This past Monday, I had the privilege of leaving my “mini American bubble†at RVA with two fellow staff – Dave and Cassie – and taking a half-day trip to the Mathare Valley Slum in Nairobi.
Mathare is one of two primary slums in Kenya, with the other one being Kibura. While the slum of Kibura is classically known as the larger of the two, and is, in fact, the largest slum in the world, the Mathare population has increased from about 750,000 to 1 million people in the last two years. This is in large part due to the post-election violence that occurred in January of 2008 here in Nairobi, displacing thousands of Kenyans to IDP camps in the country and into the slum regions.
This is a visit I’ve wanted to do for a while, but just haven’t been able to up until this point in time. So when Dave Odegard, who is in charge of Security here on our RVA campus, mentioned that he was going to check up on some Christian Kenyan friends who run “Community Transformers†(CT) right on the outskirts of Mathare, I jumped on the opportunity.
CT is a small, but fantastic Christian organization that was birthed in 2005 by a Kenyan guy named Nick, who used to live in the slums as a drug addict. After having a severe infection in his arm and hand for 7 months, and God intervening in his life – healing him completely and bringing him to a saving knowledge and acceptance of Christ as His Lord and Savior – Nick was burdened for his own people, especially fellow Kenyan men who are enslaved to drugs and alcohol. Often, these men revert to these addictions, because of the intense desire to escape their depression, sickness, poverty, hunger, and unemployment. Or, the hopelessness of discovering they are HIV positive.
Upon our arrival, Dave introduced us to Nick, and we sat in his office for a while, hearing his stories and personal testimony. This was an experience in itself, and we hadn’t even walked into the slum yet!
First, he set a backdrop for CT and what they do on a daily and monthly basis – home visits to widows, men’s ministry, assisting orphan children, church services, providing basic health care, transportation for drug addicts to recovery centers, etc. He spoke of God’s constant financial provision – just when the landlord often locks up the front doors, or turns off the electricity to their building, briefly prohibiting them from doing their various ministry tasks, some sort of donation will come in…and the show goes on. Or, hearing the story of a slum guy who discovered he was HIV-positive, and was so afraid of his friends “ditching†him, forced those 10 friends to inject themselves, too, so that eventually, he wouldn’t be “alone†in his suffering and ultimate end. I believe Nick said that this guy ended up becoming a Christian…and ministering to the very ones he had betrayed (sort of reminds you of a Saul –Paul transformation, eh?)
Another highlight was hearing his own miraculous story of how God healed him. One day, Nick was working construction, and cut his hand on a sharp object that made a straight puncture through one end and out the other. A friend removed what seemed like a splinter, but mistakenly left a portion of it inside his flesh. Three days later, Nick was in so much pain that he couldn’t even go to work. A week or so later, the doctor wanted to amputate his arm, (due to a severe infection that had caused his entire limb to swell up so much that he couldn’t even wear a regular long-sleeve T-shirt) but he refused. And, so, for 6-7 months, Nick intensely suffering, both physically and socially (his friends believed he had a devilish curse on him). After these many months passed, he finally woke up one morning, and decided to walk into a nearby church. Here, the pastor gave a message on “healing,†and by the end of the service, he had confessed Christ as His Lord, repented of his sins, and went forward for prayer to be healed. Nick confessed that he really wasn’t sure if he had confessed Christ as Savior from his heart, or just to please the crowd, but he was about to discover that God indeed cared. Later, after going to bed that evening, he woke up in the middle of the night to see thick, black blood oozing out of his hand and arm, at the main point of the infection. The flesh on his hand had been completely laid bare, and it was red and raw and exposed. Soon after, he was referred to our local Kijabe hospital, where he spent the next month recovering and receiving skin treatments from doctors. While his pinky finger was permanently shrunken and left crooked, the rest of the infection and sickness was entirely healed! Wow. Miracles really do happen.
After spending time in Nick’s office, he called together the rest of the CT team into the main foyer area, and more introductions were made.
After a brief time of prayer, a small group of CT members and Dave, Cassie, John Njane (a Kenyan friend who works at RVA), and I were led to do a “home visit†to an elderly woman named Jennifer with AIDS.
