Flesh and Blood

It's my last full day here in Kisumu.

Two weeks have passed so quickly and now it's time for home.

Tomorrow I return to Nairobi, then Amsterdam and a short flight to Manchester.

It's so hard to be a long way from home, but the people here, the things they have said and shared and the look on their faces have been worth every moment.

When I felt God called me to this work, He spoke to me about Isaiah 58. In particular he said I was to “share my food with the hungry, clothe the naked, provide the poor wanderer with shelter and not to turn away from my own flesh and blood”

It was the perfect description of those who find their sustenance on the streets.

What I suppose I hadn't understood fully at that time was how that last bit of that was going to be fulfilled.

“My own flesh and blood” had always meant my family.

But this is my family. In a very real way.

Moses is my brother, Tatu my sister-in-law and all of the boys and girls my kids.

I know Nicky feels the same.

God has blessed us with as many children as Abraham! No wonder Isaac ran when he saw me coming.

On Monday we arranged a football tournament for all of the boys in Kisumu. We had about fifty players in four different teams, representing Kibos (the rehab centre), Mamboleo (our second house), Kachok (the rubbish tip outreach and education program) and then a fourth team of players from a mixture of those, plus Phil and Tom from the UK.

Each team played all other teams, on a typical Kenyan pitch – rough ground with a couple of goals located some distance apart, the lines marked out by running a stone through the dried red earth.

About 50% of the boys played in shoes, the rest barefoot.

And it was stony ground.

I don't mean that in the biblical sense of the sower and the seed, but the actual, small, sharp, stony sense where if you or I were to walk on it we would be letting out little gasps every step.

It's like walking down a pebbly beach into the sea, but playing football on it.

Not to mention kicking the ball with some force on an exposed instep.

But they loved it.

Each pretended to be the player of their choice, enhanced by the provision of football shirts brought over by Becky, Phil, Tom, Hil and Kate

The best one was given to Steven, a boy from Mamboleo, who found himself with a red Liverpool shirt with “Gerrard” on the back. Cries of “Steven Gerrard” went up from the crowd every time he touched the ball!

We had a great day.

The mixed team, featuring the international talents of Phil and Tom, floundered in the afternoon heat, losing all of their games. The highlight though was their only goal, scored by Phil running onto a long ball from the back, which he lashed past Isaiah in the Kibos goal. He ran back to the halfway line, shirt pulled over his head with the team wildly celebrating.

Mamboleo and Kibos were tied going into the last games, but Mamboleo won the tournament, defeating Kachok 2-0.

I ended up refereeing each game, as the boys didn't trust any of the other leaders not to be biased, as they are all associated with one program or another!

It was a really great day, if a little on the warm side!

And then yesterday we took all of the girls in the program out to the Impala Park.

Just over 25 girls, all different ages, but all enjoying a new experience. We walked around the enclosures looking at the cheetah, lion and leopard and then around the grounds with the herds of impala and zebra. Then we played ball games by the lake shore in the cool breeze of the morning, before going to eat fish in the shacks in town by the lake.

The girls looked so relaxed and really enjoyed each others company.

The Isaiah Trust has never felt more like a family.

Like “our own flesh and blood”