Mathare

Hey everyone!!

I'm writing from a little cyber cafe just outside Nairobi (Kenya's sprawling capital city).  Shemiah and I have had an incredible few weeks working in Mathare Valley, 6 square miles populated by approx. 200,000 beautiful people.  Most live in 10x10 tin shacks, often being filled with families of 7 or more.  The situation appears dire.  Sewage and heaps of rotting garbage litter the landscape.  I breathe through my mouth so that I don't vomit.  Toddlers in tattered t-shirts are playing boats with plastic bottle caps in puddles of brown water.  There goes a stray dog with a litter of new pups bumping and biting through the trash.  Chickens and pigs and babies are playing in the same dirt.

But you wanna know the crazy thing?  Many of these 200,000 Kenyans are completely content.  They have learned what it means, as the apostle Paul once said, "to be content in any situation."  The Christians in Mathare Valley Slum have the joy of the Lord.  Those who don't know Christ do not have that joy.  Pending three weeks here has really shown me the truth of our good news once again.  The people who have the gospel are much happier than those who don't.  It is just a fact.  If you are reading this and don't know Christ and don't believe it, come to Mathare yourself.  See the goodness of the Provider God.  It is absolutely amazing.

I have been teaching Science and English and Christianity at an elementary school here.  I love working with the older kids, the 7th and 8th graders who are really starting to get life figured out.  They ask tough questions.  They make me think.  And they are better at math than me, so I let Shemiah teach the math!  On top of that I am teaching a writing course to young adults, ages 19-27.  We've learned how to write resumes and prepare presentations.  I'm also teaching a course that I've called "Basics of Biblical Interpretation" to that same group.  I am loving it.  I will miss this place.  Believe it or not, the sewage is normal now.  I am beginning to see through the material world and into the deeper reality of the spiritual world.  What does a nice house buy?  A shiny car?  Not peace, that is proven here.  God is really good.  Really.

In Him,

John August Hundley