Garba Tulla main street

Its hot today when we pull into the Garba Tulla region. The security was tight here on this road that leads to Somalia, here where guns were being smuggled. Here where the rain didn’t fall for three years. Here where life has been hard. The people here are pastoralists, they herd their flocks over 40 km sometimes to find water and over these years of no rain more than half the cattle has died.

Imagine you are a muslim, a single mother in the midst of this.

When the water stops flowing.

When the rain stops falling.

What would you do with three starving daughters?

Sponsored child Khartoom and her mother

The whole of your life you have been told that Christians have horns and tails, but the people who come to your door that call themselves World Vision don’t seem to have horns (though they could be hiding their tails). You are not the first of your community to be approached, and you know that these people will make no demands of you, they put no conditions on the help they are offering. It isn’t long before you accept the assistance.

They come to visit your child once every 90 days. They are kind and gentle and when food is short they bring some, when medical attention is needed they help figure out a plan. When your daughter misses school they notice and help you figure out how to overcome whatever barrier there is.

The trek to the fish farm

And it isn’t just that. They tell you of other opportunities for your future. They mention a women’s collective that is forming. Together you sit with this group of strong and brave women and you dream of a future together. World Vision comes to some of these meetings and they mention the idea of a Tilapia farm. The fisheries department of government comes too and they agree to train you and oversee your operation while World Vision will support the build and supplies.

So much of the livestock have died these last years and there is a need to diversify assets, to find other food to eat.

Suddenly you find, that your children are well fed, that there is something in you that feels like hope and things start to change.

Child sponsorship might not change the whole world. But to you? It feels like it has.

Won’t you consider being a world changer?

Learn about the communities we are visiting here. We will visit Garba Tulla (a new project just a year into development) as well as Masharu (a village that is 12 years into its World Vision development cycle).

You can follow our Flickr photo stream here.

Or sponsor a child from Garba Tulla here!

We will do our best to update this blog frequently as well! See all World Vision related posts here.

It was in the airport that it really got to me.

The people next to me in their matching mission trip t-shirts. Those that would come to this land cloaked with a pity that serves to only disenfranchise people further. Those that would come with simple solutions for the worlds most complex problems, those exactly like me.

Suddenly and without warning my whole body cringed. I wondered,

“What do you think you are doing here?”

Mercifully the paleness of my skin illuminated the plank in my eye.

So Kenya? I just wanted to tell you something. I know there is nothing about you that needs rescuing by a doofus like me. I am here hoping that the brokenness in you and the brokenness in me can come together to do something that looks like kingdom work. That Jesus can weave us into something beautiful. I’m dreaming that my time with you might just loosen the white knuckle grip that I hold to the material. Perhaps in that I will someday be able to climb through that needle hole.

I’m imagining my conversation with Emily someday when she is 14 and full of teenage self-righteousness, questioning my integrity in the face of famines past I will be able to say I stood beside you.

But today? I am just here to listen to what you have to teach me.

And just a note? We started reading “When Helping Hurts” by Corbett and Fikkert. It is an extraordinary read. Not just for the traveling in the majority world but for EVERYONE. SO good.

Learn about the communities we are visiting here. We will visit Garba Tulla (a new project just a year into development) as well as Masharu (a village that is 12 years into its World Vision development cycle).

You can follow our Flickr photo stream here.

Or sponsor a child from Garba Tulla here!

We will do our best to update this blog frequently as well! See all World Vision related posts here.