! Absolutely!” However, my enthusiasm quickly turned to doubt as I watched the woman search for a plate, reach for a previously used plate and dunk it in a bucket filled with water and other dirty plates and cups. Out came the plate from the bucket, and with a few quick whips of her wrist, she deemed the plate clean. She then filled the plate with beans (cooked in the water) and ugali (also cooked in the water), and handed it to me with a smile. I accepted the plate, said “asanti” and walked away to find someone on the team to ask if it was alright to eat the food (it was, and it was delicious — for beans and ugali), which led into our conversation from the previous paragraph.
I pretty much refuse to buy bottled water — it’s unnecessary in my mind. But for us, in Africa, it was our only choice. This became especially true after I decided to get a closer look at the water; what I saw is the macro photograph above. In comparison, the water that comes from my tap at home does not have floating specks of Lord-knows-what in it.
This is Calvince. He is a stronghold of the orphanage. He graduated from high school last year, and is hoping to go to school to become an electrical engineer. It will cost $500, and he doesn’t have that kind of money, so for now he stays at the orphanage and serves. No matter what time we arrived, Calvince was working; he never stops working, smiling, playing soccer with the kids, really doing everything that he can to make the Hope Home function. Calvince chops down tall grass with a machete to feed the pigs and cows, he mixes the food for the chickens, does the farming, and helped us paint and build shelves while we were there. Calvince is the one who normally pulls all of the water every day. That’s the 90 rotations/pull x 20 pulls/day from yesterday’s post. He is a mentor and a role model for the other children, and he was a role model for us, too.
At one point in time, the orphanage had a pump for the well. They were even able to shower (instead of taking sponge baths like they have to now). But the pump broke, and it will cost a lot to be repaired. One of our teammates overheard Duncan, the orphanage “dad,” having a discussion with Calvince. Duncan was adding up the cost for a new pump, and trying to decide whether they could buy a pump and still afford to feed the children. Calvince stepped in and said that it wasn’t worth the money, even if they could afford it. He will draw the water. Besides, he kind of likes doing it; it gives him a good workout.
Calvince is a character. Never once did we hear him complain about anything. He is so full of joy and cares deeply about each of his brothers and sisters in Christ at the orphanage. He wants to go to school, but he knows that there is work for him to do at the orphanage — there will always be work at the orphanage. So for now, he stays.
It takes 10 pulls to fill the orphanage’s drum for water.
Two drums full last one typical day.
Now imagine you’re thirsty…because you live in Africa in a place with no air conditioning and it’s hot. This drum full is your drinking water, it is the laundry water, it is the water for cooking and cleaning, for showering and watering the animals, for washing dishes and mopping, and it cannot be wasted. Forget running water…forget ice cubes. Forget having a drink with every meal. Water is a precious commodity.
Suddenly, organizations like this www.bloodwatermission.com are relevant. Water is life-sustaining, and not having it is life-altering.
My eyes started to cross as I held each bean up and examined it, searching for holes and large dark areas that could be signs of disease. The Kenyan girls helping me giggled as I struggled to identify bad beans–they laughed harder when I looked around for a receptacle and eventually asked where I should throw the bad beans, saying, “Just throw them down!” Of course (almost) everything in Kenya is organic, so you just throw them down on the ground with everything else.
Sorting enough beans to feed everyone at the orphanage is a community affair. Older girls, younger girls, workers, and even the occasional parent of one of the children will stop by to help. And that’s just one of the tasks it takes in order to eat. Not to mention sifting through grains of rice one by one, removing the rotten and diseased ones, chopping fifty heads of cabbage, boiling water in pots as big as a tire, using cardboard in place of potholders, building a fire to cook the food over….Household chores like dusting and vacuuming are inconceivable at the orphanage. There are too many life-sustaining chores to think about.
Warm showers don’t exist for the children. Even in the homes of the workers, to take a warm shower means boiling the water yourself, waiting for it to cool down, and then sponging yourself off with it.
Electricity is minimal. Rooms often have a single fluorescent bulb in the middle of the ceiling, and it is rarely turned on. On one occasion our team was enjoying a late meal in the living room at a Kenyan home, and we sat talking in the dark for thirty minutes, unsure if the home had any lights. Suddenly one of our Kenyan friends who happened to be walking by the living room flipped a light switch on and laughed, along with us, at our hesitancy.
