And who is my neighbor? [Luke 10:29] by Jessica and Robin

One of the first things we are taught as children is the Golden Rule…Do Unto Others… At some point we graduate from that easy principle to one that tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. At that point, the debate arises about WHO that neighbor is. The literal one, the next-door neighbor, the school friend...certainly not the ones who don’t look or talk or eat like we do; or the ones who might be dirty or ill.

Jess:

The first time I met Nancy was about a year and a half ago when she was working as a house help for a friend of mine. I didn’t really notice her, except that she had a one- year-old son who was really cute. I didn’t speak to her enough to even know if she could speak English very well. That friend got pregnant and let Nancy go, because Nancy was HIV positive and she didn’t want someone who was HIV positive around her baby.

In October of last year Grace, with whom I work here and who also knows Nancy, called me to let me know that Nancy was not doing well.  She did not have any work and was not able to buy enough food to stay on her ARVs.  I went to meet with Nancy to maybe do something small to help her and was immediately struck by the depth of her need. Over the next few months after we went to MSF (Medicines Sans Frontiers) to get her back into their HIV program, we got to know one another better. I called her every week once she was back on ARVs to make sure she was adhering to the drug protocol, I found friends to donate their used clothes for her to sell to earn money to feed her family, and when she had emergencies, no gas to cook with, not enough money for food, or extensive dental work…I did what I thought Jesus would do and I gave from my own funds to make sure she had food to cook, gas to cook it with and teeth that didn’t pain her when she chewed.

I asked for support through a blog and one friend in the US gave $100. Blessings to you my friend, you know who you are! But to everyone else Nancy was simply a sad far away story.

Robin:

Last week one day Jessica and I got off the mutate on Ngong Road and as usual, I followed a few feet behind her [always feeling safe in her presence]; this time into one of Kenya’s slums, past rows of squalid shacks with laundry hung out or little children playing in the dirt or people sitting and talking or selling whatever they had to sell. Once again the smells and sights tested my fortitude.  Suddenly a young woman, named Nancy, ran up and enfolded Jess in her skinny arms. She led us to her home, a room with two chairs and a table and curtains hung to hide the bed space. She had no money with which to pay the rent [$15/month] or buy food and certainly was unable to send Cecilia, her 14-year-old daughter to school. We had brought a friend who was on her way to a park for a picnic. She pulled out her sandwich [having to explain how to eat a sandwich], juice, chips, and chocolate and gave them to the family of 3. The three-year-old boy took a few chips at a time and went out the door to share them with his cousins who were delighted with the treat. I was moved that even in his hunger, this child shared with others.

Jess:

I sat in Nancy's house and talked to Cecilia about going to school. At first I told them I would pay 5,000/= shillings of the 17,500/= shillings she needed for school fees to go to high school and pay for the items she would need for boarding school. By the time I got home, I had decided God needed more time to work and I would pay the balance of her first term fees so that we would have an entire semester to find a sponsor for her. I know you expect me to use the money you donate for myself and my living expenses. But it is impossible to sit back and watch a 14-year-old have to wait to go to high school because of lack of fees. God will put it on the heart of someone who reads this blog to see the potential of this family and support God’s plan for their lives. Nancy, Cecilia and Kimani are my neighbors…is God calling you to be their neighbor too?

Robin:

When I voice concern about support for this work, I am reassured by Jessica that God always provides.  When I see the need, I am overwhelmed. But when I see on the Nomadic Chameleon Donor site that once again this month, a man has given $20 as he has for the last several years, and that a woman has sent $500 for a child’s education I am reminded of the power of God and the faith of His people...and I am humbled and grateful. Thank you, each and every one.

Robin and Jess:

Whether being a good neighbor is costly or time-consuming, whether it is indeed our neighbor or a stranger, someone who is struggling through a divorce or one who is living with HIV, we know we need to be walking alongside them in whatever capacity is needed.  A recent quote in an Upper Room devotion: Christ comes to us in every needy person. How can we possibly want to miss a single opportunity to meet our Savior in this way – through that particular person on that day with that need? Lord help us to be aware and available always.

Jesus Loves the Little Children: Another Blog from Mama Jeska

The comfort of the words, “Jesus loves the little children; all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white; they are precious in His sight….” must be the same for children all over the world.  Despite how some may fret over the political incorrectness of the skin color descriptors, they really are all inclusive – and for very young children, they are primary colors; easy for children to define and something to which they can relate.

