As we mentioned last week, the Christmas Party sponsored by West Side took place in the slums of Nairobi last Tuesday. When we first had the idea of funding a Christmas party for Kenyan kids, I thought, “Cool…kids will be blessed with toys at Christmas!” Turns out, this Christmas party consisted of far more than small,wrapped gifts for children. This party rocked the slums!
Parents attended the party with their children and received family food baskets for Christmas dinner. Kids enjoyed food, soda and wrapped gifts. Face painting and balloons were major attractions. Towards the end of the party, the children presented Christmas songs and skits to their parents. To conclude the party, the local pastor, Oliver, preached a message and 18 parents made a decision to follow Christ. Woohoo!
Below is an email we received from Keith and Kathy, describing the party excitement.
The parents living in Mathare were not expecting a Christmas this year from the Hope Centre. Why? Because there were too many of them – thousands…really. We’ve had Christmas before, but it was a few hundred families that received the gifts, that was manageable. This last week we had thousands. It was unbelievable.
There was a dinner, with chicken, chapattis, rice, and sodas…oh yes, lots of sodas going around. There was face painting for the kids, very cool. We had a graduation day for the pre-unit class (kindergarten) of the Kosovo Centre; they were promoted to class one (first grade). They were cute in their hats and gowns. We had prizes too. Each class from each centre received awards for best attendance, cleanliness, most improved and many other awards being given. We also awarded parents. We graduated 10 mothers from a sewing class; they’ve been attending since May, ‘07. After finishing the class they will receive sewing machines and we’re going to give them orders to make thousands of uniforms for the kids…that’s good business! The whole thing continued, we awarded our home based care givers too. They work hard serving our folks with HIV/AIDS. Of course we had presentations throughout, from every centre.
After everything, the Christmas baskets we’re given. Over a thousand baskets were filled with flour, cooking oil, sugar, tea, candy and 2 liter Coke bottles! Much more was in the basket, things like; beans, rice, milk, salt, and lollipops! The parents were so surprised, they kept saying, “We’re too many, there’s no way we’re getting any ‘Christmas’”, but they did! All this food and fun was in a plastic washing basin and they carried them away that night. This Christmas, Mathare Valley, and I mean the whole valley will be eating and celebrating Christmas with chapattis and soda with neighbors and family! Praise God.
Can I tell you what happened that day? OK, I will. As we finished up eating the Christmas dinner, and after all the skits, poems and songs were done, Oliver (the pastor of the Kosovo church) stood up to address thousands of parents/guardians. He preached. He preached Christ. At the conclusion of the sermon, 18 people accepted Christ that day. We prayed with them and got their names, and today we are following up on them. We rejoiced, but I know there was even more rejoicing going on up in heaven. Thank God. This is a Christmas I’ll never forget, you don’t either. Pray for the kids, parents, guardians, grandmas, staff, and community this Christmas time, pray that they will make room for Him to come in.
Keith and Kathy