Pillows are not standard in Kenya. In fact, having a pillow on your bed is not at all expected unless you stay in a hotel or guesthouse that is accustomed to outside visitors.
Toilets are a luxury. Generally, the bathroom is something called a “choo.” It looks like an outhouse and has a hole in the ground or in the cement where you do your business. In some instances the choo is built with plumbing so that it can flush, but not typically.
Washing dishes for 100+ children is just another part of life. Dirty dishes are collected in buckets and hand washed, then scattered on top of wood and rocks to dry. The children don’t eat with utensils because they don’t have any, so that’s one less thing to wash.
But laundry is by far the worst, and we will discuss that in-depth in a later post.
We have never felt more blessed to have been born in this country, with all of the comforts we take for granted. My to-do list just got a lot shorter by comparison.
As we wound our way, on foot, up the hill and through the slum, we passed by the backs of houses, across property, ducking under t-shirts hanging from clotheslines. We crossed over a creek using a small wooden plank, and cows tied next to the narrow pathway nipped at Steve, the feeding program coordinator. We didn’t know where we were going, but the children held our hands and led us, in a huge line, down an embankment and up a small slope. From that vantage point we could see brightly colored blankets draped over tall grasses, drying in the sun, and as we got closer, the children stripped their clothes off and began running and jumping into a watering hole. They had led us to their favorite hideaway. It was the size of a small pond and seemed to be a source for runoff from the surrounding fields. Women stood on one side of the bank scrubbing blankets and clothes clean, and then laying them in the field or on top of the plants to dry. Meanwhile the children swam and splashed in the murky water using chunks of dirty styrofoam (which is strewn everywhere) to stay afloat. We watched as they played games like monkey in the middle with the styrofoam, and it broke our hearts when they asked if we would join them. We had to say no.
When the kids got out of the water, one by one, they were freezing. It is winter in Kenya from June through August and the average daytime temperature is between 60 and 75. Regardless, the watering hole is their favorite place to go, and we saw the excitement on their faces when they brought us to it. These children have no towels to dry off with, and nothing to keep them warm. They just put their dry clothes back on, grabbed our hands and led us back to the empty lot.
The children pointed at trees, trash, flowers, birds, and cows along the way back, teaching us what to call them in Swahili. They laughed at us and clapped for us as we tried to pronounce their words. Little hands reached up to hold ours and when we ran out of hands to give, they held our arms, our clothes, or the hands of kids who were already touching us. I can’t describe the feeling of love and acceptance that radiates from them–they shared all they have with us and we found ourselves wishing we had more to give.
A smile as wide as the Kenyan sunrise greeted us our first morning at the feeding program. Our van came jostling and bouncing down the dirt road to Kabiria, our team bouncing, heads bobbing along with it. We didn’t have the slightest idea what to expect–we knew that the feeding program is funded by Jump for Joel, and that it serves kids two meals a day, twice a week, but beyond that our knowledge was limited to stories from previous teams–and then we saw her.
The van had slowed as children ran towards it happily waving and shouting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” Then, from what looked like an empty lot on our right, a big, beaming face raised up from the brush and then an arm raised up over the face and started waving a huge wave of welcome. She began laughing and clapping her hands before we’d even stepped out of the van, and when we did, her smile could have been seen from the other side of the village.
Lucy is her name and the more time we spent at the feeding program, the more I wanted to know about her. She stays busy on the days of the feeding program, preparing enough porridge for breakfast and rice and beans for lunch to feed over 100 children. She told our team what we could help with–from sorting grains of rice one by one to carrying the giant pots of food that feed the children. On a normal day, she would have done this all herself. She cooks the meals over an open fire, in a “kitchen” without a ceiling or walls, using bits of cardboard in place of potholders. And she always seems overjoyed.
In my time at the feeding program I learned that Lucy lives just a few houses away from the lot where the children meet to eat. She does all of the cooking for the children every week, but she has no source of income. Someday, Jump for Joel hopes to provide her with a salary, but Lucy seems content to earn her living feeding the hungry and surviving on their smiles.