                        

Today is the end of my second week in Kenya although it feels as if I have been here forever. I am accustomed to the jammed, noisy, dust-filled matatus. I enjoy the very basic foods of ugali, chipati, rice, potatoes, beans, and sukuma. Tea with milk and sugar is offered everywhere as is mango juice if one is fortunate. The sounds and smells are also becoming more comfortable to me, whether they are the crazy sounding birds, the chiseling of stone outside, the horns on matatus, or the street children across the way praising God upon their early rising.

But my greatest delight is in the children – and they are everywhere, and they are absolutely breathtaking, and they are simultaneously heartbreaking if they are homeless or begging or sitting placidly while flies cover their faces. But those are not all of the children; just the ones who pull most strongly on MY heartstrings. I would like to introduce you to a few:

School children

We have visited numerous schools and day cares and without exception, have found the children to be obedient, respectful, happy, and hard-working. The two photos below show primary school children at PCEA Emanyatta Primary school  inNgong Hills, sitting at their desks and the baby class napping on their communal mats.  The children are always happy to have visitors and will perform for us if asked. They each want to shake hands and know how to say “Hello” and respond with “Fine” when asked how they are. In the third photo, from the Kids for Christ Day Care Center, you will see a particularly precious child who was reticient to come too close but always had her eyes on us.

Street children

Since my previous blog introduced the street children, I will be brief here except to say that they have grown on me! You will note in the first photo below that we are enjoying each other’s company after lunch at the feeding program at Dagaretti Corners. The children love to muss up my hair and feel its texture and note its color. They also are not hesitant to rub their fingers over my wrinkles [which are a real oddity here because of the melanin in African skin]. [As an aside, while the street boys were eating lunch at the Wednesday feeding program., I was wearing my Obama T-shirt and told them that even THEY could be like Obama….and that night wrote to Obama and sent photos. I just can’t understand why I didn’t receive an immediate response from him!!!!!] 

Maasai children

It was particularly gratifying for me to accompany Jessica out into the Rift Valley to the small compound known as Ikiloret where she oversaw the building of a school room and helps to teach adults. The ride takes hours and for me was full of tension as we went over rutted and rock-strewn roads [or so-called roads] often waiting while Maasai herded their cattle or goats or donkeys out of the way. I couldn’t imagine Jess doing it on the back of a motorcycle. The scenery was spectacular but the heat was stifling, especially inside a manyatta or mud hut [but it was interesting….and somewhat difficult for me as a mother, to see the place where Jess stays when she is there]. The most unnerving aspect of being in Ikiloret, however was the flies. They are everywhere and one has to swat continuously. However, the Maasai do not swat….they live with the flies. The first photo is of one of the beautiful children with flies all over his face. They are just too adorable for description. The next photo is of Jessica as “the daughter” with the matriarch of the village. My heart is warmed by their acceptance of and love for her.

MY children

Most of you remember that Joel and I enjoyed 5 years as surrogate grandparents to “Buddha” [IbrannahOmwancha] who was born to a Kenyan mother in Minnesota and then sent to his father in Kenya at the age of 5. We were devastated yet knew that this was probably the best for Buddha. When we came to Kenya in 2008, we were able to spend several days with him but found it unbearably heartbreaking on both sides when we had to part again. Last Saturday we brought him home with us and then went to church together on Sunday before his Auntie, with whom he lives, came to pick him up. He is now 11 and like his “Nyanya Robin” adores little babies, as seen in the next photo. [The baby belongs to an 16 year old street child who is also across the lane from us]. We hope to spend more time together. The current plan is that Buddha and his auntie will come to MN for August, but plans are just that until they become realities. I no longer hold my breath or wish for the impossible.

The last photo is of me with Faith, one of my favorite street children. It was taken Wednesday night after church as we were having porridge before heading for a matatu trip home. In the evenings it gets chilly here and Faith had on a long-sleeved shirt which she gave to another orphan who wore only a tank top. I was deeply moved by her selfless tenderness and so cocooned her in my sweatshirt.  It exemplifies what I would like to do for all the precious children of the world – but it is what I KNOW Jesus has already done for all the children of the world, and for that I am eternally grateful and full of hope!

