OK, so today was a doozey! Yesterday we spent the day in a beautiful setting. Today we saw something completely different. Our church has helped support a Kenyan church in the very heart of a slum in Dandora. So, we intended to visit there for Sunday service. First we had to drive through the city, which, proved quite exciting because of the driving culture. What was eye catching to me was the amount of people out walking along the streets, in the streets, around the streets -you get the picture. There were so many people out and about and they tend to share the roads with the vehicles. Several times I had to shut my eyes because I just knew we were going to hit a person (or a person would hit us). As we started to exit the city, we made a left turn that took us through the edge of the slum. There was garbage everywhere and it got worse as we drove further in. There were run down shacks, vehicles that had been stripped, scavenger birds flying overhead and people everywhere. I couldn't take my eyes off of the scenery.
The vision I can't get out of my head was a very large pile of garbage and there were pigs gnashing through it with children just a few feet away. Like it was normal. It just hurts.
The fun part of the ride was seeing the wonder and curiosity on the children's faces and the smiles they gave us when we waved to them. Seeing the children has been such a highlight of this trip. We just want to take pictures of all these adorable kids! Their greeting to us is "how are you" in their cute accents. They don't know what it means so you answer back to them saying "how are you"? And they're happy.
We took a nice tour of the church then enjoyed the African service. They love to sing and clap and move. They brought in the children to sing a couple songs too. Although a lot of it was in KiSwahili, it was a great experience. We were very warmly welcomed.
The best part of the day was when we got back to the compound. Most of us sponsor children from around the area through Compassion. These children were bussed in so we could meet and spend the afternoon with them. What an honor that was. My family sponsors a 9 year old little girl named Saiton -she was so shy and it was so hard getting her to talk but her face totally lit up when I gave her a soccer ball. Shortly after that, I gave her and her friend matching baby dolls which made them giggle - it was such a sweet moment. After we fed them, Saiton and I spent time kicking the soccer ball back forth. She totally loved playing on the IPhone, of course. We all sent our sponsored kids off with needed items and toys, then they got on the bus, drove away and I just cried, knowing what they too were going home to.
I'm sorry I don't have pictures to show you. My technical abilities don't include transferring pictures from the Ipad onto my blog. It was supposed to be easy!! I can post some on Facebook, however, so feel free to check those out.
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