the widow's mite

This morning we again waded through open sewage in the streets to get from the edge of the slum into the orphan center. When we finally got to Risa’s Child Home in Kibera, the world’s largest slum, it was about 10 am. We wandered through the classrooms, picked up and comforted children, stirred beans that were boiling for 3 hours to be mixed with rice and a little fatback and spice, for the children’s only meal that day. Not overly balanced diet but it would fill up gnawing stomaches.

We had a little break time, devotional in nature, with some tea in Risa’s office. I asked each of the four staff about themselves. None of them are licensed teachers, but they all know more than the children. Rarely are they paid; mostly this is just giving their time. One of them in particular impressed me. I asked her, Elizabeth, in the picture, what in the world motivated her to get up each day to come here and work. She smiled about a mile wide and said, “I just looooove these children! God puts that love in me for them and I can just feel it coming out of me when I am with them.”

Later, as it turns out, after some probing, she has been married over 20 years, her husband and she have 4 children of their own and they take home another three each night who have no where else to go. He makes 1000 shillings a week doing construction jobs (about $15). They tithe that. Then they give an offering on top of that. Then they buy groceries. Tea in the mornings if they can afford it (with a teaspoon of sugar if they have extra money that week); most often a glass of water. Lunch consists of whatever at noon that the orphan care center provides; sometimes that is nothing. Then a little cooked flour paste at night, called flaa, with some beans and water, perhaps a little rice. This woman and her husband, and three children, plus four guardian children plus another teacher from the school, Anne, all sleep in one small room on empty sacks that used to contain sand or concrete. The next day they all get up and do it again.