Marcia’s Story
MathareValley Child Development Center, Nairobi, Kenya
—by Ossie Mills, EVP, Inspiration Ministries
It’s one thing to hear about hungry children; it’s another to look them in the eyes. Recently I traveled to Kenya to visit our humanitarian outreaches in two of the world’s most impoverished communities.
I met Marcia amid the unspeakable filth and squalor of Nairobi’s Mathare Valley—a three-square-mile area that’s home to 600,000 people who live amid open sewage and have no running water, electricity, or police protection.
Marcia had a contagious smile, and that smile impacted me tremendously. She had been raped at age five by a glue-sniffing young thug who was racked with HIV, yet her life radiated the joy of the Lord.
Surrounded by the security of 20-foot-high barbed wire walls, I found Marcia waiting patiently in line with the other 699 children being fed at the Mathare Valley Child Development Center, an outreach of Inspiration Ministries. As she approached me to receive her meal, Marcia’s face lit up with a broad grin, as if seeing a friend.
I gave her the meal and said, “Be blessed in Jesus’ name!” Smiling shyly, Marcia giggled and ran off with her plate of food. Despite the desperate circumstances all around her, Marcia had the joy of the Lord and seemed without a care in the world.
Inspiration Partner, YOU are responsible for the joy I saw in Marcia’s eyes! God bless you!
Rose’s Story
Bethel Children’s Home, Nairobi, Kenya
—by Ossie Mills, EVP, Inspiration Ministries
My next stop was the Bethel Children’s Home, a facility Inspiration Ministries helped build to care for orphaned and abandoned children. There we handed out shoes to children who had never had shoes…at least not new shoes. The shoes they did have were tattered, torn, too small, too large, without soles, or with the toes exposed.
A little girl named Rose tugged so hard on my pants leg that I was forced to kneel in front of her in the red clay, the dusty framework of Africa. She wore a dirty white dress with red roses on it.
With bright eyes, Rose held the box with her new shoes. To me, the shoes seemed to be nothing special, but to her, it was as if Christmas had come and would last forever.
I knelt with Rose, and she looked into my eyes as if peering into my soul. In that instant, she raised her tiny hand and touched my face, saying, “Thank you, sir!”
My friend, you are being the heart and hands of Jesus to these 42 precious little ones at the Bethel Children’s Home and the 700 children at the Mathare Valley Child Development Center.
Words cannot possibly express what it was like to represent you in blessing hundreds of children like Marcia and Rose. Together, we obeyed our Lord’s command to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give out cups of water in Jesus’ name (Matthew 25:34-40).