Today is my favorite day, God made a special way. (That only makes sense to those of you who have been here, so sorry for those who are left out.)
Steve’s first day was a typical Steve’s first day. Knowing exactly what he wanted to do, I sent Kris and Pat with him off to Khetia’s while Sammy, Ashley and I headed over to Oasis of Hope. I really enjoy introducing people to Kitale. It is so great when I think about how surreal everything was on my first day. I love to explain every little thing; I guess I just assume that everyone is as excited about Kitale as I am.
I also ran into Vincent in town today, and honestly, I wish I hadn’t. Vincent and I had talked about him not hanging out on the street while he was recovering, but like I said in the previous post he is an adult, and I can’t control what he does. We talked a little about how he was, and about what his next step was.
Honestly I don’t know what to do about him. I am just praying that God would guide me daily and that I would be able to act in faith and wisdom.
On a lighter note, the first ever African FIFA world cup opened today. My friend Manu and I watched the opening match between South Africa and Mexico at the Kitale club. I love the energy and the Passion that Africans have for their continent. There is such pride in everything that Africans do, even out of their immediate countries. I will definitely be cheering for all African teams this world cup, after the US that is.
I should have posted this yesterday but I never got around to it. Yesterday Vincent left Sister Freda’s.
Vincent is a 17 year-old boy that we found in the streets about a week and a half ago with a broken jaw, you can read the story here. He has been resting at Sister Freda’s for a week and is feeling much better. He still has to keep the wires in his mouth for another five weeks but the pain and the swelling have gone.
Vincent was restless at the hospital, and I have to be honest, a hospital isn’t a place I would want to hang out when I am feeling well either. Since he was feeling well, and really wanting to leave, I asked Freda what we should do. He lives on the street during the day, and stays in a part of town called Kipsongo at night. So it isn’t exactly the easiest place for him to get the types of food that he needs, seeing as he can’t chew anything.
Vincent assured me that he had relatives in town that could help him out a bit while his Jaw healed. It was hard to say yes, seeing as I can’t know for sure if he is telling the truth, but I figured that he is old enough to make those types of decisions, so I let him go. We took him into town where I bought him a good supply of foods that way the burden of feeding him would not be completely on his relatives. We also made a deal that he would come to Oasis every Monday morning so that I could talk with him and make sure that everything was going well with his recovery.
All I can do now is pray, and ask God to continue to guide me. It is tough making decisions like that, but I think it was the best for Vincent.
It has for sure been a wild ride, and I feel like the LORD has more in-store for us. This is definitely not the last that I, or you for that matter, will hear of Vincent.
Also, you should check out Pat and Kirs' blog. you can find it here.
It has been a full couple of days. I checked up on Vincent at Sister Freda’s the other day, and he seemed to be recovering Nicely. He still doesn’t enjoy having a mouth full of metal, but I promised him that if he gave it a couple of days it would feel normal (I hope that’s true).
Thursday was an amazing day. Steve and I have set a goal that we will visit every house in Shimo La Tewa this summer. Shimo is a neighborhood down the street from us that many of the children from Oasis come from, and that is considered in some areas to be a slum. One of the churches that we have been working with is locate there, and the congregation has a huge heart for the community. Thursday marked the start of my house visits to Shimo, and we must have visited 15 houses talking with the mommas, and encouraging them in Jesus. The greatest part about these visits is praying for the women, and for their homes. I love the people of Shimo so much, and to become more a part of the community is something that I deeply desire. Soon I will do a blog solely on one of those prayer walks, God has really used them to change my life. I would encourage you to pray for Shimo as well, there is so much need there.
Friday was the kick off of “The Day of the African Child” Which recognizes our duty to the children of Africa. It was an awesome event here in Kitale. The celebration was kicked off by at least 200 children marching through town with a marching band and a motorcade of what seemed to be some very important people ( I wish I had pictures, and to be honest I forgot my camera at home, that can happen when you have 3,000 pictures of a place). Then I sat and watched some performances from local children’s organizations. I really am not portraying what a big deal this was in town, this was actually the national event that was held here in Kitale. Sometimes these types of things are lost on us foreigners.
