Jambo family, friends, and supporters!!!
Today was a very heart touching day. We started out getting up around 4:45 to head out to the streets of downtown Nairobi. Boniface was the man that we had the honor of talking with and getting an up close and personal view of his day of ministering and caring for streets kids and other men. There were boys as young as ten up to much older men and women. These kids have come from a range of backgrounds of well off families to even being born on the streets. The older men, Boniface said, came to the streets giving up on hope of getting a job or any way of supporting themselves. Boniface brought some milk and bread and we all sat with someone and talked to them to learn their names, age, and maybe even the cause of why they were on the streets. We heard stories about how they were too old to be at home, at age 13. Another was like said above, just on how they have given up hope. Let me remind you this was all around 5:30 in the morning. These kids and men mask their pain by sniffing glue! We saw many bottles hidden in pockets and sleeves and even saw a few sniffing the glue as we were standing there watching them walk away. The group of kids a few of us were talking to we’re already close to being high. Three of the five were not even able to make much of a conversation. We asked a few of them what there day was like and what they do, sad to say majority of them do nothing. They walk ten miles from where to a near by town to sit, sleep, or mask their pain. Before we left we sat with the people we talked with and prayed for their troubles. Personally, it was very hard to go from seeing these kids have nothing to back to our accommodating hotel were we walk up and get a buffet of endless good food, a nice place to shower, and sleep comfortably and safely. We’re not in America anymore!! We’re stuck in our little bubble mindset of we get what we want when we want it. A few of us were talking yesterday, Americans are so lazy in the way we live our lives. This afternoon we went to Boniface’s house to help do yard work. Talk about tough!! Us girls planted trees while the guys “mowed the lawn.” Yet it wasn’t American style sitting on a lawnmower sipping a ice cold drink. The way they cut grass here is with a long, curved tip machete. Let’s just say it took about two hours to cut grass that was knee high in a half-acre area. Today was a great day of seeing God’s work on the streets by using Boniface and getting to see his home were he houses ten street kids that he has helped put into school and given a home to stay in. We have learned a lot and hard work truly does bring people closer.
Baraka,
Ashlie Christenson