A Mother's Perspective

Looking out of the front window of Jessica’s apartment, I see first a Jacaranda tree with beautiful fuchsia flowers and then a little further out, I see a group of elderly men sitting on a pile of concrete slabs and hammering on them in the heat and dust of the roadway, and then just beyond that a wall behind which I can see the silhouette of a young boy in a tree.  The distance between me and the boy is not physically far, but between our worlds, there is no measurement that could possibly quantify that distance.  I am a relatively well educated, well off, healthy white woman and he is a very young, never schooled, homeless and poverty-stricken street boy. His story, and that of several others, follows:

“My name is Double. I am 6 years old.”  In broken English and with the help of a translator, the beautiful little African boy stood in front of me to relay the story of his life. 

The scene was a small room in a house across the dirt road from Jessica’s apartment in Ngong, Kenya. There were 21 of us packed like sardines with no ventilation. Jessica and I had brought them bags of groceries – staples like rice, flour, sugar, milk along with some juice and biscuits [sweet crackers]. We also brought blankets made by women at Bethlehem Lutheran church in the Midway in St. Paul.  They had no blankets and only recently had acquired some mattresses from a generous donor.

They each received a cup of juice and a biscuit. I watched in awe as they each sat patiently while everyone was served. No one even tried to taste a cracker. Then all was silent as one of the little boys began to pray. It went something like this:

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for these biscuits and juice. We thank you for taking care of us.  Thanks for the visitors who have come. Bless those who have nothing. In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

As this was being prayed, a little girl was snuggling into my side and rubbing my leg. She was also 6 and also beautiful and also starved for affection. When the prayer was over it was difficult for me to look up because I was ashamed of my tears – and more so, ashamed of all the times I have felt needs or wants or felt sorry for myself or felt slighted etc etc.

Tracy, the 23-year-old Kenyan woman who took in these children [after Jessica found the house] is an amazing woman of faith who talks about how God provides for them. Every Sunday she hauls all 18 children to church and prays that God will send money for transportation costs for the whole group. And He does!  She was beyond delighted when Jessica presented her with a computer that Hal Spann donated and then the food and blankets were an extra bonus.  I asked if I could hear some of the children’s stories. Here are the first of many:

Double’s Story: Age 6

Double ended up on the street because his younger sister got cancer and was hospitalized. His mother was unable to pay the bill and so she has been detained by the hospital for 2 years!!! [We have since been told by some missionary doctors that hospitals are not allowed to do this, so not sure what the real story is here]. He was taken in by a drug peddler who uses young street children to beg for drugs. Double slept in some stalls in the marketplace and there he met Mikey and Peter and the three boys stuck together and heard about a project in Nairobi and that they could receive free food on Wednesdays. After going to the project, they met Tracy who took them in.

Mikey’s Story: Age 8

Mikey was a street boy because his mother had an accident and died, and his father was a drunk and an addict. He begged at Nakkumat Junction, a popular location for tourists. He also slept in market stalls. One day a man came to him and talked of a big house and told him many lies, such as the fact that he would buy him donuts. Mikey followed him to the house to find it was a vacant building. The man continued to hound Mikey and ended up molesting and raping him.  Then Mikey began hanging out with 5 other boys. One night the old man brought 5 other men to rape the 6 boys, but the boys had found a dog who they named Scooby, who barked enough to give them time to escape from the men.  Tracy found the boys and took them to the hospital. This is currently a police case.

Charles’ Story: Age 14

Charles’ mother beat him, and so to avoid that daily ordeal, he went to the streets. He lived by collecting and selling scrap metal. On the streets he met Martin and several other boys who worked and slept together. He and the other boys sometimes resorted to using drugs or sniffing glue to keep from being too hungry or cold. He also found out about the project and then met Tracy and came to live with her.

Martin’s Story: Age 14

Martin lived with his grandmother in Kapsebit [probably 6 hours from Nairobi] but at 14 decided to go to Nairobi and find his mother. He was able to get a ride from a police officer. When he got to Nairobi he was amazed at the size and number of buildings. He saw his mom on the street one day. She was a maid in Westlands but would not acknowledge him because she was ashamed of him. She finally took him home but would not tell him who his father was and brought different men home every night and beat Martin. He finally left to “struggle” on the streets. He collected metals and begged. Sometimes he was given shoes or bread by generous passers by. He met a group of boys who worked and slept together and eventually met Tracy. He says now, “I am thanking God. I have a new family and I call Tracy, “mom”.”

