HOW ARE YOU?

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Urban decay…extreme poverty…shanties…squalor…illness…malnutrition…unsanitary conditions—there are no combination of words picturesque enough to describe the slum of Mathare Valley. This is a place of crime, drug addition, alcoholism, mental illness, suicide, unemployment…total loss of all hope. Yet, as I manipulated by way through the narrow, uneven, rocky, dirt terrain recognized as the “streets” of this slum valley, I am greeted by dozens of tiny extended hand and exuberant shouts of “How are you?”

This is the greeting that the children…from toddlers on up…give to the “white face” people who pass through the valley. Jennie (one of the team members) and I were discussing the irony of the excitement that filled these little children’s eyes as they greeted us in this manner. She summed it up well with these words, “This must be how Jesus felt. People just wanted to be near him and touch him because they knew he represented a hope and a future for them.” That is what we “white faced” people represent in Mathare Valley…HOPE!

It would be so easy to return home never penetrating the wall of pain that exists in this place. It would be so easy to remain a tourist in a foreign land, snapping pictures, shaking hands, providing a smile, extending an occasional hug, seeing only the group of people and not the individual with a name and a story. It would be so easy to return to my “normal” life, and thank God that he has blessed me, that I live in the United States, and that I don’t have to live like these people do…that I can forget what is here. But, I can’t. Zainabu, Cherity, Unice, John, Kennedy—these are real people with names, faces, stories, dreams, families and real lives.
It has taken me two days to process enough to write these words about what I saw on Monday. The first place we were privileged to enter was the school that Outreach Community Church (OCC) holds in Mathare Valley. As we entered the first classroom of 5th graders, we were greeted with the memory verse of Jeremiah 29:11. Emotion overtook me as heard “plans to proper and not to harm you…plans to give you a hope and a future.” I clung tightly to this verse four years ago as I was leaving my home to live with my parents until I could find a job above poverty level. How much more must these words mean to these children who live on less than a dollar a day…who conceivably in man’s eyes have no hope…no future. But, as I see them as God sees them, he will provide a way. He is providing a way. This way is through his people…and I am His people.

Matthew 25:35, 40 says “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirst and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

Zainabu’s story moved me because she is the same age as my own daughter—21. She lives in a shanty in Mathare Valley with her three younger siblings. Her parents died when she was 16 leaving her to raise her siblings in a shanty about 12’ x 12’, with no running water and very little light. She has stayed in the valley because she has no way out…until now. She clung to a dream of attending college and becoming a reporter. That dream became reality when she received a scholarship to the local university where she has begun her second year. Zainabu works part-time in sales for a local cell phone company during the day (making probably less than $1 a day) to provide for her and her siblings and attends school in the evenings.
Zainabu must walk through the pitch black streets of Mathare without police protection because her classes end after dark. A beautiful woman walking through these streets by day faces a potential attack—but attack after dark is certain. Special arrangements were made to escort her from the entrance to her home so that she can realize the dreams God has given her.

For Zainabu there is hope as she spoke these words, “Bright hope has given me bright hope. I want to see my dreams come true so that I can reach back and help someone else like they have helped me.”

The least of these reaching back to help the least of these…