Thursday, June 9th

I'm just going to go ahead and say for the foreseeable future, you are stuck with me writing the blogs because of the Internet haha.

Today was another tough day but for completely different reasons. We started the day with our normal breakfast and devotion time. Our devotion time consisted of mainly a share time with all of team members sharing what we have been learning and how we have been feeling about the trip. The responses ran the gamut. God is doing some awesome things in peoples' lives and really growing some! It's awesome to be able to sit back and watch it happen.

Once breakfast was over, we loaded the bus and van and headed to FOCUS. Once we got there we played with the kids for a little bit and then we set out to deliver some gifts to the families of the kids. We split into 5 or 6 different groups and went to multiple homes each. Now, you must realize that when I say home, I mean mainly a 5ft x 5ft shack. Most of the guardians of the FOCUS kids are just trying to put food on the table and pay rent where they live. That is a huge struggle for them. The second house that my group went to was the mother of 2 FOCUS kids (which she had two others of her own) and she also took care of 5 other children of her brother and sisters. So, all in all, she had 9 kids living in the space of a bedroom in the US. And in that bedroom was also the kitchen and the dining room.

When I say they are struggling to make rent and get food, most of us don't realize what that is like. We work jobs and even if we are unemployed, we still have a government that assists us for a while with money. Here, that is not the case by far. One of the groups found out that the amount of money this family needed for rent was 400ksh or 400 Kenyan Schillings. The exchange rate right now is about 85ksh to $1. That's about $4.71 for rent!! And they are struggling to earn that!! Do you see how difficult it is to see this and hear it as Americans?! $4.71 is about how much it is to buy a large coffee drink at Coffee Crossing! So for that ONE drink, you could pay a families rent for an entire month! What a perspective shift!

We had many of our team members just crumble when they heard this because we just don't realize how good off we have it in America. We are not only free to do whatever we want (within reason), but we are also not worried about the roof over our head or the food that we will eat. Before my wife and I came on this trip, we went to Olive Garden to eat dinner as our last American meal. The meal was about $35 total after tip. With that money, we could have paid a families rent for almost 7 months!

But there was something else that we learned from doing these home visits that was more indicting. As we went to their homes, we saw their joy for what they did have and their joy for a God who is protecting them. They didn't have a happiness that could be lost with their situation. They possessed a true joy in the Lord. I think in the US we get too caught up in being happy. There is a HUGE difference in being happy and being filled with joy. Joy comes from a relationship with Christ and happiness comes from a feeling. If we have no joy, I would ask where our relationship is. To see their joy reminded me of the necessity to find it within my Creator and not my circumstances. It is so pure here and it really gets you back to where you need to be when it comes to this relationship. They have no idea about how much they encourage Americans in our faith!

So, as you are sitting in your chair reading this blog and drinking your coffee or on your lunch break at work or at your computer at home after dinner, I want to ask where your joy comes from? Does it come from the fact that you have a nice house, a nice car, a huge TV on the wall? Or does it come from the fact that you have a real relationship with Christ that is based on His sacrifice for us? If you do not have that relationship, I really encourage you to think about it and pray about it! If you have never tasted true joy, then now is the time! There is none better!

After visiting the homes, we came back to FOCUS and started doing some repair work at the building. Then we loaded up and headed back shortly after that! It was an awesome day to be reminded of what, in this life, really matters- having a relationship with God the Father!!