Lauren here again--
Quick 5 update
1. Team Belwop came last month and completely fixed up the house. It now has a fresh coat of paint in every room... bright yellows and blues, fixed the holes in the roof and the broken windows and left the home more beautiful than ever! We also got a donor to purchase a carpet, a stove, oven and freezer! The media team also got all the footage to make a documentary for the new year :)
It was an awesome time and I wish they could have stayed longer.
2. We also were visited by Russ and Kevin from Extreme Response who got to take a look at the home that we're hoping to purchase. It's a large property, IN TOWN, with many rooms for more kids and room for expansion. If we can get a "bridge loan" donation, Lord willing, we will raise the rest of the $150K and hope to purchase the home, move in next year and begin fixing it up. New kitchen, dining hall, and common room are what teams will be working on for starters. It's a cool place, finished, and the team plans to do all we can to try and get the dough to make the dream come alive with the help of churches around the US :)
3. Last week my friend Pelagie came down from Nairobi and took the kids swimming at a swanky hotel called Green Hills as a sort of early Christmas present. It was an awesome time and all the kids got to swim and have poolside snacks, and play on the play ground and run around on the soft grass. It was a beautiful time.
4. We got a new baby! Her name is Paris and she's almost 3. ADORABLE. Super princess-like, she loves wearing pink and refuses to get dirty. She talks nonstop and will be your best friend if you bring her a fruit lol.
5. This week we raised the rest of the money (over $5,000!) to start the "shamba" or Belwop Farm project! A biointensive farm that will bring supplementary nutrition to the kids diet through fresh veggies, as well as some extra income, we hope began this week. G-BIACK, a Grow Biointensive school is coming to help us plan it all out on Friday, and once we get the funds on Christmas day from the Indiegogo site, our hired workers (from Veronica's extended family) will begin planting! Her parents gave us the land for free, PS, which was awesome.
I have less than one month left and it feels so weird, but I've been so blessed and seen God bring a lot of new friends alongside the journey of building Hope a home. People I never would have expected, but am so grateful for. Below is a longer note for a more reflective look at life here:
NOVEMBER WALK
Walking down the hill to Veronica’s house from Belwop, it’s a muddy road on this rainy, November day. My once-white TOMS shoes are completely red, muddy, holey, and soaked through. Last night we had a fun night of praise and worship with only a tight leather drum to keep the beat, Mukimo for dinner (potatoes, greens, beans and corn masked together), watched Mexican soap operas (Maria de Semparada and Maximiliano got together on “Triumfo del Amor”… finally), joking, laughing, and lots of hair braiding.
I reflect on the night before, and how much I'm going to miss these moments. We stood and held hands in a circle and prayed for the meal. The baby Paris holds hands and looks around wondering what's going on. Jane, the oldest girl back from school for winter break thanks God for the many blessings she and her brothers and sisters have received. She thanks God for life, for courage, His Son, Mum, for me, and for all the people in the US who have supported them and who live far away...
“God, we know will never be able to repay them,” she says, “but we know you can. Father God I pray for strength and blessings on their lives. That you will touch them and give them comfort in times of sadness, and joy when they need it, let them know you love them. Bless the work of their hands and allow them to sleep well tonight.”
I look up from my walk, and realize for the first time ever, I am alone on this long rollercoaster road. No cars. No people. The only sound, in the distance I hear is African music from somewhere in the forest. For a moment, the world is perfectly at peace. I look down at the river valley below me and see rain falling the rusted tin roofs and the sky is that bright hazy overcast, with banana trees and about fifteen other species of trees all around. Light teal lichen grabs onto the bark, contrasted against the dark green moss on the tall skinny trees with plush canopies that only the tallest “long-neck” dinosaur could reach. The scary, fat black raven with a white stripe down the front croaks nearby, like a deep-voiced frog doing an impression of Darth Vader’s breathing. The yellow-bellied birds sing their sweet beautiful songs in reply.
In Veronica’s small hometown of Nyeri, Kenya, life is colorful; where the red dirt roads grow out of the earth naturally and traffic has “guidelines” instead of laws and the mountain only shows itself as it pleases, with bananas and mangos for sale and motorcyclist “cabby” toting rice bags, where Kenyan tea is made with whole milk that makes you remember how good food tastes and is meant to nourish you when you're hungry instead of bored, God is everywhere. And every time you turn around there is a new reminder-- in a pair of big brown eyes, and in the clouds that I swear are cathedrals higher than any I've ever seen, bursting through the ceiling cap of the sky, extending miles and kilometers heavenward towards their painter.
