"Are we really helping?" Liz asked while we were spontaneously handing the small group of Street Kids bread and suckers and taking away glue bottles. It haunted me. Because it was my own question.

I was in, though. I had decided to jump into the mess of the Street Kid problem. My question now was, How can a permanent impact be made? Can we do more than just feed a mouth for a day?

On top of these, I had three dozen other questions. How much does glue cost and where do the Street Kids get it? What percentage of them are orphans and what percentage are runaways? Do they have gangs? What are the biggest threats to their lives? Starvation? Violence? Disease?

An obstacle to finding out answers to these questions were the Street Kids themselves. Our contact, Patrick, said the Street Kids were "the best movie actors in Eldoret." We couldn't fully trust them to tell the truth.

I had come up with a plan, not so much to directly impact these kids lives, but to, one, find out answers to these questions. On top of that, the plan was designed to raise awareness amongst the general population.

Here were the main points:

• Hire a local translator who knew Eldoret and maybe even the Street Kids well

• Spend a few hours downtown every day with the Street Kids with a small group

  • Ask them questions and get to know their lives

  • Bring some food each day

• Research glue, both it's effects and how street kids acquire it

• Talk to politicians, police, newspapers, pastors of downtown churches, orphanages, and others to find out what is being done to help the street kids.

• Interview local people in Eldoret and ask them their perception of the street children and what is being done to help them. Encourage them to help.

• With the two World Race teams in Eldoret, have open air meetings for the kids and give out food afterward.

As I was reviewing my plan for helping the Street Kids, I thought of the conversation with Liz as we watched Lauren and Katie buying them loaves of bread.

"What are you thinking, Joe?" she said to me, sensing my pensiveness.

"I don't know... I don't really feel like talking about it right now. What are you thinking?"

"Lots of things. But I'm wondering if we're actually helping, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

Her thoughts mirrored my own. Because if you give a poor boy a loaf of bread, tomorrow they'll be hungry again. If you take his bottle of glue, later that night he'll buy another.

How could we help? How could we give these kids the stability they need to grow up into self-sustaining adults? We're here for a month and gone, never to see them again. What good could we do?!

It seemed like the only reason to help was to feel good about ourselves; we did something, at least. At least we gave them a loaf of bread. But what was that except putting a bandaid on a gaping wound, patting yourself on the back and saying, "What a nice guy I am."

What the Street Kids needed were families, moms and dads who could support them and raise them in a stable environment. I knew that because they didn't have that, then their chances went down rapidly. They were much more likely to do drugs, become violent, and even go to prison.

Why expend all that effort to risk it on kids that probably wouldn't make anything of themselves anyway?

Still though, I felt this guilt on me, this pity for them and their lives speaking to me and telling me to find out what I could do to help.

I sat crosslegged on a couch in Patrick's house staring at my computer screen and trying to decide whether to jump into one of the ugliest social problems in Kenya. The problem was Street Kids, dirty, glue-sniffing, begging Street Kids. The decision was whether to try and help.

It was a hard decision because I was comfortable. My team did ministry in the mornings and had the afternoons off, plenty of time to drink delicious African chai, work on the novel, and take naps. Patrick's compound, with its shady, bougainvillea-covered benches, was like an oasis in the hot, unfamiliar suburbs just outside of Eldoret.

Who would want to leave such a sheltered haven for trash-covered streets and lying, needy kids?

But the night before I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about our afternoon with the street kids.

An older boy walked toward us with a bottle of glue to his mouth. He put the glue in his pocket, a smile on his face, and came up to us with his hand out for bread and money.

"You give me that," said Lauren, pointing to the glue in his pocket, "and I'll buy you bread." He walked away and came up to me and Liz instead.

"No," I said, pointing to Lauren. "Talk to her. She'll give you bread if you give her your glue."

He finally accepted and gave Lauren the glue bottle in return for a loaf of bread. He took off, the green grocery bag slapping against his torn black pants, that silly, crazed smile on his face.

The glue thing pissed me off. How dare you do that to your body, your mind? Don't you know you are a child of God? Still, I knew that we could take away their bottles every day and still they'd sniff glue.

To help, to do some real good in such a short amount of time, I'd have to commit. I would have to leave the compound and go into the uncomfortable unknown of downtown Eldoret.

I sat crosslegged on a couch in Patrick's house going over my plan to help the Street Kids of Eldoret. My plan to make some kind of difference in a very short amount of time.

Should I do it, God? It's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. I don't want to do it. I'm not sure I even can do it.

to loose the chains of injustice...

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

And provide the poor wanderer with shelter.

Isaiah 58

We were just coming from a birthday feast at the only American restaurant in Eldoret, Kenya, and as we were waiting for our matatu to go home, Danielle and Katie found a barefoot black boy sitting down on the sidewalk. He had a huge, bleeding and oozing sore on his dust-covered foot.

"Do either you have hand sanitizer?" asked Danielle, coming over to Liz and I from where the boy was sitting. We didn't. She went in to a pharmacy nearby. I looked over to the boy, feeling a mixture of pity and guilt, pity for his impossible, pain filled life, and guilt for not doing anything to help him, guilt for not even wanting to do anything to help.

