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Today, the team traveled back to Nairobi from Siaya. We boarded a small plane in Kisumu to begin our journey to "the big city".
The whole day was spent at a Children’s home called Shiphrah Home. Martha along with her daughter Eva are 2 miraculously amazing women who have taken on the heavy responsibility of caring for about 100 children. They are blessed with a team of helpers to help lighten the load. For some of us, It was our first time visiting, others had gone on previous years. When we first arrived we were greeted by Eva, Martha's daughter, who took us to go and see Martha. Martha was laying in bed resting as she is healing from a knee replacement. You could see that Eva is really stepping up to help her mother as she's recovering. Martha was able to walk to the living room where we started our visit with some devotion time. Afterwards, some of the younger children were brought into the living room, you could see how much of a mother figure Martha is to the kids as she came alive with joy when they arrived. After a short visit with Martha , we went into a hall where we met up with children of all ages and served a nice lunch of KFC and beans. It was wonderful to see how all of the children waited patiently and then joyfully prayed for their food. It was definitely noticeable from the first moment that they are clearly being educated in God's word. After the meal we read the story of Esther and all of the children made a crown and also had a small book of the story to color. The children were so respectful of one another and you could see the older children helping the younger children with the craft and coloring. When the craft was finished we were blessed with some of children coming up to the front and reciting bible verses. You could tell that they were shy but definitely not afraid. Then we were even more blessed when they started singing a song about how God loves them. Their voices sounded like angels and hit you right in the heart with deep feelings. It was powerful, and you could feel that God definitely dwells at Martha's house. These children are being raised with God's grace. Before we left, we had the opportunity to see the new floor of the facility that is being built for the girl's dormitory. The boys still stay in an older section of the home but there is a plan for an expansion for the boys to have a new space as well. Visiting Martha's house definitely had mixed emotions. When our team came together afterwards to debrief we used words like overwhelmed, heartbroken, shell-shocked. But then we also used words like heart warmed, love, security, education and home. It's easy for us to look at the situation with "1st world eyes" and see all the issues. But in reality, these children are being saved from the streets and or abuse, getting three meals a day, Godly education and continual love.
We could leave in peace knowing that all these 100 children are in Martha and Evas loving care, but even more peaceful knowing God has his loving arms wrapped around each child leading their lives toward salvation.
