October 14, 2014 - Ndhiwa

This morning Susie, Angton, Stephen, Jacklyn and I packed up and left the VTC. The Coulstons followed us in their vehicle.  We were bound for Ndhiwa but had a couple of stops to make along the way. 

 

First was Nakumat, to renew our supplies of water and other supplies.  Then we visited our old friend Daniel who owns Kisac Fair Trade, our soapstone sculpture connection.  We ordered the medals and trophies that we will give out at Kick for Kenya next month and shopped for unique items to sell to the crowds on that day.  As always, Daniel displayed his great hospitality and we took tea and bread with him, while he told us of the new work he is doing.  Daniel is a ward representative to the county government.  He is the first politician that I have ever liked.  He seems to be doing a very good work, trying to empower women, encourage the area youth, and inspire his constituents to acts of kindness.  I’m glad that Charles and Darlene got to meet him.

 

Then we parted company with the Coulstons.  They were planning on visiting a former street kid that went through their program at Made In The Streets who is now serving deaf orphans by teaching woodworking skills at an orphanage called Sam’s Place.  The rest of us were headed for Ndhiwa and our old friend Alfayo Bodi.

 

We arrived in time for lunch and then toured the place, paying close attention to the clinic there and the other needs that they have.  Then the rains came.  We took shelter in the dining hall for a while and then in Alfayo’s home.  At 7 o’clock, we went down for the evening devotional with the orphans of Ndhiwa.  They inspired us with their love and joy, and I like to think we inspired them a bit too with our words of encouragement.  When we were done, Susie demanded a hug from each of them before they could leave the hall, and I joined her. It was a beautiful moment, especially poignant for me because of my history with that very spot.

 

Six years ago, I stood in that same door way and took a photograph of a tiny girl in a taffeta dress.  Her name was Lavenda, although I didn’t know it at the time.  Her mother, a widow, was serving as a cook in this orphanage.  Both Lavenda and her mother were HIV+.  Lavenda was probably about six years old then, but she was painfully small and frail.  As I took the photo, she looked up at me with beautiful eyes and a vulnerable expression. My heart melted.

 

I was her exact opposite.  I was a son of a privileged nation, grown into a spoiled man. On that day, I was questioning many of the things I thought I knew; surrounded by a sea of poverty that I was seeing for the first time.  My worldview was crumbling around me as I witnessed both the worst and the best that this world has to offer.  Hundreds of orphaned children had passed before my eyes and camera lens in the preceding days.  I saw their terrible circumstances but I saw their incredible happiness too.  My expression was probably not vulnerable like Lavenda’s; masks are so hard to take off. 

 

I will never know what she was thinking in that moment.  We were separated then by language and culture.  Now we are separated by that thin veil that divides this world of sin and death from the new, redeemed world that God is building.  Lavenda died in 2011 of a cancer that her weakened body was powerless to stop.  She beat me to eternity, but her short life was full of God’s purpose.  She has become, for me, a symbol of hope and redemption.  Her life, and then her death inspired me to take a different path, and I can’t wait for the day I can hug her at last and thank her for all she has done for me.

 

But today I did the next, best thing.  I stood in the same doorway where she once stood, and, inspired by my faithful wife, hugged all of her brothers and sisters - all 140 of them.  We hugged with the warmth of Christian fellowship, with the Love of the father binding us together.  It was a moment of sublime joy; my heart was full to bursting.  It was a great day.

 

Tomorrow, Uriri.