#2 Love

Love.
It is all over the Bible and the thing we are most commanded to do. After all, if you love someone you do what you have to do for them. If you love someone, you do even things you don't want to do for them. If you love God, you go when He tells you to. From one of my favorite Christian Rappers, Flame, "if the Lord tells me move I'll move, anything He asks me to, yeah I'll do". There can be no greater privilege in my opinion than following after your God given passions and to find love in the middle of it.
I love the friends I have in Kenya. I love the people I go to Kenya with. I love the people who pray for me and my family while I'm gone. I love the kids that give so selflessly and my little friend Riley who isn't even 5 yet but remembered (mostly) the word malaria. We have a bond that you probably can't even understand. But one of the things I love the most, is watching the people I love, love others.
We are blessed in the time we are in to have a way to stay connected to people around the world. Through Facebook I was able to meet a dear friend and sister Chesi. Chesi runs the Vigilant Lady ministry in Nairobi, Kenya. When I say ministry, this is not some big organization, it is a ministry. It is Chesi and some of her friends and sisters (and occasionally brothers) from church who have taken it upon themselves to do their best to take care of girls in their area. To teach them about purity. To provide feminine items to them and just simply, to love on them. They also work with widows and single mothers, especially teenage mothers who are often abandoned by their families and kicked out of school.
I have heard Chesi's story about what it was like trying to attend school and not having the proper items during her menstrual cycle. Please imagine what it is like to use anything and everything you can to protect your clothing- old clothing torn into strips, mud smeared in your underwear and left to dry. On top of that, remember that they do not often have access to fresh water to even wash these things with. Imagine.
Such a simple thing like pads can show these girls that they are loved and that they are important and that God created them for bigger and better things than embarrassment and a missed education because they can't attend school for a week each month.
And of course there is my friend Vicki. Mama to over 60 kids at Victorious Children's Home in Kakamega, Kenya. She has provided so much for those kids. Most of all, she has provided them with love and a safe place to grow up. There are hundreds of street kids still in Kakamega. You can drive around on any given night and see their little fires burning as they try to stay warm. Yes, by the way, it does get cool at night in Kenya. I know if she could she would try to save them all, but for now she saves the ones God sends her way and she does an amazing job of it.
Love. It's doing what you can with what God gave you, and then watching Him give you more in unexpected ways because you try. It's doing what you have to do for others, even things you don't want to do.