Here, Veronica returned home several years ago after marrying a godly man, raising six children of her own and working at a lucrative business in the big city, the Capitol Nairobi. It was in this visit that her life was ruined for good. A eucatastrophe- as Tolkein coined the phrase-- a “good catastrophe”- one where she met a child with no one to call father or mother and no place to call home- her heart was broken and her life, as she knew it, and by all outward appearances, was over. She and her husband had been given a calling-- a vocation. By Jesus, no less. One of those we've all read about-- on the road to Damascus or in the desert of Hebron or in a king’s court -- when the Holy Spirit busts in and said to sell everything, and start something radical and new. Jesus said forsake your business the comfortable lifestyle you’ve worked your whole life to achieve. Give up everything and follow me. Tend my sheep. Feed my lambs. The neglected abused and orphaned- the least of these- they are my precious ones, take care of them, for they now belong to you, they are now in your care.
So Veronica and her husband did that. They told their friends the vision God had given them, and their friends rejoiced. They promising to join and help in any way they could to run the home. To protect women and children and they called the place Belwop- BEtter Living for WOmen Project- and the house was born. Children came and filed into the tiny 3 bedroom house with a bed to sleep on and food in their tummies. They had a "mum" to tell them to wash up! And do your homework! Instead of begging for bread, they studied at night. But soon darkness came, Veronica's husband grew very ill and passed away, suddenly, just a few months after Belwop first opened its doors. And the friends fell away. Veronica was alone in her calling. How could God let this happen? Especially to a woman so faithful? I ask this question out of my unbelief, but Veronica says to me: “Shiko (she calls me that, my kikuyu name meaning little girl) do you know the last thing my husband said to me on his death bed?”
“What?” I ask, still indignant on her behalf.
“He said, ‘God will give you a nation. A kingdom.’ And you know what?”
“What?” I say again, like a child, only a little less angry.
She grabs my hand.
“He has. Yes. God is good...” and with a firm grip and her sad, wise eyes looks into my soul and whispers: “God will do it.”
The home should never have started. The friends fell away like Job’s and no one could afford to pay rent. Somehow... A daily miracle began to happen. Though there was no money, no oil in the lamp, no twenty shillings for electricity, no dollar for beans, no income for rent, no well for water. God heard Veronica's prayer, every day, and somehow, someone would show up at the door last minute with a bag of rice and beans, or Kate's father would front the water bill, or a young American girl named Hartley would show up to the soccer field and play with the kids, only to return to the states and start an entire organization to support these kids. The church down the lane brought new and used clothes and embraced the children as their own.
My dear friend Kate would read emails to me back in 2007 and my friends and I would listen to these miracles with fascination, always was something new but always went the same way. There was an impossible need, the eleventh hour would arrive, and then God showed up in different clothes every time.
The home was still accruing debt and V asked for us to pray for her. She was going to host a banquet for dignitaries and bank owners in Nyeri and Nairobi in hopes of paying the debt and building a new home that belonged to her and the children fully. Kate got an idea to combine our love for music, coffee and Kenya in an event called True Religion where we could raise money for this woman. I had read a verse that week in James- that book in the Bible that tells us that faith without works is dead… I wanted to know what he thought religion should be, because in my generation religion is a bad word that means fundamentalist rituals that make judgmental people hate other people.
But James gives us crazy specific definition for what religion should be. REAL RELIGION. Not singing impassioned promises or picketing at abortion clinics or a five point series on abstaining from sex or condemning homosexuality on national TV… James says that religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
To take care of widows and orphans in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
To take Care
Of widows
And orphans
In their distress
Waking up in my small bed at Belwop, I suddenly realized I have less than a month left. I have been beyond blessed to have lived here for almost 5 months, and have learned so much. I’m torn between two ridiculously strong emotions-- one an intense love and attachment to this place that causes a sadness at the prospect of leaving, and the other, a great anticipation, joy and excitement at returning home to the US-- to my friends, family and familiarity. With both of these emotions, comes a feeling of extreme gratefulness. And I just wanted to thank everyone who supported and encouraged me on this journey. So THANK YOU. You have been a big part of restoring my faith in the Church as a body, on a very personal level, and whether you're believer or not, to all my friends I want to thank you for supporting Belwop, whether through prayer or giving of their gifts of time, money, resources, words of encouragement and love to these kids and Veronica from oceans away. Words cannot describe the impact you have had here, and will hopefully continue to have. The van is running, the garden is growing, the kids are healthy, clothed, educated, well-rested and HAPPY! I have been so blessed by my experiences and can’t wait to return to hear and share stories with all the people I love back at home (or maybe to get some of you out here with me next year to experience it for yourselves ;) Take care of yourselves, and know a little piece of you is here in Kenya.
All my love, Nakupenda sana,
Lauren
