Care and Compassion

Today Christ’s Hope Kenya did something new.

A big part of the ministry here in Kenya is what Christ’s Hope calls Care and Compassion. I can’t even begin to describe how inspiring it is to witness the tireless effort put forth from the Christ’s Hope International team and the national volunteers to deliver help to those infected with HIV/AIDS.

The ministry involves everything from visiting and nursing sick people in their homes, hospitals and even on occasion offering up a spare bed at the ministry office for even months at a time when someone might die otherwise.

Today for the first time the mission gathered together many of the patients whom they serve through the Care and Compassion ministry. All of the individuals are infected and many have had miraculous recoveries from near-death conditions thanks to the persistent loving intervention from Christ’s Hope.

I was literally overwhelmed upon hearing story after story of these individuals who had been abandoned by their families, ostricized by the community and forgotten by the system.

Each story was so similar… after finally being diagnosed, the patients get bumped in and out of the hospitals and are eventually left alone by families who do not want to be responsible for hospital bills that they can never pay.

So many describe a state of chronic depression and abandon… with any hope of real life left long in the dust….

and it is just then when Christ’s Hope seems to find them.

So many people I met today are strong and living active lives—some are even back to work—all of whom were literally moments from death even a year or two ago.

In the eyes of each of the children I’ve met this week is a spark that makes my heart skip a beat, but I noticed yesterday that it seems to be missing from the adults you pass along the road. I can only imagine that a lifetime of struggle has snuffed it from theirs.

But seeing today how that magical ocular spark has returned to those least likely gives me hope that within the rest still lives that inner child who knows not yet the hardships they’ll have to endure and the loss they’ll face and the death they’ll live.

Praise God for delivering spark through the bleeding hearts of my friends at Christ’s Hope Kenya.