Today we visited the Namuncha Child Development Center. It was an experience I’ll never forget. This particular CDC is located two hours outside of Nairobi in the Maasai community, and the views getting there are incredible.
The Maasai people are historically a nomadic tribe famous for being mighty warriors and cattle-rustlers. I’ll always remember them for how they greeted us. After driving for an hour on a paved highway going down a mountain, we entered the Great Rift Valley and proceeded on a dirt road for another hour. Along the way kids would run out of huts and fields to come wave at these white people. Keep in mind, many of these kids have never seen a white person. Upon pulling up to the project 300 kids ran to greet us with song. Once everyone was out of the vehicles the kids formed two lines for us to walk between as they sang and walked us in. I may have shed a tear or two thinking about how blessed I was to get to experience this.
After we were welcomed the leaders introduced themselves and the kids performed some songs for us. We were then shown around the project. The incredible thing about this project is that it all began with a church that met under a tree 20 years ago. Now, with a lot of faith in God and the help of Compassion they have a church building, a school, church offices, a kitchen, etc. What’s even more incredible is this one church has went on to plant ten other churches in the community.
We got to sit in for a few minutes on class today where the kids were learning the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead. The teacher was great, and we later found out that he actually attended the school that the church started many years ago.
We then went to visit one of the homes of a child who is part of the program. This family like most others live in a hut made of sticks, mud, and cow poop. Funny story, as part of our day we got to help the family with daily chores, one of the groups with us got to mix together a combination of poop, water, and dirt to help rebuild a house. My group got to shovel goat poop out of a pen that the family could later sell as manure. Better to be shoveling it than mixing it with your bare hands I always say.
We then returned back to the project for lunch, which included potatoes, rice, stew, and a mystery meat. Now worries, I’ve been popping Pepto like Macklemore has been popping tags. After lunch we got to play soccer with a kids for a few minutes before we had to load up to go back to the hotel.
As we got ready to leave, the leaders of the project gathered us together and presented each one of us with a Shuka, necklaces, and bracelets to thank us for coming and proclaim us as honorary members of the Maasai tribe.
Hey, if you just stumbled upon this post, I want you to know I’m in Kenya with Compassion International for a week. I wanted to document my experience to share with my family and friends and anyone else who may be interested. I will be back sharing my thoughts on leadership, church growth, and more next week. If you want to follow along with the blog, make sure to subscribe to get email updates delivered to your inbox each week.
