Outreach Day

Once a term, RVA has "Outreach Day" - a day where staff and students volunteer to participate in different service projects around the community. This was yesterday. Groups split up to deliver firewood and food to widows, play at the local orphanages, help and talk to the men at the top of the hill that sell Maize, pick up trash along the roads, build houses, spiffy up the guard houses on campus, plant trees, take clothes to needy families, play with street children in Maai-Mahiu (the Sodom and Gomorrah-type area at the bottom of the hill) and play volleyball and games with children at the IDP camp in the valley below. Wow. What was most beautiful was the excitement in the students as they prepared to go love and be Christ's Hands, Feet, and Heart to the people around us.

I went with the group to the IDP camp. Each morning as I walk to class, I overlook the valley and see the camp down below and send up a prayer for the people gathered there. How hard it must be to leave your home, your land, and what little you have because of violence! I pray that they might know the peace of God and have hope in HIM in the midst of their trials. Anyways, I've been looking forward to this day since I signed up, and couldn't wait to see and play with and pray with the kids that I had been praying for for what seems like so long.


The drive was about 45 minutes of going downhill on a ridiculously bumpy road and looking out over the African land. It was beautiful. When we arrived, I was immediately sobered. We walked up to a camp of at least 50 tents sprawled out around a dry and barren land. There was what seemed to be a wheat field, which looked like dead grass, and that was about it. The tents had make-shift doors that surely wouldn't block out the wind, and the tents themselves acted merely as shelters, no comforts or walls or homey-ness about them.



Immediately, the children formed a circle and we stepped in to hold hands of dear precious children on each side of us. I quickly realized how much I wanted to be able to speak Swahili - to be able to communicate to and love on these children. But I can't, so I had to do with tickling them and smiling and hugging them. Which was still wonderful :)


We spent about an hour and a half playing with them - soccer, volleyball, painting faces, jump roping, singing, and just running around with them. I painted faces - hilarious, because I have negative artistic skills... but I drew hearts and told them of the love of Christ, and butterflies and Suns and talked about the light of Christ - all things that, who knows if they understood, but my heart was bursting to be able to share a hope with them, and if this was all that I could do, then so be it.






It's funny how my heart was so burdened for them in certain ways. They were in such obvious physical need - their clothes were tattered and torn, barely protecting them from the cold winds of Kenya, thus giving them the runny noses that ran all over their faces, crusting their cheeks and faces; most didn't have shoes, whether because they didn't own them or because it wouldn't have made much of a difference; their teeth had cavities running rampant and their ears were filled with dirt. But they had a joy. They didn't complain about the cold as even we did. They didn't complain about being sick or a headache. They were so thrilled to have us there that this was all that mattered for a little while. And while that's nice, my heart broke at the thought of leaving them there. At the thought of not spending more time pouring into them and serving them and teaching them of a Hope that does not fail, of a God that does not fail.






So leaving thus brought the most bitersweet moment of my life, I believe. I was so thankful to have had the opportunity to play with them, to live yet another dream. I was so thankful for the smiles and hugs and goofing around and seeing the joy in simplicity and seeing God's provision even when it doesn't seem like much. But it was bitter in that my heart longed to do more for them. But praise God, He was so faithful in reminding me that I am at RVA for a purpose, and that to "wait," or be told "no" in this area is not the end of the world, and that God will provide for them without me. Praise God, that He can give me a joy in the midst of frustration, and that I can go back to RVA with a full heart and a readiness to be fully involved in the students' lives there for this year, and that I know it is exactly where I'm supposed to be. Praise God :)



On the drive back, I was struck with a beautiful realization. As we drove through Maai-Mahiu and their streets were lined with "hotels" (brothels) and I was told of the prostitution and drugs and the things that went on there, I realized how blessed of a place Kijabe is. It's probably a 30+ minute drive from one place to the other, but there is a world of difference. When compared to Maai-Mahiu, one can immediately see that the hand of God is heavily on this place. The church here is thriving, the people are caring and willing to help each other, and though need is great, it does not seem that people go to such desperate measures to fill that need. Partially because the church here does such a great job of taking care of the widows and needy, and I would like to think partly because the people here have a deeper relationship and hope in God. I am so thankful to God that He has blessed this community - that He has risen up such incredible, strong leaders here in Kijabe. But my heart breaks for those below, and I ask that you would join me in praying for the community down there, that they might find their place with God soon, before they destroy themselves (if they have not already). What a beautiful testimony to God to see how loving a community can be when built around The Rock! I pray that visitors to Kijabe would see the difference and seek out the same love and hope and trust in the same God that we serve!


Again, I want to thank those of you who are praying and supporting me here - I have seen such beautiful works of God, and I am so blessed to be a part of what He's doing here and all over Africa through this school. Asante sana - thank you very much - and I pray that you would see God in this as well. :)

Praise our God, who provides for all...

Gig 'Em :)