We are already in an age when people worldwide are suffering, enduring pain, pursuing a quest, seeking the truth and reality, the mystery that is called “life”. What is it that we all go through, which makes us move incessantly but people ignore and do not even want to talk about?
So here’s the mystery called “human” as the Great Creator and Architect of the visible and the invisible Universe made us. We are all moving from every part of the world, as God and Lord blessed our roots and origin. Some people live luxuriantly and enjoy all the goods of the universe and nature. Others still live under difficult conditions and suffer, since they do not have the essential goods for survival and a life of dignity and comfort, just as The Lord our God wants.
Here in Africa we experience a different and perhaps strange reality. As it is already known to all of us, things differ. As an Orthodox Church, we are present at all the inhabitants’ activities, especially those of the children, and by that I mean education, so important and necessary for the good and benefit of our young innocent children. To make myself clear, in the most remote areas where we give the opportunity to the little children- even under a tree shadow- to get the first supplies of education, due to drought and under very difficult conditions, we offer them a small meal, which is what they survive on.
For the last twenty years, because the area we live in is poor, except for the adjacent elementary school and kindergarten where children have the luxury of being fed with a plain and simple breakfast and a rich meal every Christmas, it has become known that the Orthodox Church offers a rich Christmas dinner to all the children of the area, regardless of race, color or religion. So this year we gave the kids the chance to eat a special meal, and we were taken by surprise -a pleasant one-when we expected to have 800 children, and finally came 1,500! What a blessing, O God, what a joy, what an excitement!
On Christmas Day, when the Holy Infant was born in a humble cave, He gave everyone this message over and over again that He is with us with the poor and the hungry. Despite the difficulties we have to endure, we have the assurance that with His birth, He brought hope and light to our children’s innocent souls. We finally gave them the message that our Lord came just for all but mostly for the poor, who are waiting for Him and find Him every day, by their side, inside of them, since He is the only one who rests and comforts them.
That is the kind of joy we continue to give as an Orthodox Church to these little ones on Christmas Day. Bear in mind that we do it in our own space where we host 310 children, struggling to offer them a life of dignity despite the fact that these little angels have lost one or both parents. Our Orthodox Church is there for them, covering their parents’ gap in a miraculous way.
Bishop Makarios of Nairobi
