The Road to Umoja

The Road to Umoja*

 

The road to Umoja is dirt and rock and potholes. We were driven there by Joseph, the man who, along with his wife and family, had founded this children’s home for orphans ten years ago. He picked us up on a Saturday morning in his old white pickup truck.  Along with about ten other people, we crowded into the front and back of the cab and the truck bed—and bounced our way along for a twenty minute ride from Tenwek. When we reached our destination, we encountered a gate with the name Umoja written across it in colorful paint. We pulled into a quiet little shamba and immediately were surrounded by fifty smiling kids, several house parents and teachers, a few cows and a ton of chickens. Our visit to Umoja had begun.

We were welcomed—the kids were excited to meet the new Tenwek missionaries and say hello to some returning visitors. We had come to help a visiting missionary seamstress measure the children for school uniforms. Now this is a big job—it involved getting each child’s name, taking their picture, and recording about twelve measurements on each one. 

Before this event began, we were given a tour of their home. There was a very large building like a gym with wooden benches, a couple of long tables, a kitchen at the back, and a tin roof on top. This is where the kids ate and played and studied. Then we saw the two dorms, one for girls and one for boys—large cement houses with rows and rows of bunk beds, and tin roofs. What I noticed was the heat—tin on top of cement equals very hot during the day and cold at night. I was also struck by the numbers of beds. The littlest children (about three years old) sleep on the lower bunks. I thought about how much our son loves to snuggle with us at night in our bed at home. Home. What a word.

Our son loved meeting the cows and the chickens. Umoja is actually a small farm, and part of the money that helps support this endeavor comes from the sale of eggs from their huge chicken coop. There is also a field out back filled with sukuma wiki (a local staple food—think mustard greens), and some banana trees.

Our tour done, we filed into the main meeting room to begin assigning numbers, taking pictures and recording measurements. And it was a long, tedious process. And the sun was hot under that tin roof. Our four year old did not understand why he could not have his apple juice box (warm water and chai is all that our hosts have to drink—a fruit juice mini box with its tiny straw is a luxury and out of reach).  It became very noisy too (tin roofs and cavernous cement buildings also equal LOUD). As the sweat began to run off my body, as the noise began to crescendo, as I found myself explaining in a conspiratorial whisper for the one hundredth time about the apple juice box, I began to look at that long line of kids as a burdensome project that was standing between  me and a nice cold coke in the cool quiet little apartment that has become our home at Tenwek.

And that is when I saw him.

Something about him stood out to me. I do not know exactly what it was. He was dressed literally in rags—the collar of his shirt had been partially ripped away from the main body of fabric—and his pants were too big. There was a bit of dirt wiped across his cheek. He was barefooted.  Our gazes kept meeting across the busy gym. His eyes were bright. Out of dozens of beautiful boys and girls—I kept looking out for this little one. Who was he I wondered?

Hot. Hotter. Hottest.  “Why am I here, Lord?” “Can this be over now?”

I looked down, and there he was. He was staring up at me with eyes that seemed to be filled with—laughter. In the heat, in the dirt, in the sweat, in the crowd—

“What is your name?” I asked. He looked at me full in the face and said softly,

“I am Emmanuel.”

I saw the face of Jesus
In a little orphan girl
She was standing in the corner
On the other side of the world
And I heard the voice of Jesus
Gently whisper to my heart
Didn't you say you wanted to find Me
Well, here I am, here you are
 
So what now
What will you do now that you've found Me?
What now
What will you do with this treasure you've found
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you'll remember
This is right where I said I would be
You found me, what now?

And I saw the face of Jesus
Down on Sixteenth Avenue
He was sleeping in an old car
While his mom went looking for food
And I heard the voice of Jesus
Gently whisper to my soul
Didn't you say you wanted to know me
Well, here I am
And it's getting cold

So what now
What will you do now that you've found Me?
What now
What will you do with this treasure you've found
I know I may not look like what you expected
But if you'll remember
This is right where I said I would be
You found me, what now?

So come and know
Come and know, know me now**

 

The road back from Umoja was still the same road that I had traveled upon in the morning. But somehow, I was no longer thinking about the dirt, rocks, or potholes. I was remembering a person who had found me earlier in the day, and the words of my favorite song were going round and round in my head.  What now?

*Umoja means “unity” in Kiswahili

**Steven Curtis Chapman, “What Now?” from his album All Things New