Our Trips

2010 Kenya

On March 4th our group of bloggers will begin an adventure in Kenya that will take them to the Maasai tribe, through the largest slum in the world and into the homes and hearts of Compassion children. Come here daily to make this journey with them through their words, pictures and videos.

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Touched By An Angel

Posted on Mar 10, 2010 by Kristen Welch

On Sunday, we worshiped with Kenyans at one of the Compassion International projects. As we entered the village, hundreds of children ran up to us. It was the first time I felt mobbed by kids, but in a positive way. They were extremely poor.

Once I entered the church building, I immediately noticed a girl in a pink satin dress, her Sunday best. She was Down's Syndrome and absolutely beautiful.

I found a seat and Gina found me.

Mission accomplished! Time to go home.

Posted on Mar 10, 2010 by Patricia Jones

In two hours we will be heading to the airport to go home. What a journey we have been on and I hope that as we brought you stories from Kenya, you were able to feel it and travel with us vicariously. Thank you for all the encouraging comments.

As a trip leader, I have been so impressed with this group of bloggers. It was a fun group of people with big hearts. The 11 other people I traveled with on this trip are passionate about kids. They truly get it, and for me this was pure joy. We all spent time crying together and we also had time to decompress and laugh and joke. The best part for all of us is seeing the amount of kids that are getting sponsored as a result of this trip, and it keeps growing. We are all encouraged!!

Here are a few of my highlights.

Risk, Care, Dream, Expect

Posted on Mar 10, 2010 by Brad Ruggles

In the weeks leading up to this trip I was pretty busy so my wife graciously helped me do most of the prepping and packing. She even gave me a cue-card explaining exactly what I had and where it was in each bag and suitcase compartment (yeah, I think she’s pretty amazing too).

When I arrived I found that she had written me several cards to be opened on certain days of my trip. This was the card I opened today:

Hope flows through Mathare

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Ryan Detzel

Before we go any further…it’s Mathare.

That’s MATH+(the letter)R+(the letter)E.

Imagine you’re trying to say “Mass sorry”, but you’ve got an awful lisp. Yeah…that’s it. Mathare.

Now take a look at what Mathare is.

A Father To The Fatherless

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Brad Ruggles

Just when I thought my heart couldn’t break any more, we drove to our Compassion project today and saw this…

Sight For The Blind

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Shaun Groves

Eliud is eighteen.

An orphan for ten years, he lives alone in a home made of cardboard, wood and corrugated metal. It’s eight feet long, five and a half feet high and five feet deep.

Because of a sponsor named Nick in Northern California, Eliud has enough – but you and I would call him poor.

Eliud prefers it that way.

Shoes of the Slum

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Patricia Jones

I just spent about 20 minutes cleaning off my thrift-store Keen shoes that I wore to the Mathare Slum. As I washed my shoes, I was careful not to touch the dirt and grime because I can only imagine what I stepped in. The conditions of this slum, were some of the worst…..maybe the worst I have ever seen in all my travels.

Imagine stuffing 800,000 people in a square mile and a half. Imagine no drinking water, no sewage. Imagine power outages lasting three months. Imagine a brewery where they distill corn, mix it with jet fuel to provide a strong drink for the people. Imagine the smell of raw sewage, garbage, fire, human body odor, and the smell of a brewery mixed with 800,000 people. The smell is so strong you can taste it in the back of your throat. Imagine the children, torn and tattered clothing, dirty, and of course shoeless. I think you get the picture.

Corn, Dirty Water, & Jet Fuel

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by LV Hanson

That's all you need for Mathare whiskey, the powerful potion of escape for so many calling Mathare home. We walked past the brewery and found out that it costs only 25 cents to get drunk on this crudely prepared booze.

The Mathare slum is the most congested and dangerous slum in Kenya. There are no words, images, or videos that will EVER be able to adequately expose the extreme poverty and searing smells of a place descrbied best by hopelessness.

You will never understand until you have navigated the narrow paths of mud littered with dead animal carcasses, used condoms, and rotten food, had your nostrils burned with the stench of raw refuse, listened to the sound of trickling water struggling to flow in open sewers filled with every kind of trash imagineable, and hoping against hope that you don't get hit by a sling toilet.

Today, I Went To Hell

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Kristen Welch

Armed guards (or bouncers, as Kenyans call them) walked us down a descending, muddy trail into Mathare Valley, one of Kenya's largest slums, where 800,000 people live in an approximate two mile area.

Bile rose up in the back of my throat as my senses were overwhelmed with raw sewage and the smell of depraved humanity.

Silent tears streaked my face as we walked tightly in a group at a fast pace. We were told to "get in the project and get out" as quickly as possible.

The Hope of the Mathare Slum

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 by Kent Shaffer

A mist of alcohol hit my face. We were downwind from moonshiners.

This is the Mathare Slum, where the streets are made of garbage. These 3 square miles of winding alleys are home to 800,000 people. It is Kenya’s second largest slum. It houses drug addicts, prostitutes, thieves, and gangs. And children are routinely exposed to alcohol, drugs, and pornography.