And then came the trainwreck...

(actually written last Friday)

And then came the trainwreck…

Slow breaths…Deep breaths…take it in, but keep control. You are the one who will be here for 3 months, you can’t cry in front of the team that is here for only 2 weeks. But the mud. But the trash. But the pain in the eyes, the open wounds that reveal bone. The poverty that radiates. The addiction that has taken every child, every man, captive.
And then I can’t it back as tears began to seep from the ducts.

These were thoughts that ran through my head when I finally was run over by the train. The train of oppression and poverty that most children of God suffer from here in Kenya. After 1 week here, I had finally gotten my hands dirty(both figuratively and literally.)

We visited the street children and street dwellers for the first time this morning. We brought bread, milk, and the Gospel to a sight that most have never seen. They gathered next to mounds of trash, wet, muddy and freezing and came stumbling towards us when we piled out of our van. We gave them food, bread, and a friend. We heard their stories.
Most didn’t’ make but maybe a dollar a day. They washed cars of the wealthy (because you are wealthy if you drive a car, only 15 percent do in this metropolitan city of 4 million) and pick though heaves of garbage looking for plastic to recycle. Then, if they are amongst the fortunate, they travel back to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa.
…and that was just Monday morning.

I apologize for not posting in almost a week. The internet connection here is very poor and it has been out in most of Nairobi for the past 2 or 3 days.
I also haven’t written or journaled because I didn’t know how I would handle it. Even though I’ve only spent a few hours a day of this first week in the slums and with people suffering from AIDS/HIV, they still have been the most overwhelming sights I have ever seen.

I’ve wrested with so many things in this first week, as you can read in the essay that I wrote a few days ago but just now posted.

Basically, I was struggling with the differing Christian beliefs between Africans and Americans. This faith healing thing has always been a thing that I see as a bit skeptical. I’ve read theologians who say that miracles that we think defy science could eventually be scientifically explained, we just haven’t discovered that dimension to our universe our the formula that causes that to happen.

And as said in the previous post, many polluted the act of faith healing when they put a charge on it and asked for money so they could put more velvet in their studio and buy more eyeliner to complete their clown makeup.

But that was before. That was before I saw evil….

Friday we went into a slum named South B. We handed out and posted flyers advertising the hairdressing school that City Harvest is opening in this slum for the young girls
Many move to the city from the rural areas in hope of a better life (just like most cities in third world countries). Well, they get here only to discover that there is not a great amount of jobs for the uneducated, (or the educated for that matter, Edward got a degree in finance but after that still went stages of over 40 days where he had no food). Now all of the sudden though there are bills to pay. They have to find a place to live and rent, they have to find food, and if they are to get around and try to find opportunity, they need a bus fare. This is all new to many of them, for they came from tribal communities or worked the land where they could go weeks without spending a dime.
For a man, they can go find a manual labor job, work in a factory, or be a guard to any one of the suburban neighborhoods (all are gated, walled, and have an electric fence.) For a woman though, there are very few opportunities. One can become a house maid(who lives, cooks, and cleans with the family), but the middle class or upperclass is not even a tenth of the people, so it is very hard for a girl to find a job. There is one job though that will always be in high demand: prostitution. Many girls resort to this just to have money to feed their family. Its no wonder that 1 in 5 have HIV/AIDS in the slums.
Women absolutle love to have their hair done though. Braids, cornrows, you name it, they’ll do it. So with the high demand, if girls are properly trained, they can find work somewhere doing hair or beauty therapy.
And what does it cost for a girl to be a part of this Kingdom bringing School? A little over $40 for this ½ day 3 month school that totally changes peoples lives.
Anyways, after the 361 word tangent, we were handing out flyers advertising the school. We ran across one of the ladies that leads a HIV support group. She kindly invited us back to her house.
Fortunately, her 14 or15 year old daughter did stop breast feeding when we entered their home, preventing me from feeling terribly awkward. Their home was about half the size of a college dorm room, or about the size of a small one car garage. A garage for a Cooper Mini at least.
She told her story of how her husband died of AIDS back in 1990, and she had miraculously lived to this day. She most likely became positive because or the husband. She lost her job as a businesswoman and has since been a potato fryer. She sets up here fire and kettle on the street and sells French fries. Of course word travels fast in a slum, where the space inbetween homes is smaller than a dormitory hall. With the great stigma here many refuse to buy from her if they she has HIV. They believe that they could get the disease by eating her fries. She daily denies her self though and prays and meets with others who are in the support group that she leads. Not to mention the other 4 people that live with her She still lives though and radiates hope and life in an area that smells of evil.
Praying for her was such a difficult yet beautiful thing. To think of the pain that she has gone through brought tears that rain-ex couldn’t handle. But the joy, she was truly embodying Resurrection, even though her time may be limited, amongst those who have unjustly suffered from such a terrible disease.

What was this strange thing that blanketed this area.

It only got harder from here. Gladys, the kind grandmotherly support group leader, led me to another one of the support group members.
It was only 75 or 80 outside, but the place that we entered was like a pit of the slum. It consumed all the heat. It must’ve been around 90 degrees when I entered Jacquelyn’s home. Flys and mosquitos were more of a front door than the thin clothe as we entered. They swarmed around the pots and pans that hadn’t been washed in quite sometime. The home was ¼ smaller than the last house, making it smaller than a garage. Maybe a motorcycle garage. it had 2 beds for the 5 children and dying mother.
And then I saw her. Jacquelyn. She slowly emerged from under the tattered sheets that covered both her and her bed. I thought she 50 by her frailty but also thought she was 20 by her size. She was proably 40. Puss had dried under her left eye, and it looked as if a new trickle was starting. A piece of gauze covered her right eye. It was held to her skin by dry puss.

This blanket started to cover up the light.

Then she told her story. It was much like Gladys’s, she had contracted the disease by her husband and the husband had died many years ago. The guide from the church, as well as Glady’s were telling me how thankful she was and how God had truly blessed her by letting her have an eye operation. She had developed eye cancer behind her eye and it had given her an immense amount of pain. She had one operation, but it did no good. 4 months ago though the doctor finally removed her eye. She and the church were so thankful, because she could now SMILE. I saw behind the gauze when a wind gusted in enough to blow her gauze out of place….I think I could’ve done a better job taking her eye out. The sight was so hard to see.
She was so thankful though. She lay there, with her children outside playing, possibly looking through different piles of trash for some food, with the heaviest burden I’ve ever witnessed, but she was rejoicing because she could still smile.

Light was gone, darkness had set in. This WAS truly evil.

When they asked me to start praying over, I had no idea where to start. I sat there and I thought SCREW science, differing theology, philosophical views skeptism. I WANT TO BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN BRING A MIRACLE RIGHT NOW MORE THAN ANYTHING. I WANT FAITH HEALING TO WORK. WHO CARES IF IT SCREWS UP EVERYTHING THAT HAS STARTED TO HELP ME MAKE SENSE OF MATTERS….I WANT GOD TO HEAL THIS WOMAN MORE THAN ANYTHING.

It was truly an unforgettable experience.
(and sorry for the inappropriate language….this was very much an inappropriate language.

After reliving that for the 30th time I have no words to continue with…
Pray. Believe. Live.
bc