There were two boys who were not present to tell THEIR stories because prior to their being admitted to the “house” they were spending the night in a ditch when they overheard some men breaking in to a stall across the road. They rose up in the ditch and called out the men’s names. In response, the men came after them and murdered them on the spot. Who would know that they are gone? By whom are they missed? Without ever having met them, I will remember them forever…

Jess and I came back across the alley, climbed the stairs, unlocked the doors, and sat and wept.  And I thought back to the days when I graduated from college and chose to live in the little shack in eastern Kentucky and asked my mother where God was and why there was such inequality in the world. Now 40 years later, I am still asking that question…

Today we will go with Tracy to look for another house because she cannot afford to pay the rent here. Tomorrow I will go with some Swiss missionaries to a day care they help to sponsor and perhaps I can offer some very small witness of Christ’s love in my tenderness to the babies.

Today is the end of my first week in Kenya and even at my age, I have learned some valuable lessons. And I know why Jessica is here, and I am in awe of her in this setting, and although my motherly concerns will never cease, my sense of God’s call to her and His blessings on her are stronger than ever.

See Him. See them.

“Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of ‘God’.”

I try to keep this in mind when I interact with people who have lived or are living on the street. I can’t imagine the painful circumstances that brought them to this point or the pain of actually sleeping on the cold hard ground, but I try to see God in them. Would I ignore God if he was dressed in rags and dirty?

As a woman alone I have felt that it is not good to engage “street people” for fear that they will take advantage of me. That was wrong thinking. But I was always able to justify it in my head. It is one of the many “white” lies I have told myself over the years.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit a feeding program for street boys in an area called Dagoretti Corner in Nairobi. It felt a bit like going to the dentist…I know going will be good for me, but I’m anxious about it nonetheless.

I met my friend Tammy near the matatu stage and we walked into her ‘hood’. She lives in a low-income neighborhood. Around the corner from her apartment building is a tent church, Victory World Outreach, (there are many tent churches here), where the feeding program is housed. Adjacent to the tent is a field surrounded with a barbed wire fence, there are maybe 20 boys barefoot in dirty, torn clothes playing football like they don’t have a care in the world, shouting and laughing and I’m hooked. I feel like I’m in a trance. There in front of me are 20 versions of Jesus, all as beautiful and blessed as the messiah himself.

 The goal is scored between the piles of clothes!

Keeping track of the ball in the long grass is sometimes a problem.

Victory World Outreach Church is in the background.

I shoot a bunch of photos of them playing football and then follow Tammy to the pastor’s office. Pastor Safari is a rare breed among Kenyans. He has not asked for money from Tammy and Amie, the two American women who run the program. Instead he is partnering with them to provide a service for his fellow Kenyans.

Amie Obare is married to a Kenyan and started a feeding program a few years ago with another organization and then had to move on because of corruption. When she started again with Tammy in another site, a lot of the same street boys found her again. She and Tammy moved three weeks ago to this new site at Victory World Outreach. The new site has a kitchen, classroom and bathrooms. The street boys can take showers with cold water! They are thrilled! Although putting back on the dirty clothes isn't the perfect ending. Being clean underneath makes them look brighter.

The younger kids colored in an activity book and made paper airplanes.

Amie said that the majority of them sniff glue, which helps to fend of hunger and cold. However, glue is addictive and once they are addicted they may never leave the streets.

Some of them are given refugee at night behind shops of sympathetic shopkeepers or small jobs and businesses in the area, but none of these boys are able to go to school.

While the big boys play football. The younger boys and one little girl (I think the youngest was about 6); color and do the activities in an activity book. There is only one book so they all share while they wait for lunch.

About 40 minutes before lunch is served when all the showers have been taken, about 37 street kids file into two classrooms. Ages 6-11 in one room with a volunteers doing alphabet exercises and 12 and above in the bigger room talking about the new rules posted that day and getting a short sermon from another volunteer.

 Fredrick and Joseph, share a message with the "big" boys.

 Tracy, in the Friends shirt, and Josephine and I serve up rice and beans to the street boys.

 The littlest street kids, Salome and Gitau, enjoying their lunch.

We fed 40 people all together, including some of the Kenyan volunteers. There was not enough food for Tammy, Amie and I or for Tracy, the young Kenyan woman who will take over the program when Tammy and Amie are in the states in the next few months.

The volunteers are all Kenyans, two cooks, a teacher and two men who monitor the boys and preach to them. One of the men actually has to monitor the shower time. Fights tend to break out a lot because the boys that came from Amie’s old site get into turf battles with the boys that are from in the area around where the feeding site is now.