"Let's go see what's going on," I said to Liz, trying to assuage the guilt. We walked over to him. He was only 10 or 11. He had a frightened, pained expression as the mzungus surrounded him, some trying to help, some, like me, just there to watch.

Danielle came back with a bottle of antiseptic and a bandage. She put her nursing skills to work and started to clean up the wound on his foot. The boy was visibly uncomfortable, trying not to make eye contact with the hovering mzungus. Danielle spoke reassuringly to him, and even though he didn't understand English, he must have been comforted by her.

We mzungus tend to attract attention wherever we go, and the temporary first aid clinic we'd constructed was causing a scene. Soon we had a crowd of Street Kids, 6 or 7 and growing. They came to us with their pitiful faces and their chorus, "Give me 5 bop" (about 7 cents).

Lauren, Matt, Danielle and Katie, all from Team Fanatic, were great, buying half a dozen loaves of bread for all the kids and talking to them.

Finally, after an hour of waiting, our matatu came to take us back home to Patrick's compound. I was tired, tired of standing around waiting, tired of the constant flurry of people and the mangy Street Kids surrounding us.

But I couldn't forget those kids, couldn't dismiss, as much as I wanted to, the guilt I felt for not doing more to help. I couldn't forget my introduction to the Street Kids of Eldoret, Kenya.

We've been in Eldoret for about a week in a half and so much has happened:

• TWO Sunday services at the Releasing Destiny, the church we helped plant,
• TWO birthdays celebrated (and another on the way),
• DOZENS of families visited to talk about God and invite to the church,
• HUNDREDS of cups of African tea drunk,
• FOUR football matches watched (Go ManU!) and lots more
• TWO HUGE changes on my team (more in a second)
• And much more

Mostly our ministry has been to help grow Pastor Patrick's church. In Africa, this means going house to house visiting families and telling them about God and our church. We had a very similar ministry in Uganda, so it's nothing new, but the fact is that going house to house is so foreign to us Americans and Westerners in general (unless your Jehovah's Witness of course) that it still can be uncomfortable.

However, the people here are so welcoming and hospitable that it's surprisingly fun. Plus, most people spend their days outdoors in front of their houses on their compound. It makes them easier to approach and make friends with. It's more like yard to yard than door to door.

Last Sunday, I had the great privilege to be able to preach at Releasing Destiny Church. I talked about Justice and Mercy, and how God can somehow manage to be both Just and Merciful. I started with Genesis 6, right before God is about to (all but) destroy humanity from the face of the earth. We all know these stories so well that we aren't shocked that God killed almost every living being, but these stories were meant to be shocking. How could a God who says he loves the world (John 3:16) want to destroy it? How can a loving God be both Just and Merciful? What do you think?

Finally, before I go, I have some exciting and sad and crazy news. Sofia has a new team member. Last week we found out that Andrea Pasquan from team Fresh would be joining us. She would be our new team leader. We were shocked and excited. Andrea is a great woman and we are happy to have her.

Then, a few days later, April told us that God had been telling her she was going to take Andrea's spot on Team Fresh. For four months I have had the privilege of getting to know April, enjoying her easy joyfullness and encouragement. I am sad that she won't be finishing this journey with us, but we know it is a good thing because it is from God.

We are basically a new team, having gained one and lost another. This means we will likely be changing our team name very soon to reflect God's continuing work on us. Please stay tuned.

That's all for now from Eldoret, Kenya. Peace be upon you and God bless!

Our month in Kenya was one of our favorites so far on the race, primarily because of Patrick, his hospitality, good humor and passion for God. I can't tell you how excited and shocked we were to learn on Wednesday we would be returning to Eldoret and to Patrick.

"NO WAY!" I shouted when Grant told us.

"Yeah," said Grant smiling.

"You are FREAKING KIDDING ME!" I was out of my chair by this point, bent over with my hands on my head. "That is INSANE! NO WAY!"

And here we are back in Eldoret, drinking African tea and planning our month. It looks like we will mostly be meeting with families in their homes and telling them about God. Patrick also mentioned he would be going to where the men drink illegally brewed alcohol to share the love of God with them.

"Most of the time Christians who go to talk to them only condemn them," said Patrick. "But the Bible says, 'There is no condemnation in Christ.' Instead we need to share the love of God with them."

I'm in, Patrick.

In the midst of the undulating mass of dancing Africans I get up to help Lazarus set up the screen. After a while the preacher settled the crowd and had them sit around the screen.

The film is titled Raised from the Dead, a documentary about a Nigerian pastor who was killed in a car accident in 2001. After being dead for three days he was raised to life again at a Reinhart Bonke rally. It had interviews by the doctors who examined him after the crash and the mortician who interred his body. It even interviewed the man who died, Pastor Daniel. He talked about his visions of heaven and hell while he was deceased.

I remember the boy in the hospital, the boy who was struck by the truck. What about him, Father? Can you heal him too? What about the little children? Will you heal them?

