Kenya #4 Jacob and Susan

I am writing the night before as we are preparing for a long day in Mathare slums. I have found that sharing with everyone is so theraputic as we make our way through this challenge. Some are writing in journals, some are talking it out in evening devotions, but I (Susan) am able to process these things by sharing with all of you, our friends and family, what we are experiencing. Anyway, back to tomorrow. We are going to Mathare slums. I encourage you to "google" this particular slum and see pictures to get an idea of where we are going. This will give you a taste of what we are seeing. We are looking forward to meeting with two groups that have formed in this slum, both doing wonderful works in the name of Jesus. The first is called "Living Positive". It's a group of women who have admitted that they are HIV positive (which is a huge thing for their culture to even get tested, let alone to make it known that they have HIV). It is a support group of sorts where they rely on each other and they make little trinkets to sell for money for food to feed each other and their children. They do all this instead of prostitution, which is a common way for women to make their way in the slums. They have decided to take a stand and it is not easy. They have run out of food and we are taking some to them tomorrow and ministering to them tomorrow for the entire morning. I can't even imagine running out of food... like, I mean, no welfare agency to take care of them, no family to ask for money... run out of food. My little sister, Jessica, is going to do a teaching for them and I am so excited about how God is teaching the younger people on this trip and moving them to do things they would never do at home.The second group we are working with is in the afternoon. I spoke of this group earlier in my last email. They are called "Community Transformers". They are a group of 20-somethings who have bonded together to help children orphaned by violence, AIDS and poverty. They teach the "Choose to Wait" program in workshop format to so many children in the slums. They also work with those with full blown AIDS in the slums. We will be doing home visits with them. They are taking us deep into the the heart of this slum. We have been warned that the smells will be so strong that it will be necessary to put something good smelling on a rag for us to retain composure. We were all somber tonight in evening devotions as we were told what we were up against tomorrow. But we are thrilled and challenged at where God is taking us and how Dave and Jen are allowing us to see a place that is so abandoned by human kind, but where God is still working and moving in amazing ways. We all feel so unworthy of this privilage for a peek into where God has purposefully placed such joyful and unselfish workers in His kingdom. We are confident that we will be serving these young people around the banquet table in Heaven someday. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We are thinking and praying for you often. Thank you for the emails back to us. We all hope that this is something many of you will experience for yourselves. We were warned before coming here that we would never look at our faith the same way, that we would never look at the face of Jesus in the same way. We were excited at this thought, to be pushed forward to something more for our lives, but now we are experiencing it. It is more than life changing. It is rocking our worlds. Thank you for supporting us in this amazing opportunity... and it's only our 4th day of serving.

Much love in Christ,Susan... and the rest of the Africa team