Saturday is a school day in Kenya … they are very serious about their education! (Not sure we could pull this off in the US.) We interrupted their studies by dividing ourselves into pairs to be "taken home" by the students. For the students at BLISS high school, it is an honor to be selected to show us their homes.
The walks "home" varied from about a mile to over 6 miles in length … remember these same students had walked this distance before 7:00 AM only to walk it again with us less than 2 hours later. To say this was a humbling experience for the team is an understatement. Many of the "homes" visited were single rooms shared by a family or shacks rented by the month to students because their families are too far from BLISS to walk in both directions each day. Few had power, all had exterior wood-burning kitchen huts, and water had to be fetched from a community public source.
When we wonder if these visits to homes or to BLISS have any real meaning, we are presented with evidence that they truly do. In one home, we were asked to wait while the student ran in to bring out something "very special" that belonged to her older sister. It was a patched up photo album. On the first page was a photo of a long-time FUMC team member, Dixie Edwards (see below), and on the following pages were photos of Beth Miller (former FUMC Youth Director) and Alison Punch (an FUMC Youth at the time). The student explained that these were her sister's "best friends." Did we know them?
All week we have been confronted with evidence of the good that other teams have left behind. Some of it is tangible — there are a LOT of University of Michigan T-shirts in this community! Some of it is intangible — like the memories shared of lives touched both in the Kithoka area of Meru and in Ann Arbor.
Tomorrow we will attend the local Mwanika church service again. This time, it will feel like home. Our new FUMC Vision for 2021 has a section in it titled: "A Place for Everyone: You belong here." It goes on to say, "God's house, our church home, is more than our buildings. It is the community of people and this extends to the relationships we build with each other — we belong." We feel we belong. We will leave here early Monday morning hoping we have continued to build on the relationships of those who have come before.
The Kenya Mission Team
A typical BLISS student home. The student and her family lived is the room on the left. Several other families lived in the home on the right.
Photo of Dixie Edwards … probably about 7 years ago.
Walking back to BLISS … imagine this walk both coming and going in the dark.
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