Suddenly, almost all of the 90 kids at the feeding program on Saturday morning ran around the barbed wire fence, past the choo (toilet), and up the hill behind the property. At first, we were all so busy working on our various projects, like sorting rice or playing soccer with the younger children, that we didn’t notice the mass of youngsters disappearing behind the brush. Out of nowhere, kids were coming back with bags filled with green things. They were skipping and shouting “Sweets! Sweets!” They seemed overjoyed, their pockets overflowing with sticky plastic bags full of what looked like melted neon green candies.
Curious, I held out my hand and asked a small child what he was holding, but he tucked the bag into his chest and ran away. When I asked one of the older boys, he let me examine the bag of sweets, and I saw “Expires 12-11-07″ written on the back. These candies are 30 months expired, garbage from one of the markets in Nairobi. The trash of the wealthy trickles into Kabiria every few weeks, and when it does the children and adults alike swarm around it. Women scrounge through the garbage for carrots, bananas and avocados that are only slightly rotten, while the children search for candy and anything to eat or play with. The whole area is filled with a sick-sweet stench of rot and decomposing food and waste.
We watched as women cut the mold off of carrots and as children shared the sweets with those who didn’t get any. The men who emptied the truck yelled as the kids snuck goodies from the pile–the children ran away and then slowly crept closer to try and get another bag.
We would have thrown all of these things into our own trash cans in America. Our expired candies and rotting fruits, the leftovers of the wealthy, are what the children survive on. It’s probably not good for them, but Steve says the kids have stomachs of iron, they have to.
One million. That’s the number of people who inhabit Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum, and the second largest slum in all of Africa. What is even more astonishing is that all of those people live within an area less than one square mile.
As we drove along the outskirts of Kibera, there were “No Dumping” signs posted that have long been ignored. Trash piled, in some places, as high as a human is tall outlined the slum. We saw a sick old man lying within one of the piles, either using the trash for warmth, of having been dumped there himself. People were scrounging around through the piles looking for food to eat. Along side them were dogs that were so thin you could see their rib bones. On one occasion, we also saw wild monkeys atop a trash heap.
Some of the trash is burned, much like we might burn our garbage. However, the way their garbage reeks is much more potent and fills the air. It is hard to escape the odor even after you leave because it lingers in your nose. It’s hard to imagine unless you’ve smelled it, but large piles of rotting food, cardboard, wood, feces, decomposing animals, and Lord knows what else, sitting outside, all day, every day baking in the heat of the sun.
Our drivers took us up a very steep, crevice filled slope, up to a bluff that overlooked the entire slum. That was easily one of the most awe-inspiring views I have ever seen. Above is just one small section the slum, and I encourage you to really look around. Immediately you will see clothes hanging from wires, and the tin roofs. But as you look closer, you can see even more trash in the streets and ditches, the “self-help” building, a man holding hands with a child, and the sparsity of greenery.
Kibera truly is a site to see. So here it is, from one side to the other — Kibera (*VERY LARGE FILE — 16MB).
On last year’s Jump For Joel Kenya team, a middle school teacher from St. Elmo visited the Gathiga Primary School. She thought it would be cool for her class in Illinois to be able to connect with children their age, half way around the world. She connected her sixth grade class in Illinois with the class six students in Kenya.
Our team this year went back to the school to provide the kids with paper and pens and pencils to write letters. We visited the class six and class seven students which is equivalent to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students in America. After introducing ourselves, we told the kids that we were there to take photos of them to provide to their pen pals, and to give them time from their studies to write them a letter. The kids all cheered with excitement!
As we handed out the paper, you could see the kids beaming with joy. They couldn’t wait to get their utensils and paper to start writing.
The truly amazing thing is that every child had immaculate handwriting. Composition is considered to be very important as a course in school and so each kid has to practice a lot.
For the new group of class six students, they were asked to share their name, what grade they are in and their favorite subject, and what they like to do outside of school. Many of them also wrote about their home life in Kenya, and how they’d really like to visit America one day to meet their pen pal. The class seven kids who wrote last year filled their pen pals in on what has happened in their life since they were last able to write.
The children also like to draw pictures of themselves, their friends, their families (if they live with a family), and animals. A lot of the kids draw hearts all over the page and tell their new American friend that they love them.
