Garbage Covers The Land

 

June 2, 2013 (Sunday) Confusion and congestion filled the entrance into the slums. Transportation matatus and buses came to a dead lock and each refused to move.  The over populated slum has masses of people filling the road ways. Walking is the number one form of travel as so many cannot afford the public transportation.  The roads are dusty and raw sewage flows beside the roadways and through the back alley pathways.  Today I will not walk these pathways that are so familiar to me as my leg is still healing.  We continue further into the slum, but slowly, as we wait for people to give us room to pass through.  The honk of the horn doesn’t seem move them as these roads are traveled more on foot than by vehicle.

Beside the road are carts of tomatoes, bananas, and other produce.  Shop keepers are starting their fires next to the busy road in hopes to sell what they cook that day. For those that want to celebrate live chickens are for sale and kept in wire cages at the corner. Open air grills are already hot and the all so common chicken feet and cow intestines are sizzling and ready for those that walk by. Charcoal is being sold by the tin can. Garbage replaces the green grass and it becomes a carpet which covers the land.

 

I carefully maneuver myself through the ragged edged doorway and over the rocks that line that pathway. The alley way is a maze to walk through and walled with mixed matched iron sheets on each side of me.

Before entering the church I sit with the pastor in his office which is attached to church. The people are now singing and music from inside overflows into his office as we talk together. 

 The church has grown in the time I have been gone and they have filled the church from front to back. The need for more room is a good problem but for them it means moving.  The church cannot expand here because people have built on three sides of the church. On one side of the church the building is so close they cannot open two of their wooden windows.  The church wall on the other two sides comes wall to wall to someone’s home. Space is limited here in the slums and the population continues to grow.

 

Kenya is now entering their winter months and the temperature is dropping and will continue to drop into July and August.  The natives really feel the temperature change and many get sick because of it.  Their one room homes are generally made with iron sheets which captures the cold even more.

After the service we had all the women gather in the front and we sent them home with a new blanket. This will help keep their babies warm through the cold season that is now upon them.   

As we waited outside for the car to pick us up. I was quickly reminded of the evil the rests in this land. It is midafternoon and the sun has not started to set but still robbery and theft continues to rule here.  About fifteen guys on the run just about knocked me off my feet. They weren't stopping for anyone. It could mean their life if they are caught because mob justice takes over and punishment is usually death by stoning or they would be on fire.

 

Praise filled the small little church in the midst of the slum today. When one looks around and sees the conditions in which they live you might wonder how can they rejoice in such a place? They live in the slum but the slum does not live in them. They have found love, peace and joy. They have found Jesus.

 

Psalm 63:4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.