 The staff and volunteers of the street boy feeding program! One of the most amazing team of volunteers I've ever me. Cohesive, productive and determined!

There are no fights the day I am there. Lots of kids with fairly obvious ADHD problems bouncing off walls, but shy boys too and to my surprise I got a lot of hugs at the end of the four hours.

“Thanks for visiting us. Please come again,” one boy about 13 said as he gave me a shy hug.

What does it feel like to be invisible or consciously ignored? I wanted to shout, “I see you! You are not nothing!”

But it’s truly not enough just to see. Action must follow.

And so my action, besides telling you, will be to go back whenever I can and bring friends, and to provide whatever resources I can to support this project. I have already edited a few proposals Tracy has written and I intend to see if I can help them find schools that will take some of these kids for free. Lots of boarding schools have a couple of students who are there on a full scholarship. The problem is where to house them during school vacations…going back to the street isn’t an option.

I could go into a long rant about the atrocious state of the Kenyan child welfare system or the corrupt police but I’ll save that for another day. The good news is average Kenyans are standing up to help their own, but they don’t have the resources to create real sustainable change.

Currently the feeding program is only on Wednesdays. But Amie, Tammy and Tracy would like to add more days and someday have a half way house where boys could transition off the street. They would also like to have a house where children could stay so they could attend school.

They would also like to have a medical fund to deal with the boys who need medical care and they would like an electric razor so they can shave the boys, rather than paying to have their heads shaved. Every shilling saved can be used somewhere else!

If you ask any of these boys what they want most in life they will tell you they want to be “off the streets.”

If you would like more information about this program please contact Amie Obare at: amieobare@yahoo.com or friend her on FB. Many of the stories of the boys and their photos are posted on her page.

FYI – the quote at the top of the page is from the book, “Islam, A Short History” by Karen Armstrong, and actually reads. “Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah.”

God is God. He is everywhere. Even in children with no home.

Please pray for these boys and girls and children like them everywhere!

A new challenge

I didn’t go to Ilkiloret this week. I’ve had pretty serious back pain that became more acute the previous week in Ilkiloret and then after a doctor’s visit last Friday actually got worse… so decided to stay home and rest this week…however rest is not exactly an easy skill for me to master.

So this Wednesday instead of climbing on a motorcycle, I climbed on a matatu and went to me ‘Nancy’ (not her real name), in Karen. Nancy is the former house girl of Grace’s daughter-in-law. Nancy is HIV+, she went off her medication in August because she lost her job and could not afford to buy enough food. The ARVs make her sick if she does not eat properly when taking them.

She was not able to pay rent this month and called Grace for assistance. Grace found out that she had stopped taking her medication and called me in a panic. I took Nancy to a HIV program in Karen Wednesday morning, but they said she would need a transfer letter from her current program. Nancy said she would stay with her current program but didn’t know if they would take her back because she had gone off her medication. So I went with her to a Medicines Sans Fronteras clinic in Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya and supposedly in all of Africa.

We took a matatu only a short distance into Kibera from the Ngong Road side, but then walked through the slum for a good 12-15 minutes. Nancy was carrying her 2-year-old son, which slowed up down a bit. That and it was quite hot…and every few meters you have to negotiate garbage or sewer in the road.

I would love to have one of those pens with a camera in it for walking through the slums. It’s not a particularly bright idea to pull out a camera in Kibera, especially to photograph people you don’t know… but a spy camera would be ideal!

When we reached the clinic that is tucked neatly into the side of a hill, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sea of people we encountered. Nancy said she was usually there by 7 am so that by 10am she could be on her way. The fact that we were arriving around 9:30 am was not lost on me. We squeezed our way onto an overcrowded bench and began what I thought might be an all day wait. Surprisingly enough, within 30 minutes we had been called to see the nurse, who took Nancy’s vitals. The nurse referred us to the counselor before the doctor, because Nancy had not complied with treatment regulations by not attending her last appointment in August.

We spent a half hour with the counselor who talked to Nancy about taking responsibility for her health and her family. (She also has a 14-year-old daughter named Cecelia). She also called in the social worker. He explained about a lack of feeding programs because they are so easily abused and because most nutrition programs only cover the very ill and bed ridden. My Westerness jumped to the surface quickly… “Well, if people like Nancy lose their employment and can’t buy food they will end up very ill. Why not try to prevent that from happening.” Okay, so I know I was preaching to the choir. But I need to express what in my mind was obvious.

