Miracles in the Mud - Janine Maxwell

This is an email I received from Janine Maxwell, vice-president of Heart for Africa.

The rain started early Monday morning so the mud on the ground was thick and sticky and clung to our sneakers as we stepped off the bus to go and collect the children. They stood in the rain with all of their worldly belongings carefully collected in black plastic garbage bags with their names written on a torn strip of masking tape with a black Sharpie marker.

The pit latrine that all 76 children use was leaking again in to the playground area, as it always did during a rain. They didn’t seem to notice the stench, but my friend Susan (Page) and I could not have missed it.

Today was the day. The day the children had been waiting for their whole lives – imagine, waiting for something your whole life, and then it is about to happen.

Many of us have that expectation, whether it’s getting married one day, or having a baby or graduating from University. But the children at the Merciful Redeemer Children’s home (orphanage) on the edge of the Mutumba (KiSwahili for “second hand”) in Nairobi, Kenya had waited for their whole lives to move out of the hell that they lived in called “home”. The home where all 76 of them slept in two rooms, four children to a bunk bed, were hopeful to get a meal of beans and corn every day and often found themselves walking for miles to find water, only to come back empty handed. And these children were the “lucky ones”, rescued from the streets, the slums and certain torture, rape and death.

Today was the day. The orphans who lived at the Merciful Redeemer knew that their dream had come. Today they would move to the promised-land. These little boys and girls had been told by “Mama-John” that today they would move to a new home where the pit latrine was not linked to their play ground, where they could grow food and have fresh vegetables one day, where they were not in danger of planes falling from the Wilson Airstrip in to their home in a burst of flames. She told them that they would never again be kept awake all night while their slum neighbors sold illicit brew (often made from fermented wheat, gasoline, a hallucinogenic drug grown locally and sometimes even an old car battery … for flavor), while prostitutes worked the muddy alleys and where children (their friends) screamed out in the night as they were beaten, or raped or killed.

Today was the day. And I was there to bear witness to it.

The buses would not pull out until noon, but at 10:00 AM there were 54 children securely sitting in the bus with all of their worldly belongings and they were ready to go. They didn’t mind waiting and would have been happy to wait all day and all night if needed. They had no idea what their new home would look like, but they were certain that it would be better than the home they were leaving. They were happy, hopefully and thankful. Their dog was not as excited and refused to get on the bus. After one of the boys went and found a piece of old wire on the ground, he tied it roughly around the dogs neck and tried to pull the dog up on to the bus. The dog was chocking and snapped it’s teeth at the boy. After much coaxing and prodding by all of the children who had come to love the dog, it ran back towards the old home and sat in the mud, and was unmoved. That was the only sadness I saw that day. The rest was pure joy.

Today was the day and the two buses filled with little Kenyan children waved goodbye to their slum friends, their slum life and their home for six years. With the waves came the miraculous sound of children’s voices – they were singing! And without asking for a translation, their house-mom, Veronica, leaned forward in the bus and told me that the children were singing praise songs to God and were thanking Him for his provision, for giving them everything they needed and for loving them.

Today was a day that I was angry at God, again. I found myself at the front of the bus looking up at the sky and saying, “Did you hear that God?? They are THANKING you for providing for them. Thanking you for allowing them to live in a small room with 36 other children who have no parents. Thanking you for a playground covered in human feces. Thanking you for that small bowl of beans and corn cooked over an open pot everyday that burned on the bottom, but never quite cooked on the top. They are thanking you for being their heavenly Father! Do you hear this?? Do you really think you deserve thanks for this??? Where were you? How could you sit up on your throne and watch these and millions of other children suffer so badly and die?”

Today was a day that I cried all the way from Mutumba slum to Katinga off of the road to Arusha, Tanzania where the children saw their new home, and moved in permanently. As their joy and excitement continued to rise in the songs of praise, I got more and more upset. How could there be this much pure joy simply because they were going to sleep in a bedroom that didn’t leak in the rain. And then there was the new bed they were getting – one per child. They were joyful because they would not have to sleep with someone else who wets the bed every night. And even if you did wet the bed yourself, there was a brand new plastic mattress cover on it so you only had to wash the sheets and the whole mattress didn’t rot under you and grow black mold. How could they be that excited about living in a 10 acre property fenced where no one could come and hurt them again. Were fresh vegetables and grass to play on really that big of a deal?

When we arrived at the entrance of the new land we covered the windows with black plastic so that the children could not see their new home. They had been promised a girls dorm, a boys dorm, a kitchen and a school. They didn’t know what to expect, after all, they technically had all of those things in the slum. The children stood behind the bus and given the “Extreme Home Makeover – Kenya Edition” theme that we sported, they all stood there and yelled in their loudest voices, “MOVE THAT BUS!”.

Today was the day that the bus pulled ahead and the children didn’t move. They stood still and looked around. Where was their new home? Where were the dorms and kitchen and school? All they saw were huge stone buildings with bright blue roofs. They saw a one-acre garden with fruit trees and tomatoes. They saw a water tank that seemed large enough to provide enough water for a city. But where was their home? They didn’t know.

Ian Maxwell, President of Heart for Africa, called them to join him on a tour and when they reached the first building he announced that it was the boys dorm. The children cheered, but with disbelief on their faces. Next we all walked to the new kitchen which was almost as big as their old playground. They were brought in side to see where the food store was. The team from Heart for Africa had all pitched in and gave money so that there was food in that new kitchen. For only $645 we had been able to purchase more than two tons of food (yes, more than 2,000 lbs of food) that would last several months. The children peaked their faces around the corner in to the new room and physically jumped back with a gasp when they saw the food: mangoes, rice, corn, beans, lentils, beets, carrots, onions, milk, tea, oranges, bread, flour, sugar. They had never so much food, ever. They screamed and ran in the room and danced and sang with all their hearts and souls.

The tour continued to show the girls dorm, the school (generously built by the “Builders class” at Roswell United Methodist Church), the bore hole, water tank, garden and play area. It ended with the presentation to each child of their own bed, new mattress, mattress cover, sheets, blankets, pyjamas, windup flashlight, toothbrush, toothpaste, bible, socks, underwear and the love of the Heart for Africa team members who traveled to Kenya with all of these miraculous gifts. Gifts that the children could never have asked for or imagined.

Today was a day of miracles. Today I saw the miracle of hope. Only four months ago this ten-acre plot of land was bare and today it is a place of miracles, a home for 100 children and the future of a nation.

Today I stand in awe again at God’s provision, for giving us everything we need and for loving each of us, even when we are not thankful.

Today there was redemption, for us all. Janine Maxwell