A name, A face, A smile, A laugh

I’m a little behind on my blogging, and I still haven’t blogged about Mcedo school and Comedo school but I really feel the need to blog about something different today.

A couple of us on the team have been dealing with some spiritual warfare on this trip. The whole team definitely sees it in all the struggles that we have gone through and just the fact that literally nothing we’ve planned has gone according to our plans.. for the most part at least. At Comedo school we only got to stay for about 2 hours maximum and we didn’t get to do anything with the kids. I was pretty upset about that and I was really just thinking that so far during this trip, I feel like we haven’t done “enough” ministry. All we’ve been doing is playing with and taking pictures of the little kids, which I really enjoy, I just didn’t feel like we were actually making an impact. But then today during our first session of debriefing (we ended up having two), Mike made the comment that us just loving the kids and smiling at them and making them feel special can make a HUGE impact that we may never get to see, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. If we show God’s love, then these kids will be given hope and joy that could spark something and you never know how big of a fire that little spark could start.

Anyways, about the spiritual warfare.. specifically for me I’ve been having pretty graphic and demonic images mostly in the last day. Also, two nights ago I was having a dream and it felt like something scratched the side of my head and I knew it was a dream but when I felt it in my dream it felt wet like it was bleeding. I still thought that “no, this is just a dream” but then it felt like the blood was dripping down my face, so I woke up and felt it and there was nothing there but when I looked at the door I felt like there was a tall dark figure standing there. So I prayed and eventually fell asleep. One of the weirdest things to me is that two other people experienced the same presence the same night. So tonight night me and Sydney went to talk to Trenton and Erika about it because it made us feel really uneasy. The talk really helped and just gave me strength and confidence in God. I know that I don’t have to be afraid of anything and the only reason that these things are happening to us is because we are doing something great for the kingdom of God which is incredibly encouraging. Maybe our relationships are making a difference, or will in the future (: Anyways, we brought the rest of the team in and basically had another debrief session. We talked about a lot of things, but during this debrief I got emotional for the first time. I was thinking about how people always jokingly say “don’t throw that food away, there’s starving kids in Africa” and they don’t (and honestly never will) understand the truth of those words until they’ve actually seen it for themselves. When you put a name and a face and a smile and a laugh to the phrase “kids in Africa” you could never say anything like that in a joking way.

There was this specific boy that I noticed in Kwa-Njenga that came into the Comido school while we were there. He wasn’t even a student, he was just sitting off to the side with a group of “wanna be” students, but for some reason his face stood out to me. I think it was just the fact that his face looked so gentle and so.. I don’t even know how to explain it. I smiled to him though and he turned around to see who it was behind him that I might be smiling at. When he turned back around I smile and pointed at him, he smiled a little. It really amazes me how much the kids appreciate and love it when you acknowledge them. Which makes me sad though, because its as if no one else smiles at them. But anyways, after all the school kids left and went home, a lot of the non-school kids stuck around so I went up to him and started talking to him but I couldn’t understand what his name was and it was hard for me to talk to him with the whole language barrier. That was a little bit frustrating but even though his face remained to be pretty emotionless for the most part, it seemed like I was able to make a little connection because he stuck around the school and waited for us while we were getting a tour of the school. I was really happy to see him still there as we were exiting the school, but it was also really difficult to walk away from all the kids as we were leaving.

Today during our debrief his face came up in my mind and it made me really upset to think that he’s still at Kwa-Njenga sleeping in a little metal hut. And I remember him having this “toy” that he played with, but all it was was a little metal circle that he pushed around with a metal rod. I don’t even really know how to explain how I feel right now.. kind of frustrated I suppose. I just picture his face while him and some other kids were standing there watching us leave. I want to go back

Some kids at Kwa-Njenga dancing with Lucas and Trisha

Two little boys in Kwa-Njenga with the cutest smiles

The view of the slum from the roof of one of the school buildings

Sydney trying roasted maize from Kwa-Njenga

Oh and I took my Airborn just for you Aunty Marlene.. ehe (: