We also spent a day in another slum nicknamed Vancouver, part of a larger slaughterhouse community known as Dagoretti. Before we could even get out of our car, we were overwhelmed by the attention of dozens of street boys, high from the glue they were sniffing from small bottles. Most were anxious to talk or mug for the camera (“look at my Bruce Lee pose!”). A few were belligerent and out of control (a byproduct of both the glue and the extreme desperation of the place). Even while mugging for our cameras, they occasionally stopped to refill their glue bottles from the dope dealer sitting just a few feet away. We offered to buy lunch in a dingy little “hotel” (café), and 50 kids took us up on our offer!

I’m tempted, probably like most westerners who visit Nairobi’s slums, to drag out a list of bleak adjectives to describe how overwhelmingly desperate (see – here come the adjectives!) these places feel. But that’s not really what sticks with me, one week after my visit. My Dad asked me; “What do you take away from something like that?” My honest answer surprised even me: Hope.

I felt hopeful after my visit to two of the most impoverished places on our planet. And the reason for my hope was the people I met there.

We spent an afternoon with a group of young adults whose friendship led to the formation of an organization called Dagoretti for Kids. Six young men, extremely bright and gifted, who were determined not to fall into the trap of so many of their peers who, like them, have been unable to find meaningful work in an economy in which over half of the people are unemployed or marginally employed. So they decided to start working with the hundreds of street kids in Dagoretti, trying to help them break their addiction to glue-sniffing, get an education, and get off the streets. A wealthy neighbor offered the use of a small farm a 45-minute walk from the slum, where they now have 21 kids living, working the farm, and being educated (for free) by the local Catholic school. I cannot tell you how impressed I was by these delightful young men, who have few resources, receive virtually no pay for their round-the-clock work, and who clearly find tremendous joy in their shared calling. The love of God in flesh-and-blood!

We spent another afternoon with a young leader named Salim Mohamed, whose “Carolina for Kibera” has created a soccer league for 2,000 slum children, and used it as a springboard to build a medical clinic, recycling business, and education programs. Though the programs of CFK were impressive, what really impressed us was this young man Mohamed, and the way he loves his community. “Don’t tell people about all the bad things here. Tell them the truth that Kibera is a place where people love their neighbors, and come together to be a real community.” One of my friends observed that he hadn’t expected to find such a beautiful example of incarnational love from a Muslim, and I confess that I too was provoked and challenged by this young man’s life.

And of course I feel hopeful every time I visit my friend Eunice Kariuki, who is providing a home and family for 35 abandoned children from places like Kibera and Dagoretti in a village on the edge of Nairobi. Eunice was part of our family at the Issachar Community here in Denver, and left us in 2002 to return to Kenya to start Tumaini Ministries.

In our urban ministry training programs we talk a lot about “incarnational presence” – being the presence of God in hard places. My trip to Nairobi gave me a picture of just what that looks like. And that gives me real hope.