The social worker explained to me that MSF originally had a feeding program, but it was more expensive than the drugs and it had to make a decision between doing it’s mandate which is to provide medical services and doing general assistance.

While I don’t fault them for their choice, I am still looking at a huge hole in the HIV wellness system. It people living with HIV don’t have access to nutritious food they will acquire full blown AIDS. I know feeding programs are expensive, but when MSF stopped providing food, no one stepped into fill the gap. The people living with HIV were effectively on his or her own.

So that brings me back to Nancy, whom I said I would call once a week to make sure she was taking her drugs. That got us out of the counselor’s office and into the queue to see the doctor. I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think it hurt, for Nancy to have a white advocate (me) with her. We seemed to zoom to the head of the queue. Because by now we’ve been at MSF for an hour and all the same people seem to still be there.

The doctor was helpful and seemed unhurried even though the waiting area was still teeming with patients. And although Kimani, Nancy’s son has already been dismissed from the program because he is not HIV positive, the doctor agreed to see him too. Kimani had a bad cough and an ear infection (the puss was literally running out of his little ears). After the lab for Nancy and then another round with the doctor for Kimani it was finally time for us to go.

The counselor came back in and said Nancy needed to sign up for the treatment experience (fatigue) support group before she left. The man who signed her up also wrote down the phone number for the place where the group meets and for the counselor for this MSF clinic.

Anyone who knows anything about published phone numbers in Kenya, knows that they are rarely correct. (As were the ones on the appointment card we had tried to call that morning from Karen).

We then headed to the clinic pharmacy, where we only waited a few minutes to be given drugs. In a little three hours we had waded through a sea of humanity and gotten Nancy back in the MSF HIV program. I am extremely impressed with the professionalism and efficiency of this MSF clinic! May have to volunteer for them sometime!

It wasn’t particularly evident because she was so tired, but I could see relief creep into the posture of Nancy's body. Even as we made our way slowly out of the slum, Kimani nestled on her back, wading through the garbage and sewage, she just seemed lighter.

We got back to the matatu stage and boarded a mat back to Ngong Road. There is a large fancy shopping center at the junction. We went to the food court and had lunch. Kimani at chips (French fries) and drank fresh squeezed orange juice like he had a bottomless pit for a stomach. However it was getting late and we needed to keep moving so we asked the waiter to wrap the rest of the chips, to which Kimani exploded into tears.

Kimani and his chips!

Nancy and Kimani having lunch with Auntie Jessica at Prestige Shopping Plaza.

Then I took Nancy grocery shopping. We bought all the staples, rice, ugali flour, sugar, oil and beans. I gave her more money to buy vegetables from the stalls by her house where they will be cheaper.

We had bought too many heavy things so I told her I would go with her to her house and help her carry the groceries. Nancy lives in a small slum on the opposite side of Ngong Road in an area called Lenana. She said her home wasn’t far from the road; it may have been that I was just tired, but I think we have different definitions of the word “far.”

When we finally arrived we had to pass over a river of sewage on stones and then duck under a clothesline to get to her small house. Which consisted of one room with a couch, a couple of chairs, a coffee table, a bed and cooking supplies. Nancy is a good housekeeper and her home has a comfortable feel despite the surroundings outside her door. She invites the neighbor children into say hi and introduces me as Kimani’s auntie.

We chat about what kind of income generating business she would like to start and she agrees to find out how much start up money she will need to sell sukuma (kale - a staple vegetable) and then she will call me.

As she walks me back to the matatu stage, her 10-year-old neighbor Mary walks hand-in-hand with me, stealing a sideways glance and then breaking into a huge smile when she sees me looking down at her. Nancy tells me that Mary’s mother leaves for work at 9 in the morning and comes home at around 11 at night. Her mother sometimes drinks all the money she makes so Mary and her 8 and 3 year-old siblings sometimes go hungry.

“I give them food when I have it,” Nancy says. "But mostly I just give them love. Sometimes I think they need love more than food.”

Nancy is 32 years old. She is back on ARVs. I’ve paid her rent for this month so she won’t be evicted while she tries to get a small business started. She has enough food for a couple of weeks.

What I would like is to receive an email in the next week or so from someone who would like to help me help Nancy. I want to be able to tell her we have the money to help her start a small business. I want to fix the gaping hole in the front of her mouth where she is missing a tooth. I want her to be able to enroll her daughter in a good high school next year. I want her to not feel so alone in the world. I want Nancy to be here in to see Cecelia and Kimani grow up.

