The Portion of my Inheritance

They are called Chokoros. Children of the dirt, the homeless in Nairobi Kenya. The ones who don’t have a place to lay their heads, but just stretch out on the streets in the slums of Nairobi and close their eyes.

I have seen them and it was frighting. Laying there on the side of the street, almost close enough to touch and I wondered if they really were sleeping or just left there lifeless, their dead cold bodies, unwanted and unnoticed, feet just stepping over them as if they were not even there.

Children of the dirt is an appropriate description. There is no prejudice against age or gender there in the dirt. Babies are carried in their mother’s arms, toddlers and the young children, dirty and smelling of the earth and rot, with their hollow, haunting eyes, wander around behind them.

I first saw her in a make shift church in Nairobi. Behind a housing building with a curtain stretched behind the altar to separate the sanctuary from the rubble and trash on the other side. There were no walls on one side or in the back, only the backdrop of evidence of the very poor.

She walked in, along with several children, and sat down in front of me. At first I thought she was a young boy. Her hair was cut close to her head and grass and dirt clung to the tight coils. 

She wore a black coat that gave way to puffs of dust when she moved. She smiled as she looked around the room at all the white skinned visitors and her eyes jerked back and forth, back and forth, continuously, they could not focus. Chances were it was caused from the glue she had been known to sniff.  

 They had said that even the children sniff the glue. It just makes it so much more bearable to deal with the hunger pains.

 She got up and staggered up to the front, bumping into people and steadying herself on the backs of the chairs as she went. And she sang to us.

 The Pastor had called a few of the American women missionaries to come pray over her. And we sat quietly, heads low, praying. . . praying.

 Each side, the American missionary team and the Chokoros, took turns singing for each other, singing for the Lord, and we worshiped. There, in those beautiful moments we were the same. We were one voice singing and praising our Lord.

 We fed them and my heart crumbled into a million pieces. I thought of my own children and my beloved granddaughter and I remember having the frighting thought~~What if this were them? What if they didn’t have enough to eat? Or a place to sleep, or shelter?

A thousand times my eyes have looked upon these pictures, weeping and broken.

“Have I not wept for him who was in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor?” Job 30:25

 As our bus drove through the slums of Nairobi, back to our temporary dwelling, we saw Wanja.

She was standing on the sidewalk outside of a bar. Someone had said that sidewalk was her home, where she would lay her head and close her eyes. Each day just like the one before.

I kept my eyes fixed on her as our bus passed her by and I never saw her again.

 Six months home from Africa, she was found dead on the streets of Nairobi Kenya. The cause of death was unknown but was believed to be a drug overdose. She was 21.

“They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will Shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:16-17