An Epic-ly Long Wrap-up of the Last Two Days..

Wow--it's been a crazy couple of days! I don't even really know how to start. Yesterday we visited the Nest orphanage; it was awesome.. When we all were walking inside, all the kids came by and one little toddler came up and wrapped her arms around my legs and gave me a hug. Aww... Once inside the dining/meeting room, the kids sang for us.. and I nearly started crying right then... The kids were awesome.. so joyful and excited :) After their songs, we introduced VBS songs to them and helped them make salvation bracelets. I really enjoyed getting a tour of the orphanage.. we got to hear about how they've brought many of these really young kids in after their mothers have gone to prison. It's heartbreaking how much they've already gone through in their young lives, but I felt so blessed to get a glimpse of their hearts and ] joyful spirits yesterday :) They are well loved and taken care of at the Nest..

Today we visited the Kwan-Njenga slum. The first couple days of Kenya have felt so... vacation-like, I think a lot of us have had the "Wait, is this what a missions trip is supposed to be/feel like?" thought.. So today was kind of the first day of ministry-ministry.. or at least it seemed so. I had no idea what to expect.. since the whole "walking around a slum" thing has been talked up in a somewhat fear-inducing manner for quite some time. I was asking Nikki Hyodo about it this morning and what it would be like, in an effort to mentally prepare myself :) We thought we'd be trudging through mud due to the rain and so we bought boots this morning. But luckily, it was dry when we got there so we definitely didn't get the worst conditions we could've. Maybe this is a good way to ease into the whole experience...

I can't even really explain today... It was a lot of stuff i feel like I've heard stories about or seen pictures of but had no first-hand exposure to. The kids were so awesome.. Just walking through the slum, I smiled and waved at as many kids as I could. It was heart-warming to see the (sometimes shy and sometimes excited) smiles that would creep across their faces and the enthusiastic waves (they would shout "how are you! how are you!") At the same time, it seemed so little to offer (and still seemed to mean so much to them.) We seemed to pick up a larger and larger following of kids as we walked all throughout the slum. We all (we're a pretty camera-crazy team, it seems..) started taking pictures of them, which they loved. They'd crowd around you and push each other out of the way in order to see themselves on the camera screen. It was so funny to try and take a picture of a few kids, only to see another kid walk up and plant himself right in the middle of the picture. These kids love the camera :)

We had the opportunity to visit the houses of the three children who have received school scholarships by Lighthouse's Kenya team from last year. I think I semi- started crying in each of these homes... they kind of reminded me of the World Vision AIDS exhibit where they create "rooms" and narrate a story of a child who lives in similar conditions to the homes they've recreated. I felt like I was in that exhibit... and it really started to hit me that people live like this everyday.. For them, this isn't just a life you can walk out of at the end of a sad story, only to easily return back to your comfortable life.. I think that realization kind of shook me. The last home visit was especially moving... The mother of the boy that was sponsored was sharing with us.. telling us how her husband died, and then only seconds later telling us how much she love Jesus and how much God has given her. That... had me crying pretty quickly. Her hope, strength, and faith in the midst of tragedy and poverty were... inspiring and amazing to say the least. I left feeling pretty embarrassed of all my insignificant worries and complaints that had just been put into perspective. After that home... I felt a little more... heavy-hearted? I'd been having fun just waving and smiling to all the kids and had been able to stay pretty light-hearted about the whole situation we were walking into. But I think, at that point, the reality of life in the slums began to sink in a bit more. I felt absolutely sick seeing the conditions that these people live in everyday. I felt sick about the fact that we could walk around with our expensive cameras and clean clothes and sneak hand sanitizer after shaking any of the kids' hands, and know that in a few hours we'd return to the comfort of our guesthouse. I guess it just put things in perspective and woke me up to how real these people and their struggles are.

We arrived at the Comido school and the room immediately filled with kids who patiently waited while we unloaded all the sound equipment and struggled to get all the mics and instruments set up.. (and this took quite a while..) Then Pastor James (of the Comido school and the church) introduced the time.. A few of the young guy church members led some fun worship songs.. and then we were up! Going into the set, I was pretty stressed out... about the sound set-up and complications.. and I think I was just feeling kind of overwhelmed by the whole day.. and maybe just unprepared for the set. But praise God that he still works :) We realized that our pre-planned worship set included way too many slower songs for this young, energetic crowd.. So we pulled out all of our more upbeat ones and just played those.. It was amazing to see some of the kids making such an effort to sing along to our wordy, not-perfectly-played songs in English! Trenton's message ended in an alter call and dozens of kids went up to receive prayer after raising their hands to accept Christ. Truly amazing... and basically brought me to tears yet again.. We met some awesome people who go to or work with/at the church... one guy was telling me about how he is an artist--he likes to sing :) I told him I like to sing too and then sang me (a capella) a verse and chorus of one of their worship songs! It was so cool :)

So before our worship concert started, I had originally entered the school and sat down on a bench with some of the kids... then I realized I should probbbably go help unload sound equipment and instruments from the truck. The 9-year-old girl next to me asked "you're leaving?" and I told her I had to help unload some stuff, but I'd be back. I came back inside for the concert, of course, but never made it back to that bench or that girl... Then as we were walking back through the slum to leave... she found me and jumped out in front of me/next to me with a big smile on her face. I linked arms with her and asked her if she'd enjoyed the concert and she said yes. She ended up walking through the whole slum with me, all the way to the entrance where we had to say goodbye. Along the way, her little sister joined us and walked next to her, her arm around her sister and her hand holding mine. Eventually a third girl (friend and schoolmate of the sisters) joined us too and held my other hand. They were soo precious and I hated saying bye to them... I got to know the first 9-year-old girl the best... she spoke pretty good English because she's learning it in school and she taught me some Swahili words along our walk (interestingly enough, these included the words for "bicycle" or "bicyclist"? and "person who drinks a lot," since these are the things we saw along the way :P). I asked her if she would ever want to visit America and she said "oh, yes." When I asked her what she wanted to do there, she said (without hesitation) "Meet Obama," but then informed me that he is, in fact, quite hard to meet :)

Seeing the joy that just seeing people like us brought to these children was amazing. I pray that God will bless all of these children, and especially those who made a commitment today. How amazing to know that of all the crowds of people and swarms of adorable children we encountered today, God knows each of their names and everything about them and loves them a ridiculous amount of a lot. Wow-- we've seen such amazing work done already and we're only... 3 days in? :) Praise God. Thanks for your prayers!!

love, bekah