It is really inspiring to see the way the innocence of these kids really comes out in their letters. They don’t care about what the person they are writing to looks like, or what they are wearing. They are so appreciative that someone from America wants to take time to read their letter and write them back.
We didn’t notice at first, but a few days after we arrived at the orphanage, it occurred to us that some of the school-aged children never went to school. Purity and Naomi (both around age nine) were playing hand-clapping games with the team on the stairs beside the chicken coop when it occurred to me, and after I asked why they weren’t in school, they started giggling and spoke to each other in Swahili. I learned later that they often do this when they don’t know how to explain things in English. Swahili is the national language of Kenya, but English is taught in the schools, which is just another reason that schooling is so important for these children.
Throughout our two weeks, I observed Purity and Naomi helping in the preschool class that the orphanage offers, and one day they grabbed my hands and excitedly led me to their composition books. They read me their papers and showed me their math problems–they were so proud of their work and their love for learning and accomplishment is obvious. Yet, they never went to primary school with the other kids their age.
Finally, the day before our departure, I asked Lucy why the girls don’t attend school. She explained to me that the school requires uniforms, black shoes, tuition, books, and school fees. These costs add up to less than 50 U.S. dollars, but in Kenya, that is a great deal of money. When Lucy has to choose between feeding all of the children or providing two them with education, food has to come first.
It is a difficult truth that in Kenya, some children must suffer for all to survive, while in America we easily spend $50. Honestly, it’s a truth we are still grappling with now that we have returned to a world of $50 dinners for two and $100 shoes when we have dozens of others at home.
It’s a short walk up a steep, clay road to get from Gathiga Children’s Hope Home to the Primary School. The children at the orphanage who have the required uniforms and whose school fees have been paid make the short journey to and from school, walking back to the orphanage for a quick lunch and then back to the school for the afternoon session. In all, about 500 children walk to the school Monday through Friday for their classes, and many go to school on Saturday for an extended learning program.
The children are proud of their education, and they often asked our group of volunteers to look at their schoolwork. Countless times when I asked children why they were brought to the orphanage, they would respond by saying, “My mother couldn’t provide me with an education.” I was blown away by their seemingly innate awareness of the importance of learning. It seems as though the children know that they want a better life, and that education is the only way to get there.
The kids we met at the orphanage want to be pilots, lawyers, community leaders and doctors, and it was evident that they are willing work hard to reach their goals. These are children who know what it feels like to do without, and because of that, they strive for more in life. The primary school kids have the older children at the orphanage, including those who have already started college, as role models, and they have the encouragement and support of Lucy, Duncan, and the workers. We know they are going places, but more importantly, they know they are.
Agnes
Andrew
Ann
Anthony
Anthony
Anthony
Anthony
Anthony
Ashreen
Beatrice
Brenda
Dan
David
David
Dennis
Dennis
Eluid
Emilia
Eran
Esther
Evans
Faith
Fiola
Gabriel
Godfrey
Jackson
James
Jane
Jane
Jemmima
Joel
John
John
John
John
Joseph
Joseph
Joseph
Julius
Kennedy
Kennedy
Linnet
Margaret
Margret
Mary
Mary
Mary
Mary
Miriam
Miriam
Mohammed
Moses
Moses
Nahashoni
Nancy
Nancy
Naomi
Nester
Paul
Peter
Peter
Purity
Raphael
Rhonda
RoseMary
Rose
Samuel
Samuel
Sheila
Stephen
Stephen
William
*Normally we wouldn’t post such a raw, uncut video, but in this instance, it’s more powerful. Worship continues like this for over an hour.
As we turned down the narrow street in Nairobi towards the church of pastors Susan and Geraldine, two of our new friends, all we could hear was music. Blaring music! Small shops lined one side of the road, and Kenyan big businesses dominated the other side. Our drivers rolled to a stop in front of a huge marble-like building. A small courtyard with concrete stairs and towering columns greeted us, and as we waited for the pastors to arrive, we learned that the building used to be a library. Each room has been emptied out and the building has been converted into a place of worship that holds multiple church services at once. While we loitered out front we were suddenly greeted, and blessed, by a woman passing us on her way out of the building. She shook each of our hands, looked us in the eyes, and said, “God bless you!” We could now hear competing Kenyan-gospel music coming from inside the building.
