When words can't convey..........

I've tried to write this Blog more than a dozen times in my head this past week and have lost my nerve and bottled-out each time. I know that won't make any sense to anyone but me...so worry not if it just appears to be a filler sentence.

The truth is, so much has happened this past week that I'm in a tizz to know where to start...

Have you ever watched the Comic relief appeal nights? You know the ones I mean...when you go from one tragic story to the next, from one rubbish dump community to other, hearing about heart wrenching life stories until you feel emotionally hung out to dry?  And as the evening goes on the stories get more and more distressing until you end up disappearing off to the kitchen to collect tea and biscuits when it all begins to get too much. Then eventually we can stand it no longer, so we dial the number and make that pledge.

And what do we remember the next day? The devastating expression of that orphaned child perhaps, or the tearful celebrity begging us to 'make a difference' and save a child's life by buying a bed net?  You are caught between holding it together and allowing your heart to break.

George 

Last week we met George. He was sitting outside an alms house, up the road from were we live. He was munching on a couple of muffins he'd been given. He was full of smiles and chatted with us instantly, sharing his story without self pity. His mum had died of AIDS when he was 13 and for the past 16 years he'd been scratching a living. We asked how he managed to keep body'n'soul together and he showed us his 2 sacks, half filled with plastic. "When theses are full I will make 15p", he told us. We bought him water and money to buy shoes (his soles were wired together and it didn't look possible that they would take another mile), and money to get his painful teeth fixed.


And this week....this week we've been down in Naivasha, by the lake itself, which is full of hippos and countless numbers of exotic birds. Here we're been running another Leadership for Hope for 150 workers who provide M&S shoppers with stunning roses and veg (all smartly packed in cute little convenient bags). It's been an extra ordinary week. Many of those who attended were locked in mindsets of hopelessness, cycles of debt and poverty, and lives peppered with corruption and fear. They earn less than £3 a day and every day is a dinosaur of a struggle to survive...just to survive.

We gave everyone a small tree when they left the Leadership for Hope training, as a symbol of their potential 

All this week I have watched them struggle during the training and watched them win through and grow and change and fight inwardly to begin to see themselves as leaders and to 'lead' themselves from a mentality of Hopelessness to one of Hope. We have literally marvelled at their courage, to lift up their heads and step out with new found skills, to start plans for businesses to bring themselves out of poverty and projects to benefit their communities.


One lady grabbed my hand at the end and said, "You have changed our heads forever. This is a gift we will not keep to ourselves. We will teach and spread this good news when you have gone".

Already there have been many stories of personal change and transformation and we know of planned community projects that will have a massive impact for years to come - toilets for communities that at the moment have no public toilets and a small library in another, that has no books. The whole experience has been truly humbling for me.

This morning, back in Nairobi I'm reflecting on the profound need all around us here. As I awoke I let my heart break for what I have seen and experienced; the insane inequality in the world and the injustices of life... and I also marvelled at the awesome ability  of those I'd witnessed, who found the courage to triumph over fear and hopelessness and to thrive in the harshest of places.

Even I as finish this blog I am acutely aware that my words simply can't convey the depth of what I feel.  And when the words don't work you are left without the tools to express profound emotions.

JB

Our training tent