The last, the least and the lost: Pastor Jim Wood of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, VA has kept these groups before our congregation for years. In response to his challenge, our church has helped fund an orphanage here in Kenya, The Joy House, and has also supported the Nazareth Hospital, some 30 minutes from the orphanage.
Though we have seen images of the many children and families we have been privileged to help, meeting them today was a lifetime blessing.
Each child tells us their name, and their class rank in school. English is their second language, and most are reticent to speak. Some seem wistful and preoccupied. Others leap to their feet and share with gusto. They walk us past their garden, exploding with kale and cabbage, to their rabbit cages. They are raising them for meat. "They are delicious!" exclaims Moses, as he points to tiny two-week old babies in one of the wooden warrens.
Driving to the airport after our visit, we pass a field of brown maize, the stalks nearly full grown, but few with any silks. I asked our guide, GLE grad, Dr. Jeremiah Koshal (he is teaching at the prestigious Strathmore College in Nairobi) about the acres of withering grain. "No water,:" he explained. "Everything went well, and then no rain, and they had no way to irrigate the fields."
As we left the rolling hills and plunged in to the chaos of Nairobi traffic, we agreed that those fields were symbolic of much of Kenya, full of hope and promise, but needing just a bit of help to reap a harvest that reduces the poverty and pain of this beautiful country.
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