"Jesus Loves Me"

It's the beginning of our last week here in Busia (we are leaving for Nairobi Sunday morning and will be there for several days before returning home) and I'm trying to treasure every moment of it!  Since our visit to Kisumu last Thursday, our schedule has been rather hectic as we began making school and home visits to children in the Buckner foster care program.

(Chicken #2) Grandmother of foster child, Max, in middle

Saturday we set out in the van for foster-child home visits.  It was the first time we'd been off the main road in a "neighborhood".  After driving for a while on a skinny road lined with banana trees, we hopped out of the van, walked down a narrow dirt trail, and emerged from the brush into a cluster of little huts and homes made of cow dung and mud and roofs of tin.  We approached one house and were greeted by a beaming grandmother, delighted that "mzungus" were paying her a surprise visit.  She had her relatives bring in plastic chairs and little wooden benches and told us, "If I had known you were coming, I would have taken a bath!"  She was so happy that she decided she would give us a chicken!  Although we tried to graciously decline the gift, she insisted and tomorrow we are going to pick up Chicken #2.  I must note that we ARE NOT going to name this chicken!!  I suggested we make it a traveling companion for Mr. Bennet (Richard's chicken) but our NGO Ann insists we will eat it tomorrow for dinner!

The rest of the day we spent traveling from house to house and even stopped at several boarding schools.  We entered the homes of many elderly women (most of the "foster mothers" are the childrens' grandmothers).  It was incredible to see how many of these ladies take care of not only their one orphaned family member, but also many other relatives and sometimes even orphans.  The grandmother pictured to the lower left takes care of a foster child, six grandchildren, and three orphans!  All of the houses we visited were tiny two-room homes with concrete or cow-dung/mud floors, no electricity, and generally floor mats instead of beds.  Water is drawn from a well and food is cooked at a fire pit outside or in the house.  It is so humbling to enter the homes or huts of such generous and loving women - especially the grandmothers at the first (chicken #2 lady's house) and the last (pictured) houses we visited.  Even with so little, their hearts are full of so much!

Grandmother (center) and all of the children she cares for!

Sunday was bittersweet as it was our last service at Mudoma Baptist Church.  Yesterday I taught the story of "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho", choosing two children to be spies and hanging a red paper chain from the church window.  Then we made paper horns and marched in a circle outside and fell down when we shouted and blew our trumpets!  There is something about telling the story of Jericho and Rahab's scarlet rope in a cow dung-walled church that really makes it come alive! Then we sang and clapped and danced with the congregation during "adult church".  I am going to miss worshiping with Africans!

Sunday after church was full of new things: Kenyan pineapple, using a pit toilet for the first time, and stepping into Uganda (we visited the border)!  But today I mainly worked with Gladys at the clinic.  It's especially fun because even when working in the clinic, the voices of joyful children singing "Jesus Loves Me" (one of the songs we taught them) travels across the school yard and into the exam room!  As we were getting ready to leave today, I was holding the hand of the little girl I fell in love with on the first day here - a tiny, malnourished five-year-old - when I noticed the fungal infection beginning to spread on her scalp (very common and contagious)!  Earlier this morning we had seen other cases of head fungal infections and the wounds and scars that can result!  So I took her to Nurse Gladys for medicine.  When Gladys talked to her and learned she was starving from being given no breakfast, we gave her our extra food from lunch, half of which she devoured on the way home in the van.  We were only able to take her part of the way home and watched from the van window as she hurried, alone, down the dusty road in her little flip flops, struggling to carry her chips, half a PB&J sandwich and zip-lock bag full of medication.  So we found a bag in the car and I chased her down the road, placing the items in a little black sack and giving her a hug. 

It's amazing that I have never been able to have an actual conversation with this little girl because of the language barrier.  But her eyes speak louder than words.  One of my favorite songs says, "Father, break my heart for what breaks yours."  And today, my heart was broken by a little girl with big eyes and a gentle spirit who I will never forget.  My heart is saddened when I realize there are only a few days left here and after this week I may never see her again or be sure she is provided for.  But I have to smile when I think of her singing "Jesus Loves Me" - because while nothing I can give her will last, Jesus will.  And because of Him, I trust in heaven Abigail and I will meet again.

Putting Abigail's things in a bag