We met a Kenyan man named Kevin.
He owns a shoe company. But, not just any type of shoe. They are beautiful, hand beaded sandals.
Kind of like the ones you see on the back wall at Anthropologie during summer.
Only, these sandals make a difference.
He employs HIV positive women, as well as teenagers, that live in the slums.
And he's a Christian.
Why is all of this information important?
Because we decided, as a team, that we wanted to visit the shop.
Little did I know, the shop was in the middle of the second largest slum in the world.
My naive, American self could vaguely remember what a slum looked like from the movie, 'Slum Dog Millionaire'.
Which, by the way, does not prepare you to see a slum in person.
When the overwhelming smell of feces, trash, and something unrecognizable hits your nose about a quarter of a mile away from the entrance.
Or when your eyes rest upon mountains and mountains of dirt, urine soaked trash, polluted streams of water, and piles of human feces surrounding the homes.
It doesn't prepare your feet as they struggle to keep balance through the long alley ways with the half foot of manageable ground to walk on or trying not to slip into the piles of rubbish covering every inch of free space.
Or the knowledge that families mix mud into their ugali to cover the taste and sometimes only eat the mud if food is scarce.
It doesn't harden your heart towards the pieces of sheet metal and cotton sheets that make up the lean-to's.
And it most definitely doesn't prepare you for the angry, hurt, bitter, broken, sometimes drunk, and even stoned eyes of the people that live there.
It doesn't harden your heart towards the children; running around barefoot through the trash and feces.
Seeing them with holes in their shirts, dirt covering them from head to toe; knowing that when they get home chances are that they won't have food or water.
Nothing prepares you for that.
The slum is so dangerous that there was only a small window of time we were permitted to enter.
It had to be in the noon-time of the day and we weren't suppose to stay there for over an hour.
And that's for white Americans.
What about for the locals?
Women and children are raped, beaten, and abused on the daily in that slum.
About a month ago, a man was BURNED alive as a punishment for stealing.
Babies are left for dead in the piles of trash in the streets and because no one else in the slum wants the responsibility for another mouth to feed, they are left to cry until they die of starvation.
The percentage of those living with HIV in the slum continues to grow.
It's a community of lawlessness.
It's a community of lost hope.
It's a community that smells of death and defeat.
It's a community that needs God.
I asked one of our hosts if any missionaries would dare to live in the slums to minister.
He was shocked that I would even consider such a thought.
But my question is, why not?
It's a community that needs hope.
It needs love.
It needs something.
Do I feel that God is calling me to step into that calling?
Perhaps, I don't think so but I never say never with God.
However, it does make me question so many other things that we turn a blind eye to.
As Americans, we have influence around the world; mainly due to the fact that God allowed us to be born in the land of the free.
There are horrible things happening in the world.
We could make a difference, we could share about God's grace and love; if we really wanted to.
We met a Kenyan man named Kevin.
Who loves God.
Who loves people.
And who is making a difference the very best way that he can.
By hiring HIV positive women to make shoes.
And in the process, share with them about a God who loves them.
What are you doing for God today?
<3tasha.
