Sauti Ya Watu: Sound of the People, A Dedication

Photo Credit:  May 2005, Mashimoni, by AIM team member

"Read there!" Joy (not her real name) said as she pointed to a poster on the wall covering up part of the dirt and sticks making up the wall of their family's home in Kibera.  

"Sauti ya watu," I replied, phonetically sounding out the words on the poster.  She liked this game and had already made me read her brother's homework out loud to her.

"You know!  See, you know how to speak Swahili," Joy said as she rocked back and forth on the little wooden stool in laughter.  

"Sure, but I have no idea what I just read," I replied and looked at her for a translation.

"That means 'the sound of the people'," she explained.  Her face lit up in a brilliant smile.  "Now, read it again!"  

 I was 19.  At the beginning of that year, I didn't know where Kenya was on a map, had no desire for cross-cultural ministry, and absolutely no desire to work in Africa's second largest slum.  However, God has a sense of humor and called this punk college kid to seven months of youth ministry in Kibera.  To say that my life paradigm was destroyed would be an understatement.  I was torn down and rebuilt from the inside out, irrevocably and irreversibly by the relentless love of God.  

My team mates wept in compassion and pity at the glaring, rotting picture of poverty we experienced our first time in the slum.  I am a lousy Christian and didn't cry.  It smelled and I couldn't possibly see how such a timid and superfluous human being as myself could be used by God there.  I was not inspired.  

That month, I met eleven year old Joy in her green checkered school uniform.  She spoke in a whisper and watched me warily.  After hours of Bible studies, football (soccer) in the park, craft projects, and walks through Kibera, she decided we were friends.  I quickly found that beneath her shy facade was a sarcastic, vivacious young heart who delighted in bossing me around.  

 “Find your way,” she told me as we crossed another stream on the way to her house.  I had only been there once before and had no idea how to get there through the checkerboard of mbati roofs and dusty paths.  She pushed me in front to take the lead again.  

  "Mzungu, you are lost!  That is not the way!" she said as I failed to find the turn.  She laughed loudly and took over, taking my hand to lead me over a stream full of muddy water and trash.  She pointed out the prostitutes and the drug dealers as we walked through her sprawling dirt world.  Then she taught me her favorite song and discussed our plans to play football that weekend.  

Soon, we ducked in through a low doorway into a dark, cool room, about 10ft by 5ft, where she lived with her father, stepmother, three younger siblings, and occasionally some cousins.  She slipped behind a curtain and changed out of her neat, green school uniform and emerged wearing a pale, yellow dress, dingy ruffles fluttering off the edges in well-worn ribbons.  She pulled out her precious bag of popcorn from Bible study.  She saved it for her siblings instead of eating it herself.  

"Now, mzungu, read it again!" she said as she laughed.

"Sauti ya watu," I answered obediently.

"You will be speaking Swahili soon," she said. 

The sun set on us in that little room, full of laughter.  We told stories, sang songs, and drank chai for hours.  Before I left, we took each other's roughened hands and prayed together.  A lingering peace and love immersed that little dirt room while we prayed.  After hours there, it still wasn't long enough.

My heart broke for Kibera that day.  I came home and wept for the slum like I hadn't been able to yet.  It wasn't the bad stuff that broke my heart, but the good stuff.   Joy's laughter and delight, her generosity and her love.  She taught me about the beauty that could be found in the slum and that is was brought me to tears.  

That was the year that I learned the peace that surpasses all understanding can be found even in the slum.  That year also taught me about the brokenness and ugliness of sin hidden beneath facades of wealth and twinkling lights in my suburban life in Los Angeles.  Yes, ugliness and beauty are universal, in both poverty and wealth, as is the presence of God and His plan for redemption.

Over the years, as Joy's childlike features melted away to reveal those of a young woman, still one of the first things she would say to me was, "Do you remember?"  

"Yes.  Sauti ya watu."  

This blog is dedicated to sauti ya watu, to the sound of the people.  To the youth of Kibera who became my mentors in life, love, and faith.  You taught me God's relentless capacity for redemption and planting beauty and hope in all of life's circumstances.  You taught me to laugh, to sing, to dance, and to ask deeper questions about the things which matter most.  You taught me how much I have to learn and how much I love learning.  

It is my hope to fill these pages with more sauti ya watu, because Jesus loves the sound of the people too.

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'" Revelations 7:9-10