Its a lot to want. I know that. But Nancy and I are daughters of the most amazing heavenly father who will not hear our cries and ignore us. Through one or many of you, he will provide exactly what Nancy needs!

Patience is a virtue I'm only beginning to master!

I’ve had back pain for 25 years. Most of it is chronic pain from accidents sustained in my youth (relatively speaking) and a staff infection that decided to put down deep roots in my back about 5 years ago. The doctor who operated to remove it said there would be no residual pain and no scar. I have both pain and a scar and LOTS of scar tissue, which is now my main issue. Recently the pain has become more severe and a few weeks ago it actually became disabling.

So like in the states you have to see your primary doctor before you can be referred to a specialist. I went to my insurance providers clinic. They told me that I could get a scan and go for physiotherapy. I knew what I needed was a chiropractor but the doctor who saw me told me that my insurance didn’t refer to chiropractors. At this point the dire pain and frustration of having to take an expensive taxi into Nairobi to be told the treatment I wanted was not available to me was so discouraging that I just left the doctor’s office without even getting a referral. So maybe this wasn’t the brightest move…but like I said, I wasn’t in any condition to be logical.

Which I proved ten-fold when I promptly told my daughter that I knew there was a chiropractor that I had visited 5 years ago when I had a similar problem…somewhere close to where we were. I am operating only on memory at this point. So we head off on foot across Nairobi to where I am sure there is a chiropractor’s office.

Miracles of all miracles, the chiropractor’s office is still there. And my “important-fact poor but directionally-rich memory got us there in about 20 minutes. I walked in quite sure that the good Lord had led me to immediate healing only to be told that the doctor wouldn’t be able to see me until next week. Almost in tears and too tired and frustrated to talk, I stumbled out of the office and continued down the street. I bought Judie and I juice and cookies and we headed to my friend Joe’s office, which was another 10-minute walk away. We rested and recounted our morning of woe and then Joe dropped us at a matatu stage so we could go home. I was going to tough out the pain on the matatu…no more over-priced taxis for me!

Once home I got on FB and went to my church’s FB page and asked if anyone knew of a chiropractor in Karen. Within minutes I had the number to the only chiropractor in Karen. (FYI – there are only 8 licensed chiropractors in all of Kenya). The next morning I called and was given an appointment for that afternoon. Praise God!

I meet my Kenyan doctor, a Iowa-educated muslim, who has worked in Texas for the past two years and has been back in Kenya for exactly two weeks. After a short assessment he determines my back is, “a mess.”

He proceeds to use all sorts of treatments I’ve never hear of that are immensely painful and get this – THEY WORK! My pain is reducing and I’m feeling stronger everyday!

I’ve bought a corset for my motorcycle rides into the bush…although I went to put it on for the first time five minutes before I was supposed to leave to go to Ilkiloret and the corset was too big!

So I said a really fast prayer to GOD, “why me…again! PLEASE keep the pain at bay.”

And guess what – IT WORKED! The pain was minimal.

So here’s what this life lesson has taught me. BE PATIENT! Twenty-five years may seem like a lot to receive healing, even finding the right doctor was a frustrating process. But I would not have found the doctor with the new techniques that are actually getting rid of the mounds of scar tissue my body has accumulated.

So hey God, this bit is for you – I’m ready to be patient…or at least try harder at being patient. I know you are at work in the world and in my tiny piece of it and in me, today and everyday. Thank you for blessing me with healing, please continue to heal every part of my life that is broken. Amen!

Namanga Trip

Namanga is a town on the boarder of Kenya and Tanzania. Grace has been wanting to take a trip there with all the kids for some time. She came up with the idea to combine a trip to Namanga with a women’s conference for African Inland Church that was being held in Bisil about 50 km from the boarder.

If you’ve ever heard the expression if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. You have a pretty clear picture of our travel adventure. Grace had planned to leave Ngong at 9 a.m.