Jennifer’s home was in the center of the slum, so we had to make our way to it through the main streets first, if you can even call it a “street.†The road was…dirty, filled with trash, debris, human feces, crying orphans, and random pieces of junk, cloth, cans, wood, and metal. The air was overwhelmingly putrid. Smoky smells of food cooking and trash burning dominated my nostrils, as I carefully stepped over trash and around little streams of brown water and who knows what else. The constant sound of, “How arrr yoo?†came from the hungry mouths of dozens of dirty orphans roaming the streets, whose faces seemed to light up when they saw us and take on a “I-want-to-impress-you†attitude. And, all I could think was, “What do they really think of us white people, coming through their territory?†So, I asked one of the CT workers, and she replied, “You are a sign of provision to them…they think you come bringing gifts and money.â€
Jennifer’s home was dark, dingy, drab and sticky. One…two…five flies darted around in the air. I lost count. She wore an over-sized tan suit jacket and skirt, and you could see her collar bones jutting out of her dark, chocolate brown, wrinkly skin. She was probably 50, but she looked 75. Her husband sat in a corner, quiet and resolute. She smiled when Nick walked in, along with the rest of us. After explaining her current symptoms, series of injections to help fight the HIV in her system, and family life, we were able to encourage her and pray over her. When Nick asked people to share any word of encouragement, I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to share the passage from 2 Corinthians 4 that says:
“Though our outer self [3] is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.â€
I almost choked up and started crying as I shared this and it was translated to her in Swahili. Here was this Christian woman, essentially wasting away in a dark hole, and yet expressing thankfulness to God that though she was dying, her children were HIV-negative, and for this, she was glad. Her countenance was peace-filled, yet weary. And, rightly so. So often, I lose grasp of my own hope in God for His future goodness and provision to me –and yet, her hope was fixed. It was steadfast, secure and simple.
Our second activity in the slum was visiting a home in which three Christian men live. These men work alongside CT in their ministry to men with alcohol and drug addictions. They each were addicts in the past, and now spend their lives helping other men and sharing the love of God with them. They do this on both a spiritual and practical level. While they provide spiritual accountability to recovering addicts who don’t want to revert back to their old habits, they also assist them in finding part-time jobs or activities with which they can busy themselves. Talk about a worthy calling! I couldn’t respect these three men more for their willingness to STAY in the slum, when after becoming Christians and leaving behind addictions, they could potentially “move on†to a better life. Their humility and genuine love for others provoked me.
At this point in time, we had to head out, so we returned to the CT office and prepared to go. Two of the CT lady members who had toured the slum with us, aged 19 and 21, asked Cassie and I for our e-mail addresses, and when we would be returning. They called us “our sisters,†and begged for us to return.
One of them told me, “Your words have ministered to me this day.†(I don’t even know what I said, but I guess it was meaningful to her!) In a small way, it reminded me of how the early Christian churches “visited†each other and like the Apostle Paul, spent time mutually edifying one another through encouragement, money, gifts, hospitality and service.
The most ironic part of the day was where we stopped for lunch right after our visit to the slum. Just three miles away from the slum, the grand, luxurious, Arabic-owned “Westgate Shopping Mall†awaited us, like some Cruella De-Vil character who is lounging on her couch in a silk bathrobe, cocktail in hand, saying, “Dahh-ling…come relax.†The mall is more beautiful than many American malls I’ve been in. There is Converse and Nike. There is the little French boutique, the expensive chocolate store, the Italian gelato kiosk, the “Little Soles†shoe store where Crocs and Birkenstock’s and other European shoes are sold. We walked past these, into “Art Café,†which is essentially a really nice version of Cheesecake Factory. All around, I saw sophisticated expatriates and young, classy working professionals in their corporate garb, typing away on sleek Mac-books and drinking cappuccinos. The culture shock was almost too drastic to take in. How could millions be living in the stench of their own filth just a walking distance away, and all of us just sit there and enjoy our $2 bottled waters and $8 dollar Tuna Nicoise Salads and $6 gourmet pizzas? I tried NOT to feel guilty when I used the sparkling-clean toilet and sink upstairs in the ladies’ powder room. I tried NOT to feel guilty as I sat down in my cozy, leather armchair at our Pottery Barn looking table. I had heard that Nairobi has one of the worst socio-economic disparities in the whole world, and now, I had witnessed and experienced it first-hand.
After we ate lunch, did some groceries at the Nakumat (Costco/Wal-mart) inside the shopping mall, and began our one-hour journey back to Kijabe, I began to reflect on the day. And, I’m still processing, 24 hours later. It’s not that I am still guilt-ridden, or that shocked. The slum was similar to what I thought it would be. But, even the poverty of the people of Kijabe is not as bad as the poverty inside the slum. Sure, the people of Kijabe are poor farmers, but live in the beautiful countryside and breathe in clean air and at least have fresh, organic produce; the people of Mathare are poor city folk, who live in ugly shacks and breathe in contaminated air and drink contaminated water and try to survive in an infrastructure that is completely horrendous. Why can’t millions of dollars just be collected by the U.S. and Europe, and used to transform the entire slum in a matter of months into a livable, residential area with basic health provisions and a better sewage and electricity system?! I know it’s not that simple. And, it’s not that easy. But, it does make me more passionate than ever before to work for a company in the future who can help meet these basic, elementary needs of water and such.
I don’t want to come across as the arrogant know-it-all who has the solution for fixing the poverty of Africa. Hardly! Indeed, I am not an economist or expert non-profit executive, just a simple, mindful observer, freshly grateful and sobered by the reality of how rich I really am. If anything, I want to walk away from the experience to embrace God’s word, which says to us, “For to whom much is given, much is required.†And, to not forget the people, like the ladies below, whom I met, and who have inspired me to greater depths of faith and joy.
