Prayer Walking Through the Slums

Friday, we began the day at Purpose Driven Academy with the the 400+ students having an assembly with prayer, singing and memory verses. Out of all the children, only 2 were being a bit disruptive. They were both my kids. I was so proud!

Joann "preached" on Ephesians 4:23, their scripture for the school year. She gave a great message, what they needed to hear.

We walked over to the group home where my 4 kids plus 16 other young children live with Pastor Joel and his wife Margaret. They have such a heart for the orphan children that they care for. I can't imagine the amount of laundry that they do each week! After spending time with them, headmaster Peter, took us for a walk around the slums. It was pretty sobering to see the obvious poverty in the neighboring communities. There are so many children that do not attend school because they cannot afford to buy a school uniform. The crumbling mud homes were a stark reality of life in the slums. We went into a home without any place for us to sit. We met a couple of single fathers struggling to feed their kids. So many stories...

We had lunch and got to play with the children at PDA. We brought a football and Frisbee and had so much fun teaching them how to play with them. It was a great way to lighten up after the reality of the slums.

Margaret took us to Endebess to visit Shalom Academy. It's a school that she started last year and has over 100 students now. It is in an area where thousands of people were displaced, living in tents, after the post-election violence 2 years ago. These children were lacking the self confidence in contrast to the children at PDA and very reserved with us. They obviously have been through a lot in their short lives.

We went for a walk in the community and saw the river where they fetch their water and another level of poverty, something that no amount of training could have prepared us for.

On the way back to Kitale we stopped at Captain Davis's which is a small animal park and took my 4 kids (and Richard) to see their first animals in the wild (including rhinos). It was great to spend some more time with my kids, even thought it seems to short.

Today we joined the Saddleback teams that are here with Pastor Steve and we experienced an even starker reality and deeper level of poverty in Kipsungu slums. We took a walk in the slums and it made the ones yesterday look pretty nice. The igloo shaped homes were made of sticks and plastic shopping bags, clothes, spare materials and things we would discard. There were a few mud huts and they looked so nice relatively speaking. There was a small market selling food that had been discarded in town, knowing that they would likely get sick from eating it but hungry enough to take the chance. The open ditch running through the community made the cement latrine at Kamiti Prison look very extravagant. What a harsh reality. The pastor that serves that community lives in the middle in a small mud hut said that we needed to have a small mind and a huge heart to be there. It's not to analyze, but to feel. We helped Sister Freda hold a medical clinic plus a vision and dental clinic. There were more people than we could possibly treat in the time we had. I think if we had stayed there for 3 days we still could not have been able to treat everyone.

In the afternoon we went to Kitale Prison with the Saddleback teams for a celebration of running water in the prison. They had a program of native singing and dancing, it was a lot of fun. It was great to see so many of the men again who are involved in CR that we saw on Thursday. Many men came to accept the Lord. The men from our teams prayed with them. It was a wonderful experience.

Water from an Artesian well is being pumped into the prison providing water for the 1300 men. They can bath for the first time in prison. They have drinking water. Before they carried water from the creek to the prison for cooking. That was the only use for the water they had. They were very happy to have running water. Now they need soap. It was a wonderful celebration and privilidge to see the fruits of the 3 year water project.

Please pray for travel mercies as we drive to Eldoret to attend IVC church tomorrow. The senoir pastor is a great supporter of CR and will send key leaders to our seminar that begins on Monday. Please continue to pray for those coming to the semianr next week and travel mercies for those coming from as far as Nairobi to attend. Pray for the many people that are less fortunate and living in the slums so close by. Pray for a time of rest and recharging for us as we prepare for teaching the CR semianr next week.