Rhema - the living Word

For the past two weeks I’ve been living at Rhema Children’s Home. This home is smaller and much poorer than Tumaini. There is no water on site, but atleast its not too long a walk to fetch water & we can fetch from a tap so the dirt is not so much. There are 25 children here. The boys dorm is made of a wooden frame and cardboard walls. There is a need for a new kitchen as they use firewood and the smoke is incredible. Also, some of the land they use is not their own and they are under threat of the owners returning for it at any moment. However, for the first time since I’ve been at Kenya I can say I feel at home. I have one more week here and don’t want to leave! Anyone who knows me well knows I am really not a morning person, but here I rush to get up at 5:30am every morning to go help make breakfast just so I can see the children a few minutes before they go to school. Afterwards I come to get myself ready, pray, and help with chores around the home. The kids call me “Auntie” and I really feel a part of this family. My heart melts everytime I see their smiles. Life here is poorer and harder than anything I’ve ever known, but the crazy thing to me is how much JOY and LOVE God showers on us each day. Every night before supper we have prayers. We start with some praise songs, then everyone goes into prayers. Its an incredibly powerful time to see them worship, praise, and pray. To watch these children in torn and stained clothes kneeling in the dirt floor begging and literally sometimes crying to God to bless their sponsors back in the States, its unreal. I feel like such a spoiled child here as I miss toilets and showers (all I’m gonna say is a port-a-potty at a crowded rock concert would be a pleasant improvement), and I remember Chic-fil-a, Moes, and washing machines. Atleast I can finally say I’ve actually grown to like ugali and cabbage for dinner – praise Jesus – since we eat that 5 nights a week!

The worst physical condition I’ve lived in personally, but joy and love and purpose in everyday, just as much as when I was back at home on staff at MBSM. Its not that I feel I’m living more for the Lord now that I’ve given up comforts and living among the poor in a foreign land. My joy is not more during prayer or games here than it was during TMB or DNOW – which surprises me alittle because maybe I was expecting that subconsciously. But my JOY for the Lord, my clarity in living out His PURPOSE for me (currently striving to live out the Word James 1:27), is the SAME living among poor and needy in Africa as it was serving Him among the wealthy in East Cobb – don’t you just love the craziness of Jesus? The fact I can even be sitting in a house made of cardboard walls and dirt floors in Africa and type something to reach my friends and family half way across the world – and then the fact He knows every single person’s name and amount of hairs on their head from here to there and made everything and is in control of everything – I’m overwhelmed at how BIG and GREAT He is and that He loves us – Jesus is just crazy different and so far above us and I love Him for it!

These children have been so cruelly rejected in this world – and I’m in love with Jesus for giving them His joy, love, peace, and grace everyday. Many have lost their parents to AIDS, some have grown up on the streets, some parents are too sick or poor to properly care for them – so they are here. Peris & her sister, the house moms, literally just started to open her home to these children despite their own struggles. Peris & these children remind me everyday what joy in the Lord is and everyday they see as a precious gift from Him despite their circumstances. My prayer for people back home is to know this love and joy Jesus has for us without having to be so cruelly rejected by the world. That we won’t have to have life circumstances force “worldly living and focus” upon us, but we can joyfully lay down every little part of our lives to unlock the secrets of the joy these children and caretakers show me everyday. Rhema means “the living Word” in Swahili – and the people here do exactly that. They live the Word. They choose to rejoice and cling to Jesus every second despite any circumstances thrown their way. As they were torn shoes and sweaters and sleep in cardboard rooms in the cold of night, they choose to rejoice. Lord, may I choose also – may we choose also – whatever happens, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!”