At 8:30 a.m. I called her and the vehicle she hired had not arrived. That was not a good sign because the vehicle is parked just down the road from them in Kimuga. When it finally did arrive, the driver didn’t think he had enough gas to get to Ngong. So Grace called and ask me to send my piki piki driver down with petrol. When he finally met with them on the road, the driver had neglected to tell Grace that the vehicle used diesel. The vehicle however did make it to Ngong. Grace called and told me to meet them at the Kibiko stage because the driver was getting gas. The driver had not gone to a gas station because the matatu did not have a proper gas tank. It was jeri-rigged under the driver’s seat! So after waiting for 15 minutes we were on the road in this highly illegal and dangerous vehicle! We stopped for snacks and water at the Tuskys, a new chain grocery store on the way to Kiserian where this matatu would leave us and we would hire another one from Kiserian to Namanga. Grace wanted to negociate with the present driver to take us further but I said it was unsafe for us to go any further in the death trap matatu!

We secured another matatu in short order in Kiserian and were on our way again. After transerfering the eight high school girls and all our luggage, including blankets which were not provided at the conference.

In Oolitokitok (yes, that’s the name of the town it’s a Maasai name), a man on the side of the road yelled to the matatu and pointed at our tire. Sure enough it was dead flat. We were there for another half an hour while we waited for another matatu to come from the same company so we could continue to Namanga. 

The matatu took us to AIC church in Namanga where we were luckily enough to have a local missionary (he works with the muslims in the area) to walk us across the boarder. No paperwork, just lunch in Tanzania and pictures by the “you are entering” signs. The Tanzania shilling is really low right now. For $23.75 USD we bought 12 people lunch at the Alpha and Omega restaurant! Judie and I agreed as we were leaving that she should go to college there so we can live on the cheap! 

It was a quick tour since it was getting late…not much to see anyway. They are building a new road from the boarder of Tanzania to Arusha. So it was just dusty…lots of stuff had been bulldozed to make room for the road so the no-man’s land between the boarders was truly that.

We got back to AIC and piled into the matatu and Grace told me the driver wanted more money…they always do this about this time in the journey. I held my ground and they got paid what was originally agreed to. They see my white skin and even though their money is not green they know mine is and all of the sudden all they see are dollar signs. My budget doesn’t have wiggle room… and doesn’t abide whiney matatu drivers!

We had dropped our luggage off at AIC church in Bisil, so we stopped there and picked it up and headed to Bisil Secondary School where the conference was to take place. Bisil is a desolate but beautiful place.

When we were handed a conference schedule, I knew I was going to be in for a very boring four days. The schedule was entirely in Swahili, which meant none of the sessions would be held in English. There were a lot of Maasai women there too, so that meant everything would be translated into Maasai, which means everything takes twice as long.

The first order of business was to find a place to sleep. We were taken to a dorm and told to find a bunk and a mattress. We did our best. Most of the bottom bunks were taken. I found a top bunk in a corner by a window.  Judie took the one parallel to mine. There was not enough room for all the bunk beds in the room so some of them were pushed up against one another. A Maasai woman took the bunk next to Judie’s that had no space between it and Judie’s and another Maasai woman shared it with her so that Judie only got 2/3 of her bed to sleep on.

The bathroom was huge but there was no running water, so you had to carry water from an outside tank to bathe. We used the mattresses and the buckets that were the property of the high school girls who boarded there. I feel bad for them. How will those girls every find their things!

You were not allowed to poop in the indoor toilets (which were just squat toilets), you had to use the choo outside, which was really disgusting.

The conference was not well organized. They did not take pre-registration so they didn’t have a good idea of how many people were coming so some people had to sleep on the floor in a classroom and the first night they did not have enough food to go around.

The pastor from Bisil AIC Church came to welcome the women on the second day and told them (as there had been complaints about the quality and lack of food) that they had not come there to eat but to pray! Enough said about that!

By Saturday morning I had had enough and went to find Grace during breakfast…(there was not a hall to meet or eat in so we ate outside or on our bunks and met in a building that was under construction without a roof); and asked her if I could please leave because I wanted to attend my church in Karen on Sunday so I could hear the word of God in my language. She said yes and I took Judie and came home.

Judie’s last words to me as I said good night to her on Saturday night were, “thanks for taking me with you Mom!”

Grace meant well by inviting me…but this was one event she needn’t have included me. I did by the way have a marvelous time at Karen Vineyard Church on Sunday! Everyone needs community. Grace has hers at AIC and I have mine at KVC. No one said, we all need to be apart of the same community…believers come in all shapes and colors and speak different languages. Finding a place where you belong, where just being there makes you feel better, that’s what fellowship is all about. I’m so incredibly blessed to have found that here in my adopted home.

 Self-portrait at AIC Women's Conference.