Most of the outreach of Worldcomp is to those who live in the slums or in the poor rural areas of Kenya where people live their lives with next to nothing or in total poverty. There are 17 slums around the city of Nairobi. Most of them are just a short walk from areas where wealthy people live. The reason for this is thousands of unemployed and poor people come to the city desperately looking for any kind of work and, due to the vast numbers looking, they are forced to work for $1 or $2 a day. With wages so low they can’t afford rent so they find some place nearby to camp or live cheap; The slums! It’s a paradox, but slums are literally the creation of the rich.
Slum dwellers continually live on the edge of disaster. All it takes is one bout of Typhoid or Malaria, one termination from work, one injury on the job, one case of being robbed and starvation is at their door. It boggles my mind that tens of thousands of people literally get stuck in this cycle of poverty their whole lives. They live and die in the slums! They marry and have children in the slums! It becomes their way of life and many stop looking for a way out.
Most of the children who we feed and care for have come to us because their moms and dads have finally died from the harsh realities of life. Also when you read the profiles of our kids you’ll see that close to half of them have had their fathers disappear one day because they just couldn’t make it work.
As we feed, educate and care for kids we are keenly away that we are giving them a way out of the cycle of poverty. Kids who are taught well come to understand that the way out is found in things like, wisdom, self-confidence, creativity, ingenuity, vocational skill, and it’s found in character issues like integrity, hard work, faithfulness, honesty, compassion, courage and responsibility. It’s what’s on the inside that counts so we have to make sure that our approach is more than externalities.
Most of all, we know that all of the above qualities come from God. A relationship with Him is “The essential” if we are to grow in these qualities and experience the fruit of the Spirit. What a contrast it is to come from a life of hopelessness to a life of faith in Christ. Someday, when you are able to take a trip with us, you’ll see that all of our projects are centered in Christ. It is evident by the fact that you ‘ll find joyful worship and daily prayer ever present in our work.
One of the great contrasts of life is to go into the darkest areas of the slums, where hopelessness and depression abound and come upon a group of two or three hundred kids who are joyfully praising God at the top of their lungs. What a witness to the community! “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overpower it.”
ON A PERSONAL NOTE – ANSWERED PRAYER
We are feeling the impact of your prayers. Several hours from our departure, Valerie’s blood pressure rose dangerously high and she felt very ill. For a moment we thought that things were going to go really bad. But all of a sudden, with no explanation it vanished and she felt great. I say “no explanation”, but we are keenly aware that the prayers of the saint are accomplishing much! Thank you dear friends for praying for us. It really makes a difference.