Saturday was also an interesting day. I had decided early in the Morning that I would get some laundry done but at about nine I got a phone call from a pastor in town asking me if I would like to go plant a tree with him. Of course I said yes, just because it was such an odd request, and also because planting trees is a super important and symbolic experience here. Well as it turns out we were headed down to Shimo secondary school, which is a brand new high school down the road, and I was to plant a tree in honor of Steve Rutenbar. I must say I have never been to a function where I was representing someone, and I think when you get to the point of sending other people in your place, you are really someone, so congrats Steve, you are really someone. It was great, we planted some trees and listened to some speeches, and like most things in Kenya, it lasted hours.
Those are the happenings from East Africa, sorry for the delay and brevity, I’ll try harder next time.
I am not a good enough storyteller, nor a skilled enough author to accurately give account of my last two days. But seeing as this is a place to vent and let you in on what is going on here I will attempt.
I was in an area of town fondly known as “the ghetto” yesterday, visiting some friends who live on the street, when I found a pretty disturbing scene.
Now the ghetto is not exactly somewhere you want to find yourself alone and unwelcome. In fact a more apt name would be the trash heap, because for all intensive purposes, that is exactly what it is. Although this is true, it has also somehow become a place where many street boys, street men, and even street girls hang out. These are the “for lifers”, the ones who have mostly accepted the fact that this is their hand in life, and usually if you hang out here your involved in something less then saintly.
Anyways, as I walked up I could see that there was unrest. I was immediately mobbed with people who were for the most part the worse for the ware. Even more then usual there seemed to be a large number of injuries. After some confusing chatter, I discovered that there had been a raid on the ghetto the night before.
A raid is in essence a way of dealing with the street dweller problem. Basically, as the sun sets a group of police officers role up on a given area, without notice and begin to arrest those who are Illegally squatting in private areas.
From what I gather, and usually what I gather is a little hazy, the police stormed the ghetto and everyone scattered. Now it isn’t exactly a well-lit area of town, and the ground is usually covered in various things that hurt to fall on. That being said, as the residents fled they were falling and being stabbed by glass and metal, not to mention the usually unfriendly exchange once caught by the pursuing police.
As they finished the story, they told me that there was one boy who I needed to see. I am usually a little hesitant at people telling me that they need help, because to be honest, there are a lot of people who need help here, but I was interested in the fact that it was the street boys who were telling me to forgo helping them to help someone who really needed it. What I found was a boy who had been completely devastated, his name was Vincent
Again, from what I gather, Vincent decided to escape the pursuing police by means of hopping onto a roof and running from rooftop to rooftop. As he was running the roof either collapsed under his feet, or he simply miss-stepped falling three stories, directly onto this chin.
When I first saw him he looked like he was falling in and out of consciousness, and the swelling was so bad it looked like he was storing an orange in either side of his mouth. There wasn’t a doubt, we had to do something.
We called for a cab and took him immediately to the hospital. It was about five at this time, so the x-ray was closed, so we were forced to check him into the hospital (I could spend a whole other blog entry just talking about the hospital, but this is already too long winded).
So now we come to this morning. We headed over to the hospital at eight to begin one of the longest days of my life, not wanting to make you relive it, nor wanting to myself, I will just tell you the outcome. It turns out that Vincent has a fractured lower jaw. I will upload the x-ray soon, but there is literally a half-inch gap between one side of his lower jaw and the other. So we had a dental surgeon wire his lower Jaw to his upper jaw so that there is no movement, and it can heal. Honestly, what can you do with a fractured Jaw? Surprisingly the Hospital discharged him today, but there was no way that we could drop him off in town and tell him to get along, so he is now under the watchful eye of the doctors and nurses at sister Freda’s.
Honestly, after spending almost a year’s time here between all of my trips, this has by far been the most draining. Physically I am just worn out, and emotionally I am destroyed. I think that most of my exhaustion comes from the fact that this kind of act goes against a lot of what we do here. I know that sounds strange but it is very true.
The big picture is what you must aim for here. There is so much need that to fight every individual battle is a way to sure destruction. The fact is you can’t give to every person who asks, but you can strategically plan so that each person has an opportunity to get what he or she needs in a way that helps more, with less.
And what I have done with Vincent goes against that model; it is going at one individual issue. That being said, we couldn’t stand by and not do something, it is that exception, that curveball that God throws at you and says “here you go, this is my job for you right now.”
I don’t know if anyone will read this, or if anyone even cares, but I had to put it out there. I am exhausted, and if you got this far I love you, and hope that you will pray for Vincent.