No one knows the time... child will be separated...

And my memory stretches back to a few days ago, the woman we prayed for at the hospital in Soroti, the woman who was so thin, whose cheeks had sunk so far she couldn't close her lips over her teeth any longer. What about her, Father? She sat cross-legged on the floor of the entrance to the women's ward. The nurses told us she was depressed, that she wanted it all to end, this endless film of suffering and disease. She wanted to die. The cancer in her stomach had already taken most of her flesh, her dignity, had sucked her life from her like a black hole.

Her young husband stood behind her, looking at her skeleton with red, tired eyes while Denise talked to her and encouraged her, gave her the nice words of a young, healthy mzungu. He looked on in silence while Dez sang to her a song of God's love, while we knelt beside her and prayed. What about her, Father? Will you raise her again in three days? She who looks like an old woman, so old I can't believe she is married to the young, healthy man standing behind her. Are you with her? Are you even speaking to her? Because she can't hear your voice, Father. She can't hear you over the dull murmur of her dying body.

No one knows the time... husband will be separated from wife...

And what about the old man with the tumor on his elbow, the one who said he couldn't be a Christian because he was in too much pain, that only after the tumor went away could he believe?

No one knows... father will be separated from child...

Or the young man who was crippled and in a wheel chair that his old and wrinkled father pushed around the packed dirt "living room" into the round mud hut "bedrooms?" Will you heal their wounds? Will bring them the life abundant you promised?

Child will be separated...

Where is that life you promised? Where is it because if you show me how to find it, maybe I can show them too? Maybe I can help them find life because there is too much death and dying here.

But I need you to show me how to find it... I need you to show me... Because this preacher's shouting isn't enough and his waving fist pointed to heaven isn't bringing heaven to earth, at least not to my eye. I'll surrender, God, I promise, if you show me that life. I can surrender to death if you show me the life. So show me, Father, show me how to find that life, that abundant life you said you came to bring us.

But the questions remain unanswered and I go with Lazarus in his Toyota truck back to the house, where my team is eating ice cream sundaes and Coke floats. I eat some french fries for dinner and a couple cookies and have a Coke float.

A sister wearing a pink and grey striped dress stood up in the front to read the scripture. The sun has set, but still some last vestiges of light are left along with the heat of the day. Truthfully though, the heat never leaves this dark earth. It is not rare to wake up sweating at 5 am because the power has gone out and the fan isn't giving those few oscillating seconds of coolness. Hot in the day and hot at night. Hot hot hot. We told Lazarus it was -10 degrees Celsius in Canada where Dez lives. He said he would freeze to death. He probably would too.

The crowd beside the road is winnowing down. The policeman has left and most of them have come to sit in front of the stage, or else sit on the fallen trunk of a large tree about 50 feet from the stage, the darkening sky barely illuminating their black faces.

The truck that struck the child drove off immediately, perhaps didn't even slow down. Denise, one of our squad leaders, said the driver probably drove off to save his skin, not from prosecution of the law but from the anger of the village. In this part of Africa, if a thief is caught in the act, Denise told us, the thief will be beaten and even killed by the mob. The driver was probably fleeing the people's "justice."

"PREPARE, my time is coming!" the preacher says. "And the BIBLE SAYS: PREPARE, my time is coming! But they despised Noah and failed to prepare! But when the rain came they were destroyed."

THE BIBLE SAYS...

THE BIBLE SAYS...

THE BIBLE SAYS!

Two Koreans, one in camo and the other shirtless and showing off his prodigious belly, walk on a path behind the stage. The eyes of the children and mothers follow. I catch one woman staring at me, as if to see if I know the two Koreans, as if all people with light skin know one another, as if we're all in a club where we meet to talk about how to make money off the skin of the people or something. Who knows what she's thinking.

I turn at the sound of a loud car behind. A white pickup truck is speeding by on the road behind.

"No one knows the time..." says the preacher.

I think of the white pickup striking the child.

"No one knows the time...." he says.

The child bouncing off the grill, thrown to the bushes on the side of the road.

"No one knows..."

The shouts of rage from the men. The cries of panic from the women. The cacophony from the children begging to know what happened.

It's dark now. The sun is set. The crowd by the road is gone.

"No one expected it," continues the preacher. "They shall find two together. One shall be taken, the other remained."

"There is a time of separation. You can be separated from your wife. You can be separated from your brother. You can be separated from your child. The time is coming when the Lord will separate the people."

It's time for the altar call. All the children come up. They put their hands up and sing,

I surrender all

I surrender all

All to Jesus blessed Savior

I surrender all

Someone has turned on the stage lights, a single bulb at the four corners of the stage. There are hundreds of insects flitting around each, hiding from the darkness.

A new singer gets up to the stage. The hard work has been done. It is time to dance. He sings out a lively song in Ateso and the band follows him. Three or four hundred people are dancing around the stage, bouncing up and down, throwing their arms in the air, swinging their hips back and forth, and singing loud. Many of the women let out piercing ululations. The boys stomp their feet to the packed dirt.

To Be Continued...