Christmas in Kijabe Town

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

We continue to make monthly trips to Kijabe town to distribute food. However, Flow of Hope ministry had some extra funds at Christmas, allowing us to bring some special, once-a-year foods just for the holiday, as well as pairs of new shoes and a few toys.

Because John purchases all the food in bulk in Nairobi, it needs to be divided into separate smaller plastic bags. Dave and I helped John the day before to pack and seal the individual packets and gather them into baskets, one for each widow and her family. Each basket contained maize meal, rice, a head of cabbage, sugar, cooking fat, a little meat, wheat flour to make chapattis and a loaf of banana bread from Stacey.

In the morning we loaded the eight bulging baskets into 2 Land Rovers and rocked and jostled our way down the hill to town.Word had spread that we were coming and most of the ladies were seated on their brightly colored kangas under some large shade trees in an open field. We moved down the row, greeting each one of them with a firm handshake and a “Habari, mama.” A few children stood shyly by the fence.

A ways down the dirt road a teenage girl pushed her disabled friend in a rickety wheel chair, struggling toward us. Seeing that some of the widows were missing, John took one of the cars and brought back the ones who were too weak to walk so far.

When all of us were gathered, John spoke for a few minutes in Kikuyu. He introduced a pastor from RVA who shared a short message from Matthew 5:3 while John translated.

Then we distributed the baskets. One person representing each family came forward as John called their name. I was moved to tears several times. Such joy and appreciation on each face for even these small parcels of ordinary food. There were extra people that day so we passed out some extra cabbages and banana bread.

Then we emptied the bag of shoes into a pile on the grass and names were called from each family. Each person, adult and child, came and chose a pair of flip flops for themselves. Some of the boys were wearing the same pair of shoes they had gotten last year. Again, happy, smiling faces.

When every basket was given and every pair of shoes taken, the women stood and sang a song in Kikuyu, clapping and swaying, echoing the song leader verse by verse.

After visiting a bit more, we squeezed into the cars (with a few extra passengers needing a lift to the hospital) and navigated the climb back up the hill.

- Kathy