Just slightly after 11am, Geraldine arrived. She notified us that Susan was preaching at one of Nairobi’s slums that morning, and wouldn’t be joining us. We followed Geraldine through large wooden doors and turned right. We continued on, up a staircase made of stone that exited into a short hallway. We passed by two or three other services going on before entering a room that was about 20 feet in length and 15 feet wide. Bare concrete walls were lined on one side by a row of open windows, and inside were about 20 white plastic chairs. People filtered in slowly, greeting us with handshakes and hellos, and before we new it, the room was packed and more chairs were brought, filling the room completely.
Although there was no air conditioning in the building, and the open windows were the room’s only ventilation, music and preaching echoed through the streets below us so loudly that we had to close the windows in order to hear our own church service.
Worship in Kenya is everywhere, in every task, every day. But Sunday, it all comes to a head. Voices raise and everyone claps, dances, shouts, and sings to God. We attended two different churches in Kenya, one large and the other small, but we felt no difference in the passion and vibrant faith of the people. Despite the heat and the smell of sweat, Kenyans never tire of singing praise–church is typically scheduled to last three hours, and for special events, it lasts longer. Church is the centerfold of their day, not something to get through on Sunday morning in order to move on to other things. Rather, they give God their all–their energy, their time, their voices, their passion–without restraint.
Think about what you had for lunch last Wednesday. Now think about not having eaten anything since then. That’s the kind of issue that the children who live in Kabiria have to deal with. For many of the kids (and adults) living in the slums of Nairobi, a lack of food is a very real problem. More often than not, the children that roam the streets in Kabiria do so out of necessity; digging through the garbage (which is literally everywhere) is a daily occurrence. They do whatever they have to do to get a meal. Growing up, you may have heard the phrase, especially at dinnertime, “Finish your plate, there are starving kids in Africa,” — those are the kids in Kabiria.
Three years ago, one man was called to do something about it. Through a series of connections that could only have come together by the power of God, a man named Steve became so passionate about the children in Kabiria that he decided to do something about it. And so it began: The Kabiria Feeding Program.
In three short years, the feeding program grew from just 20 or so kids, to upwards of 120 kids. During that time, support for the program also grew. Someone from the 2009 Jump for Joel summer team was so impacted by the kids at the feeding program that she decided to hold a marathon fundraiser to help with the costs of the program. The marathon raised enough money to double the amount of food the kids get, for an entire year! The feeding program is now able to provide children in Kabiria with breakfast and lunch on both Wednesdays and Saturdays. The kids get porridge in the morning and rice and beans for lunch, and the cost is less than fifty U.S. dollars per day.
When it is time to serve food, the kids gather in a circle with their cup or plate and wait. Steve asks for one of the kids to pray for the meal. Francis and Willie, two of Steve’s friends and mentors to the children, start by collecting cups and bowls one by one, filling them with food, and returning them. Once each child has their meal, Lucy, the cook, Steve, and the other volunteers have the option for a plate. They each take very little in order to save food for the kids, and that’s when the heartbreak happens–
The first day we were there to serve the kids, after lunch was over and everyone had eaten, there was a minimal amount of food left over. Our teammates Casey and Deron (in the photo) had been dishing out the meal, and were in the center of the lunch circle when suddenly, nearly all of the kids began to crowd around them, reaching their cups and bowls in between each other, or over their heads, trying to get just a few extra beans and some rice. You could hear the children pleading for more food saying, “Casey…Deron…Please!” but only a few scoops of rice were left, and we were forced to watch and listen to the voices of the still-hungry. Steve saw what was happening and worked his way to the pot of rice. He quickly distributed the food into the bowls of some of the older kids, and put the lid back on the empty pot signifying that there was no more left. That was all.
Life is tough for these kids. We saw some of the children leaving with their food in containers or makeshift containers that were really just old used bags. We learned that some of them, after only taking a few bites for themselves, bring the rest of their portion home to their families. Despite the fact that they have nothing, the children take care of each other. Four year olds are cared for by the five year olds. Five year olds are cared for by the six year olds. Six year olds are cared for by seven year olds, and so forth. They are a community. Not once when they were asking for seconds did anyone get pushed or shoved out of the way. Not once did we hear whining or complaining from anyone. These children battle with hunger, not with each other. And even the older kids who got more took their food and shared it with their friends and siblings who didn’t get seconds.
