Visuals

As I sit here tonight with my family, each of us caught up in our own thing, my mind wanders as it often does to my family on the other side of the world. Recently, our son Archadius Treasure had his 21st birthday! While we may not have been able to legally adopt him (although I still ask you world, can you adopt an adult???) we have certainly adopted him in our hearts. I wonder what they are doing at any given moment of the day, and often that is sleeping because of the time difference. By the time I've started my day, theirs is half over. 

More than just wonder what they are doing, I wonder HOW. I wonder about Archadius, I wonder about my dada wa roho (soul sister) Vicki, I wonder about my church family at DC Kakamega, I wonder about the VCH kids and staff and I wonder about the HOPE program kids. See once you have gone and experienced life in their shoes, or lack of, just for a little bit, you can't ever sit here and be ok again. At least I can't. 

You sometimes want to shake people and shout how this is not really life. How can you go about your normal business when life barely goes on for people around the world? But you know you can't, because that isn't fair to them. It is easy to ignore the orphan until you've giggled with them, snuggled them, prayed with them, and been prayed for by them. It is easy to ignore the street kid when he looks like a weathered old man. When he's rough and rugged and doesn't even know how to change this life he's grown in to. 

Vicki always smiles when we are trying to get the right picture and says ..."I know sissy...visuals". I've spent much of my last few years trying to shake people awake, trying to put together the right video, the right photo, the right words to make them see what I've seen. To make their heart ache for what my heart aches for...for what God's heart aches for. But I will never be able to do it justice. Is that fair to the kids we are trying to help? That they should go on the way they are because we can't be shocked into loving them? That they should continue to hunger, and cry for education and love because I can't figure out how to get a celebrity endorsement? I can't get the right person to say you should love them?

 It is the burden that people who have seen bear...and share. To make what people haven't seen for themselves a reality....to help them see the heart break. To help them see the pride in poverty. To help them see the smile in sadness. To help them see the generosity in starvation. We can't all go....that is true. My heart fell in love with a place that is expensive and time consuming to get to. But do you have to SEE to know? Do you have to put your feet on that red dirt and hold a little hand to believe? Maybe. I'm asking because I can't remember a time when I didn't care, when my mind didn't wander to what was happening at "home" or what task I could accomplish that would provide more. But I know that time existed just like it does for some of you. This time before you carried the burden of hundreds of kids on your shoulders. Burden isn't even the right word to use. Even though at times it can be exhausting and heartbreaking beyond belief, it is never a burden. It is joy in hard work. It is happiness in change. It is being called out and then called up and resting in the truth that you can do all things through Christ...and ONLY through Christ. Christ and a handful of people who love it like I do. 

Vacation Bible School

Well I am even more ready for Kenya than I was before! After an exhausting week of vacation bible school I am just smiling at the week behind me. It was an amazing week. I spent a great week with great friends, both big and little. Some truly amazing things happened.
We take up penny offering at our VBS and for the past few years we have given the proceeds to our friends in Kenya. The boys and girls take up their offering to separate buckets and they each try to overflow them. When they were told that Vicki would be at our first night of VBS and the money would go directly to her kids, our kids overflowed the buckets on the FIRST NIGHT. That has never happened before. They brought in over $700! The other amazing thing was when Gail told them that it cost about a dollar a day to feed one of the kids in Kenya and she asked the kids how many kids they were going to feed tomorrow. They overflowed the bucket again on Thursday, they overflowed BOTH buckets with one amazing girl bringing in the $220 she had saved for an IPod and her family trip to Disney this year. To see these kids give so generously is absolutely amazing. Some of them will begin tonight, saving for next year.
I know that we will not have all of the props and music and lights and sound system and stage and stuff that we use here while we are in Kenya. I know that we will not have 100 volunteers. But the message will still get across. They will still have an amazing time. They will still feel loved. Without all the bells and whistles. To watch kids here just sing their hearts out and to come running proudly down the isle to accept their salvation and baptism letters and to come dragging buckets of pennies is amazing. It makes me cry. All of their special stories, makes me cry.
To watch kids who are using glitter for the first time ever, crayons for the first time ever is even more amazing. Kids who sing their hearts out without a sound system and a big screen. Who are eager to learn every game you want to teach them and who will absolutely mob you over a soccer ball.
All of these kids, here and there, they just want you to love them. They just want you to be proud of them. They just want you to take an interest in them.
It doesn't have to be fancy, just genuine.