pics and weekend

ok, as promised, here are some pictures:


this is my school, st. charles and some of my kids. some can afford uniforms, others cannot.


here is what i see on the walk to school. the slums of kibera.


walking two of the children home. most of the kids have never been out of the slum. this is the only world they know.


and in a stark contrast... here is where is spent my weekend:


chillin on the shores of the indian ocean. i had the most amazing time, just enjoying god's creation. some highlights:
swimming in my first ocean, staying in amazing little huts for $10 a night, getting sunburned beyond belief, feeding monkeys on the porch of my hut, eating breakfast in a 5 star hotel, getting to know other volunteers better, spending a good chunk of the holy day ramadhan in a very muslim area of mombasa.
sweet stuff, but here was the most touching part of my weekend. on sunday me and 3 other gals went into mombasa to go to some markets and hang out til 10:30 when our bus left. we found a cafe and parked our butts there for a good 5 hours (this was the muslim area. very neat experience to watch them celebrate) we sat at a table and after a string of sketchy characters sitting with us, a young boy came and sat down. he was quiet and polite as we chatted with him. we asked if he was hungry. nope. asked if he wanted a drink. nope. ice cream? nope. anything? nope. finally he said maybe a toy. two of the girls took him across the street and came back with a new outfit. we talked to him some more and found out he is 11, his parents were killed, he is now homeless, has no family, nowhere to go, no longer can go to school. it broke our hearts, we all started crying. he was very quiet and hard to communicate with so we decided to ask our waiter if he could translate for us. he came over and through our tears we were wondering what we could do for this little boy. naturally the first thing i do is pray. and what is stacia's first reaction? she gets on the phone with irene, our program volunteer to see if there's any way we can bring him to nairobi to an orphanage, while the other girls start talking to the waiter to see if he could do anything. after lots of talking, our waiter, francis agreed to take in the boy, james. we gave him some money and some to james. the girls got francis' phone number with promises to call to see how he was doing. and talked to james trying to reassure him that it was safe and that no, francis would not beat him.
it was so amazing to watch these women work to ensure this child was taken care of.
all i could think of was 'it is better to die standing than to live on your knees' as one of the girls has this tattood on her back. though she doesn't take it in any sort of christian context. the words hit me hard. here i am sitting back and praying for god to do something while these girls just do it (with no thoughts of god on their mind). how often do i do that? instead of automatically doing what is right, i waste time praying, waiting for god's words, wondering what god's call is. i'm not saying praying is a waste but sometimes its easier to fall back on and wait for someone else to do the serving. i was absolutely inspired and moved to tears by the outpouring of love by these women who were doing more of god's work than a lot of christians. it was so hard to leave the scared little boy sitting there, trusting that francis would really take care of him. so please keep him in your prayers? there are a million heartbreaking stories like that here. here is francis and james