In our morning devotion today Ken asked us to wrestle with a great question: Now that we have had this great, profound experience will we act any different when we get home? It was a great question and one that each of us will think about as we wrap up our trip. You can ask us in person when you see us how we feel about this after we are home and what difference this trip will have made in our lives!
There were powerful emotions and many tears today as we bid farewell to the children and staff at HOREC. We began the day by completing a few small projects and then we spent time with the children giving them their backpacks and small gifts we brought for them. Each of us had fun playing games with the kids and a highlight was Millie leading the kids in some Zoomba complete with tutus! I’ll try and get some video up so you can enjoy it like the rest of us did! Thomas and I taught a few of the boys to play football and there were relays races that the kids loved.
I also took some time in the morning to do an extensive interview with Christine in the boy’s dorm so she could share her story via video that we will try and get on You Tube sometime in the near future. In that interview we also were able to present Christine with enough of our trip money to put electricity in the boy's dorm (courtesy of the Miller Middle School 7th grade Puma class), repair the electricity in the girl's dorm, and connect the boy's dorm to the septic system. All three of these projects should be completed in the next few weeks.
The pinnacle of the day was the community bar-b-q complete with hot dogs, potato chips and a cake to celebrate HOREC’s 6th Anniversary. One of the persons present was Hannah, the chair of the board for HOREC who also works at Barclay’s Bank and arranged for the first gift to build the girl’s dorm. She was actually named woman of the year by the Bank for her work with HOREC and traveled to New York and London to receive her award. There were many other volunteers and neighbors present to enjoy the celebration.
The party ended with a treat that I did not expect. First, a group of women came into the gathering dancing and singing as they seated, Thomas, Paul, Marty and I in four seats of honor. After the dance, the boys of HOREC presented Thomas with a ceremonial spear and shield as a thank you gift to share with his classmates at home for putting electricity in their dorm. The boys were very excited to that they won’t always have to use flashlights to do homework! Two elders then presented Paul and Marty Sheppard with Kenyan robes and headdresses and made them Kenyan elders! The community at HOREC is so grateful for Marty and Paul and all they have done to server them and they did this wonderful ceremony to celebrate that connection. They then presented me with a beautiful Kenyan leather and wood stool that I am to use to sit on when I teach the children Bible stories back home.
Finally, the children sang us a song as a parting gift. We spent some time giving hugs and shedding some tears of joy and sorrow that our time was drawing to a close, but we could not leave without one last song of Zoomba! It took us a while to get the courage up to actually get in the vans to leave and as we drove off the kids sang us one final song of goodbye.
It’s hard to imagine that in just a few days we would become so close to the children at HOREC but there is something special about the Spirit within them that is beautiful, rich and joyful. They long for connection like any of us and they are unafraid to reach out even though their losses in life have been deep. The children care for each other and they very easily extend that sense of family to anyone willing to enter into their lives, even if it is for a brief moment. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered there I am also,” and at HOREC you get a clear sense of what he meant. I pray that I might be worthy of the love the children have shared with me and that I would treat it with the respect it deserves. I know that each of us has been changed by our experience and I can only encourage you to prayerfully consider entering the world of your brothers and sisters in Nairobi.
As we headed to our hotel for the night we took a tour through the tourist part of Nairobi that most people visiting this country experience. It was quite the contrast to what we have lived the past week, complete with high rises and a beautiful city park. I felt God nudging me as I thought about the question Ken began our day with regarding whether anything will be different for me after this trip when I get home. I realized that while the gulf seemed far from this scene in Nairobi to the slum of Spring Valley and the HOREC orphanage, it was not really that far at all. And while the distance between Durango and Nairobi seems far (at least it feels that way with a 30 plus our plane ride), it really is not that far at all when you consider that each of us struggles with the same human desire to connect with something greater than ourselves and with each other.
Being a follower of Jesus is really this simple and profound: Love God, love your neighbor (the one next door and the one on the other side of the world) and know that when two or three are gathered, there is Christ and in doing those things his love is made known. I just pray I can remember this and not take it for granted in the days and weeks ahead.
We head tomorrow for a few days of safari and then home. I’ll try and write one more time before we get back and put some more pictures up this week. Thanks again for all your prayers. Peace, Jeff
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