It was an October afternoon, I was excited about being a guest in a Kenyan home. We drove to Kibera, where Wycliffe, a friend of ours, warmly greeted each of us at the door and presented his recently acquired couch, the key piece of furniture in his new home. He told us how blessed he was to have space for one. Children from the surrounding houses started to stare at us through the open door.
A train started rolling behind his compound, rattling the row of one room mabati, or corrugated steel, homes. We came for chai, but they had held off eating lunch so they could feed us too.
As his wife, Celena, began to prepare food on the njiko, a single propane burner, the house heated up. Wycliffe turned on his fan, which he had ingeniously created from the thrown away pieces of a fan head mounted on a small motor with half a car axle for the base. We were glad his electricity worked in the new bigger house.
His old house was about the size of a walk-in closet, maybe smaller, depending on the size of your walk-in closet. He moved because his last house was too dangerous. A few men had robbed them of the few things they owned when Celena was pregnant with their son, Brian. Before we ate, he brought a basin and a thermos of water, which he poured for us to wash our hands. Although it probably was not the cleanest water, we still washed to not be rude. We ate the wet spinach-like mush, similar to sukuma, using the very bland dry mush, ugali, as a utensil. This process involves mashing the ugali into a scoop shape with one’s hands, then grabbing the other food with it.
The food was not that bad, although I did get sick from it a few days later. While I sat at home later, feeling disgusting, I grasped a sense of peace, because it was still worth it to experience a small slice of that kind of life.
I returned to visit Wycliffe, Celena, and Brian when my family came to visit, in January.
Wycliffe told us his story. He is a trusted gardener for many missionaries in AIM. But before he became that, he had been a homeless street kid, sniffing glue to get high, trying to forget how much he was hungry. He joined a gang that took turns stealing money or food so that they could all eat, but when it was his turn to steal he couldn’t bring himself to follow through. The leader of the gang said that he would show Wycliffe how to steal. The next day, while Wycliffe was watching, the other kid tried
to grab a woman’s purse, but she held on to it and started hitting him. The people around him became a mob and started beating him to death. Wycliffe left him to the angry crowd and never went back to the gang again. Later, a Kenyan Christian man started paying Wycliffe for odd jobs around the yard, teaching him to have a good work ethic and valuable skills. Eventually Wycliffe decided to follow Christ.
The gap between the person who he was, and who I know him to be now is vast. He is trusted because he is both honorable and responsible. His story is one of redemption. I am thrilled that my family got to meet him.
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