Sleeping on a dirt floor

Dennis Equitz of Yorba Linda, California, recently learned that it’s a long way from Orange County to the Mathare Valley of Nairobi, Kenya.

A public school teacher and long-time member of Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, Dennis and his family were part of an 80-member team that recently returned from a two-week mission trip to Nairobi. Here are some of his thoughts about the experience:

“When the 80 of us arrived in the slums we were separated into different teams based on our tasks. I was assigned to the construction team. My wife will be the first to tell you that I am not the handiest of guys and not really proficient around power tools, but fortunately we didn’t use many power tools for our construction project. My team and I assisted a Kenyan carpenter named Steve as he built and assembled two bunk beds for two families who had children attending one of the Missions of Hope schools. We spent the better part of two days working with Steve as he turned raw pieces of lumber into two well-built bunk beds.

“The most exciting part of the trip was the day we delivered the beds to the families. The first bed was delivered to a 31-year-old woman who lives in a typical Mathare shanty with her 10 children. It is made entirely of corrugated tin with no electricity or running water, no windows, and a dirt floor. The total size of the shanty is about 9 feet square. The bed had to be assembled in the shanty because it was too big to fit through the door. The children –age 2 to 12 — sat patiently as we assembled the bed. We were told that they had never slept in a bed before. There was not a dry eye in the house when we had the bed assembled and told them all to hop up on it. All 10 children jumped up on the top bunk. What a great joy to have been a part of making something that these children could use every day!

“The second bed was delivered the same day to a woman who lives closer to the river that runs through the valley. It is not good to live closer to the river in Mathare because it is choked with all sorts of debris and filth that has accumulated as it runs through the valley. She also lived in a 9 X 9 dirt-floor shanty. She shares the shanty with her eight children, ranging in age from 12 to 25. Our Kenyan social worker told us that she had delivered all of her children in the shanty on her own without the assistance of a doctor. Once again, the children waited patiently as we assembled the bunk bed and were thrilled to have the chance to jump up and claim it as their own.

“I don’t know when I’ll have the chance to go on another mission trip. I don’t believe I’ll ever see these families again. What I do know is this: there are two families in the Mathare slum whose children are not sleeping on a dirt floor tonight.

“I learned many things during this trip. I learned that we have so much to be thankful for in Orange County. I’m thankful for a bed and a comfortable place to lay my head each night. I’m thankful for clean water, clean air, electricity, and a clean house. Mostly, I’m thankful for the opportunity to work for a few days in the Mathare Valley and to see the struggle of daily life on the other side of the globe.”