The children of Kabiria model a lifestyle of interdependence and sheer selflessness that we can all learn from and aspire to live out in our own lives.
Purity’s right forearm is covered with a thick, dark scar, but she doesn’t try to hide it. She was one of the liveliest children we met on our first day at the orphanage. She sang, played games, and danced for us in the yard. She was easily the most outgoing of all of the children. Her laughter and excitement were constantly bubbling over onto the other children and workers. Yet, as we continued coming to the orphanage day after day, she became more subdued. We could sense that behind her confident and friendly demeanor, she possessed a depth of understanding beyond that of your average 9-year-old. One of our team members had the chance to talk with her one-on-one and experienced a story of the incredible faith of children. Purity was brought to the orphanage by her father. He cared for her most of her life, but, according to Purity, he was eventually unable to provide a home for her. When we asked about her mother, Purity simply shrugged her shoulders and looked away. But, when asked about her scar, and after she saw the concern on our teammate’s face as Purity told her the story of being shoved into a fire, she smiled and exclaimed, “It’s okay, Jesus is my savior–Jesus is my God!” Her faith gives her wings to fly and joy to share, and no matter what kinds of tragic experiences she has endured in her short life, we could see that no matter what, she will shine her light for all to see.
An old photograph of Lucy and Duncan Ndegwa hangs in each of the children’s sleeping rooms. They are surrogate mom and dad for all of the children, and the children adore them–running up to give them hugs and high-fives when they come to the orphanage in the morning and piling into their van by the dozens to go to the market with them during the week. They are the emotional and spiritual backbone of the Gathiga Children’s Hope Home, and when we thanked them for having us, they laughed and said, “You’re thanking us for letting you come and do work for free? Come any time!” The most impressive thing about their work, though, is the fact that they intentionally search for the lost, the weary, the hungry, and the abused. They don’t wait for desperate mothers to come bringing their children (although many do); rather, Duncan drives his van through the slums for hours looking for children who are digging through trash for food, or wandering aimlessly in the alleys. He will talk to the children and ask them about their family. If he can locate the child’s parents, he will offer to care for the child at the orphanage. If the parents have their child’s best interest in mind, they will let Duncan take them; however, many parents refuse. So the kids go back to the streets. Duncan doesn’t give up though; he will return for that child and continue to pursue them the way a shepherd pursues his lost sheep.
There are some parents who will agree to let Duncan take their child, and later change their minds and ask for their child back. We’ve heard a dozen sad stories about drunken or strung-out parents taking their children back to the streets. Duncan remembers those kids, too, and he searches for them until he finds them. If he sees that they are once again abandoned and scouring the streets as they did before. He will bring them back to the orphanage.
Once at the orphanage, Lucy ensures that the children are going to the primary school in the mornings (the Kenyan government provides free primary schooling until noon provided the children have the proper school uniform and they can afford basic school supplies like books and writing instruments — more on that later), have food to eat, and a place to sleep at night. Lucy is also a pastor, and the children attend the church she ministers at to learn about God’s faithfulness and love.
Lucy and Duncan are building an incredible legacy of hope restored and dreams awakened, and we have no doubt that with each child they care for, they are creating a better future for Kenya.
