From Babies to Beasts

Clara & Lydia w/Eppe & Moses

To say we have had a couple full days would be the understatement of the year.  This is the first chance I have had to post to the blog and even now I should be packing up and making preparations to head out on safari first thing in the morning.

We had a fantastic morning on Saturday visiting with the sisters of Ushirika Wa Neema (community of grace).  These Lutheran sisters boggle the mind both with their self-sufficiency and their commitment to serving the least of these.  The deaconess center is like a little garden of Eden where everything is beautiful and nothing is wasted.  Even the cow manure is converted into biogas, which is used for cooking and providing light with lanterns when electricity is unavailable.  You really have to see the place to believe it.

We traveled from the deaconess center up the mountain to the Neema Orphanage to spend time with the sisters and the children they care for.  This turned out to be a profoundly moving experience as you can see in Mia’s face.

The Lutheran sisters love these orphan children like they were their own.  Each child has a tragic story of loss, which the sisters are redeeming with the love of Jesus twenty-four hours a day.

This one’s mother died in childbirth.

This one lost both parents to AIDS.  This one was found abandoned by the side of a dirt road.  By the time I was able to wrestle my group out of that holy place, we knew the name of every child and loved them dearly.

Family Home Before

After sharing lunch with the sisters at the orphanage we moved further up the mountain to spend time with Bob Kasworm visiting houses for health.  This program that Bob oversees replaces unhealthy shacks with a simple home for families with a critically ill caretaker.

It’s one thing to read about this amazing outreach but it is quite another to stand with the family being saved, between their old shack and their new home. 

New Houses for Health Home

We finished this emotionally draining and blessed day at Bob’s home, which looks like a safari frozen in time.  With the head mount of a big wildebeest staring straight down on the dining room table, we enjoyed Bob’s specialty, wildebeest fajitas!  Some were heard to say, hmm, kinda tastes like chicken!