New Life Home

We have been in Kenya now for about two and a half weeks, and each day it feels more like home. As we walked the 4 km from the monastery to Limuru Town this morning to use the internet, our group was met by calls of “How are you? How are you? Mzungu! How are you?” (Mzungu, being the Kiswahili word for white person) I sometimes forget that in Africa we are an anomaly, that our skin makes us stand out, especially to the young children who line the rural streets as our group walks by.
We had the opportunity this past week to visit the New Life Home for orphans and abandoned children. There were 51 children there between the ages of 9 days and 3 years old. We had the chance to hold and feed the little ones and then spend time playing in the one year old nursery. It was a moving experience to say the least, both humbling and rewarding. The faces at New Life Home made so many of the issues we have discussed real; it gave names and identities to the AIDS pandemic sweeping Africa… Ezra, Clive, Erica, Joseph… they gave life to the effects of the poverty and hunger that have left these babies without family members to care for them. Many of the children here are HIV positive, and they will live with the consequences of that disease all of their lives. Yet these children are the lucky ones, they have a place to live and a place to play. They have beautiful, capable people caring for them, people who believe in the home and the futures of these babies. These are the children who have been given a chance.