Gathiga Children’s Hope Home is home to over 100 children from the Nairobi area. The children are as young as two and they stay at the orphanage up through their high school career. Often older children continue to visit and help out at the orphanage beyond high school and into their college and university years. We will share a few of their stories with you in a later post. This place is truly the hope of children. During our time there, we witnessed a young mother with three young children hesitantly knock at the gate. Josh (pictured above), the security guard, let her in. She was carrying a baby and walked with two young boys at her side. Our team could sense something happening–an interruption in the routine flow of laundry, cooking, and looking after the little ones. We later learned that the mother was asking the orphanage to take her children. She said she couldn’t provide them with food or an opportunity for education, and she had already been denied by other orphanages that were too full. Lucy Ndegwa, who founded the orphanage, is responsible for making difficult decisions about which children they can afford to care for. Lucy has 102 mouths to think about feeding with little income. Yet, she trusts that God will provide for the children, and He always does. Lucy took in the two older children and told the mother that the baby was too young to be away from her. She also offered the mother the opportunity to work at the orphanage and earn a small wage. A few of the children’s parents stop by periodically to help with chores and visit their kids. The orphanage has four full-time workers who cook, clean, do laundry, and tend to the children. They are incredible people with far more work to do than will ever be done, and we will devote a story solely to them later. For now, all I can say is that I will never again complain about doing laundry. Imagine hand-washing clothes for more than 100 people every day! The orphanage is also home to chickens, three cows, and two pigs that generate income. The older children at the orphanage wash their own clothes, tend to the animals, and mentor and teach the younger children. Each age group looks after the group below it, creating a beautiful support system for everyone.
Once upon a time, in a land called Kenya, a little boy made a huge decision. Dan was six years old when his parents died and he and his younger sister went to live with their godparents. When he realized how difficult it was for them to put food on the table, he decided to leave. He didn’t want to be one more mouth for them to feed, so he went to live on the streets of Nairobi. He joined other orphaned and abandoned children his age in the endless search for food and shelter. Up to this point, his story is not an uncommon one. But one day, God intervened. Dan and his friends met Lucy and Duncan Ndegwa. Lucy ran a small shop and Duncan worked as a matatu (vans used for public transport — comparable to American cabs) driver, but in their spare time they would feed and minister to children on the streets. After talking with these boys a number of times, Lucy decided to give them a little money for food and told them to come to her house for dinner on Tuesday. As expected, the six boys showed up and enjoyed a real meal in a real home–possibly their first. When dinner ended, Lucy thanked the boys for coming–in the past she had daydreamed about starting an orphanage to care for boys like them, but like everyone she had work to do and bills to pay–but the little boys did not want to go back out to the streets to sleep. She tried explaining to them that this was her husband’s home and they had to leave, when, to her great surprise, her husband Duncan stepped in. He said that the boys could not go back out to the streets, that they should stay. The year was 1996 and those six boys became the first children of Gathiga Children’s Hope Home–the orphanage that Lucy and Duncan founded after opening their home to Dan and his friends. Dan soon brought his sister to live at the orphanage with him, and dozens of street kids now know the joy of having a home. He and some of the older boys at the orphanage started their own soccer team, “Team Hope.” Dan graduated from high school a few months ago, and we can’t wait to see what he does next.
The first thing we noticed as we stepped into the fresh morning air in Gathiga, a small village just outside of Nairobi, was the dust. Dust permeates everything. Our plane had landed at the Nairobi airport a little after 10:00 pm Tuesday, and by the time we got through customs and out of the terminal, it was too dark to see much. That first morning we awoke to the sounds of dogs barking, roosters crowing and workers walking down the road speaking to one another in Swahili. The Jump for Joel Kenya team for the summer, ourselves included, looking jet-lagged and blatantly American in jeans and t-shirts, boarded the vans that had been hired to transport us around Kenya for the next two weeks. The minute the vans began driving towards Gathiga Children’s Hope Home, the orphanage we would quickly come to know and love, we saw the dust for the first time. Clouds of thick, red dust billowing toward us with every passing vehicle (small and large), and creating a haze too dark to see through. As it settled, dozens of men and women, children and animals walking down the road came into view. People walk in Kenya. They walk everywhere–sometimes for miles–to get to and from work or to and from the market. And the dust covers them. Dust covers the corn stalks, coffee and banana trees, and the flowers that sprawl in every direction along the roadside. It felt as though the world was so young that the dust from God’s hands when He finished creation hadn’t fallen off of everything yet. It took us twenty minutes to drive to the orphanage, and once we got there, we were soon covered in Kenya’s dust just like the children we played with. And the dust hasn’t finished falling off of us or our things yet. It’s still stuck in a spot on the back of my ankle that I haven’t fully scrubbed off, it’s still resting on the top of Jeremy’s Sperry Top-Siders, and it’s still all over my Bible. It reminds us daily of the dusty, joyful, beautiful place we came from, and Jeremy and I are praying that it doesn’t fall off any time soon.
