Boniface

This morning we left the hotel at 5am to share the Gospel and feed some of the people living on the streets with our friend Boniface (who does this three times a week). This is my first time to Kenya so I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but we had quiet prayer time on the bus ride and that really helped to prepare my heart for what we were about to experience. We were told before we went that the homeless are called “trash” in Swahili, so we wanted to show them God’s love and how much we care about them. When we arrived, the men, women, and kids were sitting along the wall, and we went down the row and shook each of their hands and then sat down to get to know them. The first man I talked to, Jason, had fallen recently and there were some pretty bad scrapes on his face. Kristin is a nurse so she came over to clean the wounds and put neosporin and bandaids on him. The part that really touched me was when he told us he knows Jesus and we got to pray for his healing. He lit up when we asked him if we could pray and lay hands on him. Something that was really painful to see, even more than the fact that these people live on the streets, were the kids who sniff glue out of plastic bottles. They do it to mask their hunger and pain. One of the kids we tried to talk to had a constant glazed look and could barely comprehend anything we tried to say or ask, even in Swahili. After we finished praying for them, we passed out milk and bread, said our goodbyes, and told them we’d see them again Friday.

After getting a delicious breakfast and a nap, we headed out to Boniface’s farm to do some work. Part of Boniface’s ministry includes bringing some of the street kids back to his home to live with him and his family once they have shown that they really do want to turn their lives around and get off the streets. After we arrived, a few team members left to get supplies to build a fence and the ones who stayed at the farm split up into smaller groups to tackle different projects. Some of us picked weeds and rocks out of the large garden out front, and others washed the inside and outside of the windows of the house, trimmed bushes and raked leaves out of the garden beds by the house, and washed the floors outside the house. The guys returned with the fence materials and about fifteen people worked to build the fence and repair a gate near the entrance to the farm while the last part of the garden was cleared. It was amazing how much we were able to accomplish with so many people hard at work all day. On top of the work there was a lot of laughing, singing a wide range of songs from the last two decades, playing baseball with makeshift equipment, playing with the goats and chickens, and just a lot of great conversations! It was really cool to see how God used each of us in different ways to accomplish tasks that would have taken one family a long time and been a lot more work per person.

God taught me a lot today about gratefulness and humility, and how we are to be good stewards of our abilities and resources and use them to bring Him glory and reflect His love. It is absolutely amazing to be here in Kenya and meet so many wonderful people here. I am really excited for everything God has in store for us throughout the rest of the trip! Thank you so much for your prayers; we really appreciate it!

-Whitney McIlvain