Photo by Keenan Morgan, (c) 2023

We walk their community where half a million people live in six square miles. We slip in sewage-laced mud; duck under live, pirated-electricity wires; crowd into one-room, windowless homes; gaze over a garbage clogged river.

We mourn the gap between what is and what should be. In their living circumstances. And in our own hearts.

Then, the members of the Hope’s Promise 2023 Kenya Connection Trip dance, create art, and play musical instruments with Mathare Valley children in Hope’s Promise Kenya’s relative based orphan care program called Kuza (Swahili for “nurture”), implemented through Mathare Worship Centre.

On the last day, to end our time together, we sing “The Blessing.” And we can no more stay away from the group of seventy children than water can resist running in trenches. We lift hands over them, touch their shoulders, gaze into their eyes, sing the ancient words directly to them:

²⁴ “The Lord bless you
    and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26

“May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with you.”

The Blessing lyrics

Then, rat a tat tat rings out on the roof, faster and faster.

In Africa, rain means God’s blessing.

We sing louder and louder. Sheets of water run like curtains from the edges of the corrugated metal roof until heaven’s music overtakes earth’s.

We notice children crying, even as tears of our own overflow. We sing, “He is for YOU, He is for YOU,” looking into their eyes.

A roomful of weeping children surrounded by weeping adults. Like a desert, none of us can absorb this much rain. We know that He has come, powerless to stay away from His beloved children. Unable to remain silent, proclaiming His love over them.

Only a few moments later, our team tears away, boards the bus, slumps into seats. Lumps of dust in the aftermath of a power surge, unfamiliar with the frequency we’ve just experienced. Overflowing with gratitude, yet speechless. I check the messages on my phone, find one from the American pastor to many of us on the team. It’s about 1 o’clock in Kenya.

“Praying over all of you at 3:20am (about 12:20 pm in Kenya) as God draws my heart to do so. He is mighty and able to do mighty things in and through you. He is the great Shepherd who walks with each of you. He goes before you and stands beside you. He is not an idol, or superstition, or tradition,  or afterthought. He is God.“

Days later, we ask the Kuza leaders for their perspective. Maybe it happens all the time. After all, Mathare Worship Centre is a Spirit-filled place. Maybe Kuza camps usually end in tear-filled awe of God.

But, no, they say, as leaders they’ve taken to calling it “the thing that happened.”

Even so, come Lord Jesus. Let it rain.