Kibera Slums
Today Karen and I joined another OC teammate and Pastor Chris into the Nairobi Kibera slums. Kibera is a city within a city and the largest inter-city slums in Africa. It was another culture shock. Chris heads up a ministry called First Love. They have a couple projects in the different slums of Nairobi. In Kibera they have a primary and secondary school where about 650 kids go as well as get fed twice a day. They also have a couple that acts as parents to 8 orphans girls. You could really see the hand of God upon this ministry who is making a tremendous impact in their community. We also got to walk along the train tracks and into the town a bit. There is no sewage system, water or electricity. You smell the stench of garbage and human waste everywhere you go. Kids run around in the mud-filled "roads" and people try to sell whatever they can along the roadside. The people are friendly though, I think they are used to visitors, many NGO's and ministries do work in the slums. I took some pictures but they don't really describe the sights we saw accurately enough. I believe there is about 1.5 million people living on 250,000 sq feet of land. Kibera means "the forest" and it actually used to be a forest before people started living in the area. I would say that the people of Kibera are the poorest of the poor. You can check out First love at: www.firstloveinternational.com.
Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane at 10am Kenya time (about 11pm Thursday night in Portland). I can't believe I'm actually leaving Africa. I'm not sure if I'm prepared for the reverse culture shock that is about to overtake me. I do get to spend 5 days in England with my good friends Katie and Rob and also see my friend Tabitha where she is attending Bible school. I think it will be a good transition back into a western society. I could definitely use prayer for safe travels and for quality time alone with the Lord, just processing through the past 3 months. Karen is headed back to America tomorrow as well, so you can pray for her safety and that all our stuff makes it back with both of us. Here are a few photos from Kibera, the computer is being slow so I cant post too many, sorry.
This is just a section of Kibera....it is so much bigger than this.
I dont know why, but I found this to be ironic and a little sad.
Tomorrow I'm getting on a plane at 10am Kenya time (about 11pm Thursday night in Portland). I can't believe I'm actually leaving Africa. I'm not sure if I'm prepared for the reverse culture shock that is about to overtake me. I do get to spend 5 days in England with my good friends Katie and Rob and also see my friend Tabitha where she is attending Bible school. I think it will be a good transition back into a western society. I could definitely use prayer for safe travels and for quality time alone with the Lord, just processing through the past 3 months. Karen is headed back to America tomorrow as well, so you can pray for her safety and that all our stuff makes it back with both of us. Here are a few photos from Kibera, the computer is being slow so I cant post too many, sorry.
This is just a section of Kibera....it is so much bigger than this.
I dont know why, but I found this to be ironic and a little sad.
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