A New Reality. (my experience in the slums.)

When we arrived at Made in the Streets, it was dark it was quiet and it smelled weird. When we woke up, we woke to the sounds of giggly girls, African music and the sound of breakfast being made. Despite it being 5 in the morning, they were welcomed sounds and we gladly left the comfort of our cozy beds to join them. As the days rolled by here in Kamulu, we have gotten to know the girls, boys and their children. We have taught their 3 and 4 year olds in the nursery, we have cooked meals with them, we have had devotionals and had our hair yanked and pulled as they argued over who would do our hair. We have danced to Taylor Swift and made cute bracelets with them, we have painted nails upon nails. We have done laundry, watched movies and sang songs to the Lord, a mixture of Swahili and English blending in harmony to the same God. We have laughed and joked and played, we have experienced teenagers and kids in their prime.

I dreaded this blog, the blog that I knew would come but hate to write. The blog where everything changes. A couple of days ago we visited one of the major slums of Nairobi, called Eastleigh. We visited the home of these children. There are about a million people in this slum. This is where Made in the Streets originated. As we drove further and further into the slum, the trash increased, the people increased, the smell so thick it permeated every breath you inhaled, the homes made of sheet metal increased. The roads consisted of mud. Only mud. A few times I just knew we would have to get out and push our bus through the sludge. Fortunately we made it to the headquarters and filed out, pretty silent trying to take in the poverty that surrounded us. After being introduced to the staff there, we went with one of the missionaries and two Kenyan men base walking. The roads became impossible to walk on as they were mud pits full of murky water. People marched by gawking at the only white people in an entire slum of Africans and Somalians. I was so thankful we were guided by the Kenyans because you had to watch every single step, hoping this step wasn't the one to plunge you to your death in the mire that threatened to overtake every inch of dry ground. It may be fitting to say there was no "solid ground" here.

Eventually we arrived at the first base. It consisted of a few men and girls, we were introduced and surprisingly were very welcomed. In fact, the missionary agreed to give my hand in marriage to whoever offered the most goats! The reaction was not at all what I expected from the individuals in the base. They were nice, happy to see us and very friendly! We shared a few verses and a prayer and they listened intently to what we said and agreed to pray for us and with us. We then moved to the next base, a group of men leaned against a broken down bus in the road, smoke so thick it burned your eyes and nose. Through the smog, we could make out plastic bags attached to the ground and then to a fence next to it. This pattern went on for a good ways. The men informed us that these were their houses. It was a plastic bag. Off to the side of the men a woman was covering herself with an umbrella. We approached her and she lay down her umbrella, revealing that she was holding a baby. We asked how old the baby was as she showed us her 2 week old infant. She lives on the streets-with a two week old baby. We again discussed the Bible with these men and as we left one man grabbed my hand and proceeded to give me a very long, inaudible speech with tears in his eyes, never leaving my eyes, one of the Kenyan men translated that the man wanted me to share something with him. Me, being the shy person I often am went completely blank. Me? What can I share with someone like this? I know nothing about his life and what he has lived through what could I possibly say that would mean anything to him? Then my favorite verse popped in my head. I shared Isaiah 49:16 "See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." I told him that God knew about his entire life, God knew his struggles, God knew his walls in life. And that God loved him anyways. That God was in love with him. That was all I had. He thanked me so profusely and I have no idea if he understood, but I realize that's not my job, that one is up to God.

 At last, we came to our last base. As we topped a hill, there they were at the bottom. Leaned against a shack in a row. A line of little boys about 8 to 10 years old. Grasped tightly in their hands is what I knew to expect but dreaded the day I would see it. A bottle of glue. A few lay sprawled on the ground covered in dirt and trash, a bottle of glue permanently held under their nose for sniffing. Glue is the drug of choice in the slums, it dulls hunger and keeps them high constantly. One of the reasons it is so hard to get the kids off the streets is because they are so addicted to this drug. They are so high they can't think. All of us stood in awe, was this real? Did kids really live like this? All day. Every day. The answer is yes. One of the Kenyans kneeled down, and sat in the dirt with them. God has greater plans for you, he said in Swahili. They stared a blank stare, eyes reflecting a life spent rejected, high, abused, not even a glimmer of hope. He told them the story of missionaries in the Bible when they were rejected and people wouldn't listen to them, they would dust off their feet and go to the next town. But here we are, he said, every day. Back with you, to tell you God loves you, and we're not going anywhere. We left the base silently, as they returned to their glue. On the walk back, piles upon piles of trash surround us on every side. Merchants on the sidewalks sell the things me and you throw away. They sell our trash. They value our trash. Babies crawled across the piles of trash, sifting through it with the hope to find any ounce of food they can. So much trash. And so many people sifting through it. Looking for anything even remotely edible.

It is so easy to see pictures of Africa, to hear stories like this one. To read books, and National Geographic on the poverty of the world, of Africa. But until you see the babies. Until you smell the stench, until you hold the scarred hands of a man who has never known anything other than drugs, trash and abandonment, until you look at the face of the 2 week old baby who will eventually become exactly like this old man-if he lives that long, it is not real. It's easy to see the pictures on your computer from the comfort of your nice desk chair while the smell of your dinner enters the room and feel sorry for these people, but then quickly forget as you move to the next task in your busy life. But it is not easy to see the reality. And it is not easy to make a difference. With a million plus people, you may even say it is impossible to make a difference. I would agree with this. It is impossible for you and I to make a difference. But, "He picks up the poor from out of the dirt, rescues the wretched who've been thrown out with the trash, and seats them among the honored guests, a place of honor among the brightest and best." Psalm 113:7-8

The girls that we have laughed with and played with, danced with and lived with this past week, came from these streets. This was their home. And they are proof of what God can do, and what God does daily. I ask that your prayers not be with us, we are blessed. Pray for these people. Pray for the people that are forgotten daily, because they are real, and they are there among the trash day in and day out, and because God made them the same as He made you and me.

-Shaley