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 described 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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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