When I traveled on a Vision Trip to Kenya a few weeks ago, I took my 2015 IF:Gathering Giving Key with me, knowing that it was time to let it go, and what better place than Africa to pay it forward?
In the Lunga Lunga slum in Nairobi, our team visited Wells of Joy Ministries to lend support to an amazing group of Kenyans who are rescuing children everyday from a life of extreme poverty, hunger, trafficking, and drugs through God's work at Brilliant Sharpening Community School. Currently, 400 children are being served six full days a week in a small space. The need for expansion of this good work is great.
I was able to eat a meal and spend a little bit of time talking with Nancy, a mother of one of the Grade 7 students. Communication was slightly difficult but we talked about our children and, in one of the most humbling moments of my life, she wanted to thank me and my team for contributing to the needs of the school. I felt as though I should be thanking her instead. Mothers' hearts speak the same gratitude when we feel someone has helped our child. She wanted to convey that and I overwhelmingly understand that emotion.
The next day, Nancy's daughter Faith, pulled me aside and asked me to give her something "to remember you by". I knew then that my Giving Key was supposed to go to her. I told her to please share with her mother that I would be praying for them and explained the meaning behind "IF God is real...then what?"
I left my IF Giving Key in Kenya, and a piece of my heart there with it.
-Amy