Thursday, July 29th
On Thursday we went to Mcedo School in the Mathare slums. It was such an eye opening experience to visit the school and be in the slums for the second time. I felt a little more prepared for the slums since I knew what to expect and was more comfortable there.
When we arrived at the school we had children rushing up to see us as we stepped off the bus. It is at times like these that one can see how beautiful, joyful, and innocent the children really are. Pastor Benedict who runs the school came to greet us with his staff. We decided to take a tour of the slums and walk down to the local river. The slum at Mathare is quite different then the slum we had visited the day before. The slum was built on a hill and all of the buildings are close together allowing us very small passage ways to walk through. We made our way through the tight alley ways and had to constantly navigate over the “river” of raw sewage that flowed down the center of the path ways. One of our team members Matt, lost his footing and fell into the raw sewage… the look on his face was priceless, but the trip wouldn’t have been complete without someone falling into the “river”. As we made our way back up the hill, we had the opportunity to look at two homes in the slums. Seeing the reality of what these people live in everyday was hard. Each home was completely dark, about the size of a walk-in closet, and one of the places we looked at housed a mother and six children. I couldn’t imagine living in such a place every day of my life, but when we meet the women that let us look inside of their homes they seemed joyful for what they had… truly amazing and heart touching.
One we were back at the school we took a tour of the facilities there and saw the classrooms which we were going to paint that day. We ended up painting two of the classrooms at the school and the difference in the rooms once we were done was nice to see. The bright white walls really cleaned up the rooms and brought in more light. During this time half of the staff took a break to do VBS for the kids including our Daniel and the lion’s den skit and making salvation bracelets. Once we finished painting the two rooms the team headed to the church building at the school to lead in worship and give the message of Jesus Christ. So many children were packed into the church and it really showed me how many of them wanted to hear about Jesus Christ and enjoyed our presence there. The room had very little ventilation and was so hot and humid from all of us there. As we started our acoustic worship the kids loved singing the songs and doing the hand motions. I loved when our Choir Master Matt would yell “God is good” and they would yell “All the time”… then Matt would yell “All the time” and they would yell “God is good”. They seemed to yell this with such passion and it really touched my heart knowing they felt God was good. After our worship Trenton gave a wonderful message about coming to Christ and finding his wonderful salvation.
There was an older kid that was in 8th grade near the front of the church which really captured my heart. He was so joyful and really sang out to the Lord as we worshipped. Once Trenton was giving the message he listened intently and I could see he really wanted to know more about Christ and His goodness. Since he was older the younger kids looking up to him. As he poured out his joy and participated in worship the kids around him would do the same. It was like he had an infectious persona that encouraged the children around him. It was such an encouragement to me and I went to talk to him after the service.
As we were preparing to leave the school we took one quick look at the new kitchen that was being built there. During this time we came across a child whom the team remembered from last year. His name was Dennis and sadly they felt that he didn’t quite have the same spark that he had the year before. I guess it showed us that a year in the slums could affect a child as they grow up and see the reality of where they are. However, he still was an amazing person and he loved to dance. Him and I had a dance off in the kitchen… and I think he beat me haha. It was a lot of fun to interact with him and see him give a little smile here and there.
After this we exited the slums and on our way out there is a large and steep hill that the bus needed a pretty good running start to make it up. As we rushed the hill the whole team lifted their hands like it was a rollercoaster which made us all laugh. I am so thankful for having the ability to come to the slum today and hope that the Lord will be able to use our presence there to change lives.
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