I just wanted to share with you a little bit about a place very near and dear to my heart - Kenya.
Since my junior year of college I have had an unexplainable burden and love for the people of Africa. I spent the summer of 2013 living in Nandi Hills, Kenya which only served to further deepen and solidify my feelings. (here is a post I did about my time there)
While I was there I worked with 22 children in an orphan home just down the road from me. I didn't know it was possible to love 22 little souls that much, but by the end of my time there I looked at each one as if they were my very own. I longed for them to feel loved, and to know that although by the world's standards they were alone and abandoned, they have a heavenly Father who loves them an unfathomable amount. I want them to know that they have immeasurable worth.
I also got the privilege of loving, serving, and discipling groups of women who were serving time in 4 different prisons in the area. That time plus the time I spent with the women of my village, left me with a frightening truth - there is an overall lack of biblical knowledge in Africa, especially among the women. Immediately the Lord laid discipleship on my heart and I felt I had to return and help these new sisters of mine grow in truth and knowledge of the God who redeemed them - I felt a need to return and love the lost, abandoned children of Kenya.
I know that I am not going to change the world, or even Kenya but I do believe that we were each created to change the world for someone. To serve someone. To love someone the way Christ first loved us, to spread the joy of knowing Him. This is possible.
I will be returning to Nairobi, Kenya for 3 months this fall with an organization called Choose to Invest (hear more about that here)
There are 147 million orphaned children in the world, and 700 who are orphaned each day - 11 million children who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and 2.3 million who live with HIV - they add up to 164.8 million needy children.
2.6 million of those children are in Kenya.
There are women who are treated like objects - sold, beaten, and abandoned. One in every three women in 3rd world countries are victims of sexual, physical, emotional, and other abuse during their lifetime. That adds up to about 1 billion abused women around the world every single year. Many women in Africa get married as young as 12 and 13, and begin having children by age 14. In many cases their husbands come and go as they please, doing little to love their wives and provide for their families.
These women and children deserve life. They deserve to be loved.
There are so many ways you can make get involved and be apart of something bigger. Prayer is really good place to start.
Also, give these awesome organizations a look. Pretty stoked about things they are doing:
CHOOSE TO INVEST
BUILD THE VILLAGE
NAOMI'S VILLAGE
410 BRIDGE
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