Care and Compassion

Today was the first day we got a peek at the Care and Compassion side of Christ's Hope International. Four of us on the team got to go out with C&C local volunteers to deliver food, Christ's love and hope to several victims of HIV AIDS in Kisumu. Tom and I went with Sheila to three women that are within walking distance (if you are Kenyan...) from the base. Just the walk was educational as we saw various types of housing, from beautiful painted stucco houses to stick and mud huts that predominate in the area.

Each of the women we visited are doing quite well since C&C started helping them. When C&C gets a new patient they are taken to a hospital for evaluation, blood tests and the first round of drugs. As they continue on the program they are re-evaluated monthly to determine how they are doing on the program. Between the drugs that are available and a healthy diet that is at least partly provided by C&C many get healthy enough to start working and providing for themselves again. The three women we visited locally are in that category. They are all very healthy now and are being cut back from the program as they start to bring in income from their small businesses. They all have children, some of which are also HIV positive, so they will continue to be monitored even if they are taken off the program. The individuals that have been taken off the program meet weekly in a support group led by a CHI volunteer so any issues can be dealt with quickly.

I was very impressed by the hospitality of the women, but I am finding that that seems to be a Kenyan trait. No matter what their house was like, from one who was in a cement block house with several rooms to one who was had a 12' x 8' mud hut they kept their places neat and ready to receive guests. All of them have money issues - from monthly school fees of $5 for one to being behind on the rent of $6 for another. To us these look like little things, but to them it is everything. Kenya provides education from 1st grade through high school, but not before that, so in order to prepare their children for primary grades Kenyans pride themselves on sending their children to Nursery school, which costs $4.50 to $5 per month, plus the children are not released at lunch, so they must purchase their lunch from the school or go hungry until dinner.

The needs individually look very small, but there are tens of thousands of people in Kisumu with the same problems. The HIV AIDS rate in this area of Kenya is very high with figures of 40% of the population in some parts to 60% of the population in the village we visited, so widows and orphans are in every direction you look. As each person tells us their story we understand better the strain that CHI feels in meeting the needs of only the few they can help.