Monday, June 13, 2016

Back to School Special (Kenya)

We visited a school while here that takes care of 420 students. When I say “take care” I mean 2 meals a day and education. The 2 meals a day consist of breakfast and lunch and guess what many of these kids will have for their dinner? An empty stomach awaiting the breakfast. Lunch every day is beans/corns with rice. Sounds good right? Everyday? Hmmm. I can’t imagine myself or anyone I know for that matter being a happy camper if that’s ALL you could eat every day. Now let’s throw on top of that you live in the slums. So in our visit we had some candy for SOME of the kids and brought one soccer ball with us (not knowing the size of school) I felt like I threw a rock in the ocean to make a difference.  Back in 2014 when we were part of an outreach that washed feet and gave new shoes to the kids we were told that kids knew of the dream/ better life but knew they would never know of such a life in reality. Okay just the same meal everyday would set us off moaning and complaining even if we had the nice house, picket fence, 2.5 kids and a nice job. I mean it takes a billing error sent to us or  bad online connection to go off and we are somewhere between angry or just plain pissed off. This school is being sponsored by an organization from England. The school is mostly made up of concrete/clay. But again its amazing (lack of a better term) to see those who can do so much with so little. So I guess the reason I’m writing this is for the most part because there shouldn’t be the “so little”. Yes the “poor will always be with us”  . So much of the world lives on a few dollars a day (Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty) But meanwhile we will spend more money annually on pet food than mission outreach (aka caring for those less fortunate than us). Of course we can post it on FB., “Like it” and even hashtag it and call it a movement but we have to get involved. And honestly I’m not sure how that works because from the small Tri state area I’m from most of the time Christians and churches stumble when it comes to working together. Doing their “own thing” on the same day/night to see who can be bigger or burn brighter, perhaps? But one thing I do know we are ALL in this thing together from Keyser to Kenya

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1 cor 12 26

 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “GO AND DO LIKEWISE. Luke 10:36

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