valentines day weekend

I used to hate valentines day. Somewhere between the mass produced greeting cards, saturated fat, and pink, I find myself really questioning the point of this holiday. But I had a really good valentines day this year. I don’t think it had anything to do with being halfway around the world, or the lifepoint guys buying me a rose. I think it had everything to do with a group of kids I got to visit.

I went to Feed the Children’s Abandoned Babies Center (ABC) in the Daghoretti area of Nairobi. The first thing we did was meet with Sanje (not spelled right, but that’s how it is said) who is the director of the center. She explained how the whole center works, and how much it costs to fund the center.

For the first 6 months that the kids are there, extensive research is done to see if they can find the family, and if the family is capable of taking care of the kid. They do everything they can to get the kid to a family. But that is not always possible, hence the center. Many of the kids are disabled, so it is understandable that the parents don’t have the means to take care of them.

We walked into the first cottage, where all the babies who don’t walk yet stay. Talk about heart breaking. They are all so cute, have done nothing wrong, and yet mommy and daddy aren’t around. We were told not to pick any of the babies up for two reasons: we wouldn’t be able to put them down, and it would be abandonment all over again for the kids. I sat down and a few babies held onto my finger… then Sanje told us it was time to go. I almost refused to leave. That was the hardest part of the entire thing.

We went through the rest of the center, stopping to see a performance by some of the older kids. A lot of the kids stay at the center during the week, but go home on the weekends. These kids stayed the whole weekend just to perform for us. They have been to Italy to raise funds for a new cottage. They want to go to America to see Obama. I hope they do, they are incredible, and there message is powerful.

Shadrach, a kid who can’t walk, stands up and hobbles around while he narrates a story. (he has a POWERFUL voice) The moral of their presentation comes from an old African saying: it takes a village to raise a child. So the presentation talks about the global community. And if that global community is sitting around watching TV, who is raising the children? I can tell you the message, but nothing is as powerful as 30 kids, some disabled, singing about where life has left them.

Feed the children also has a food distribution center on that compound, so we visited the warehouse where they load the trucks. Three of the kids were hanging out with us as the workers educated us on the process. One girl, named Fortune, is in desperate need of a kidney at age 8. One kidney is completely shut down, and the other is barely working. Transplant is not available for her in Kenya, but she could go to Europe or somewhere where she could get the necessary surgery if someone would fund it. Please pray for her. It really broke my heart to see such a beautiful young girl who needs that help.

We headed back downtown to check out a market before going to the hotel to get ready for dinner. That market was quite an experience… but that is a story for another time. We went out for a very good Italian Valentines day dinner. I spent the night with Katie B, and we went on Safari at Lake Nakuru on Sunday. Saw lots of Aminals… water buffalo, zebras, gazelles, impalas, warthogs, pelicans, flamingos, hyenas, baboons, rhinos, a lion, a couple giraffes, and a bunch others. Then we went to Lake Navasha for a short boat ride to see hippos. Kind of scary… but at least our boat had a motor!! Our guide informed us that the hippos usually go after fisherman who are in boats that don’t have motors, cause they can’t get away as fast.

Quite the weekend!!