Brian

Today I got to meet one of mine and my wife's Compassion Sponsored children.  His mane is Brian, he's seven years old and lives in the slums of Mathare Valley, the second largest slum in all of Africa.



I have to say, I was pretty nervous about meeting him.  Being so young, there's a really good chance that I'll just scare him more than anything else.  Turned out to be one of the most incredible experiences of my  life.  I will honestly never forget it.  He's funny, confident, and extremely bright.  He wasn't supposed to know any English yet but he understood me a lot and communicated very well.  I even taught him how to take a picture:

We visited his home with a couple LDP students (these are Compassion sponsored kids who have graduated from thr program and gone to college with the aid of an LDP sponsorship.)  Jennifer, who is now a lawyer, began to talk to Brian and his mother about what Compassion was about to do to their lives and their family.  There was something quite amazing to watch living proof of how Compassion works explain to the child I am know sponsering that his life will never be the same again.  It was an emotional moment for me, I am confident his children will not know poverty, the cycle ends, just as it did for Jennifer.



The Mathare Valley region was not an easy one to take.  Just the shear size of it is overwhelming.

Masai

I worked so hard last night to get pictures up from our trip to the Maasai Tribe yesterday, but I lost my internet connection and fell asleep.  This will be brief due to the fact it is now morning and I need to get ready for another busy day.

Visiting the Maasai Tribe was one of the days I was looking forward to the most on this trip.  They're what I thought all of Africa was like when I was a kid.  It's like National Geographic Africa.

We drove 2.5 hours out in the middle of nowhere, then turned on this dirt road and went another good ways out to the middle of nowhere (agian), and there it was, another Compassion Project.  The Maasai's where awesome, there seemed to be about 1000 children (it was probably more like 250) and they were all so excited to see us.  There was so much involved in the day, I can't begin to dive into it right now, maybe in a summury post at the end of the trip, but here are some of my favorite pictures from today:

Compassion International Kenya

I thought a lot about Bono today.  Being in Africa how could you not?  Bono is Africa.  I'm obviously kidding/making fun of Bono and all the people that act like he's the next Mother Theresa.  Have you noticed that in the past few years the number of people that say the phrase "I just, like, really, like, have a heart for the poor in, like, Africa," has drastically risen?  I don't know if its Bono doing this all himself, or if American Idol and GAP should get the credit, but I really don't understand the sole focus on relief as opposed to real change.  From the inside out change.



To me that's the biggest difference between Compassion and all these other causes.  Don't get me wrong, I am all for helping the poor and needy in ANY way shape or form.  There is a lot of mess out there and we need to do all we can to help.



Today, our first full day in Kenya, we visited a Compassion project in an area loaded with HIV/AIDS.  While there the high school students performed mini-dramas for us.  Apparently it is the kind of thing they do in the area to educate the locals on the the prevention of HIV/AIDS.  This is the same education these kids received when they entered the program as smaller children.  It was really neat to see these "kids" being the teachers for the area.  Crazy, Bono didn't even have to go.



I love so much that this is a conscience approach within the Compassion organization.  They desire to change every country from the inside out, not just send relief, although they do that in a mighty way.  We heard the Kenyan country director speak today on the need for honest leadership in the government, and he believes that one day a Compassion student will will get there. After meeting some students from their Leadership Development Program, so do I.