I had another great day at Mercy Care Centre! I did some more filming and have got some good footage now for the next short film.
Yesterday I visited Mercy's home in the slum and saw Precious, who is her beautiful one year old daughter. She is so so cute! Mercy is the most amazing girl ever, she's now in Form 1 (15 years old) and has such a drive to live life the best she can and to strive toward a better future.
It's always hard walking into the slum because it's so, so different to anything I'm familiar with. Nairobi is a very depressing city, but at the same time there's hope. People in the slum live such awfully difficult lives; you drive past gangs of guys lying on the ground in the most ragged dirt clothes sniffing glue as a drug. You hear about all the car hii-jacks; our driver has been hii-jacked 5 times since he started driving, and all with guns pointed to his head. Some of these kids that have guns are only 14 years old.
The poverty stretches on for miles; it's seriously chaos and so complicated. There are so many street kids who have bad cases of scabies and are neglected in the day. They have no parent modelling; they just have to fend for themselves all day and resolve conflicts on their own, even though some of them are only 2-4 years old.
But God is doing something amazing in such a depressing place. Mercy Care is like an oasis in the midst of all this. It is bringing out the amazing potential these kids have and it is inspiring them to live different lives than the norm in their community. Instead of doing drugs on the street, the guys at Mercy Care are working hard in secondary school and are aiming high so they can live a better life. Instead of falling into prostitution or early marriage, the girls at Mercy Care are choosing to put their education first and to resist pressure from their friends and family to drop out.
The students are absolutly beautiful and have really developed good morals and a kindness toward others. There is a huge difference between their behaviour and the behaviour of the kids on the street.
I am looking forward to going on the Massai Mara safari weekend trip tomorrow and I'm realizing it's waay past my bedtime now so I'll finish here :)
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Anni,
ReplyDeleteI loved the idea that MCC is an Oasis. It is really hard to thing that in Mathare Valley there would ever be anything like an oasis, but you are right that MCC would be it. Our kids at MCC are give such a different chance in life because of MCC. They know this and are so grateful! I am glad you got to see Precious. I am sure she has grown.
Bethany