"...And it was the best birthday of my life"

On my birthday, we traveled by van over horrible roads to a village west of Kisumu, Kenya. There, we were greeted with singing and more three hundred people hoping to receive some kind of help. There were of course those that needed mobility devices. But then there were those living with 3rd degree burns, MS, MD, Spina Bifida, amputations, leprosy, meningitis, hydrocephalic, birth defects, degenerating discs, gangrenous wounds, elephantitis and the list goes on. I sat for hours while the team of four others assisted with the distribution of mobility devices, and talked with and took photos of these suffering people. I touched them, looked them in the eye, blessed and encouraged them and prayed for them. My heart aching for their travail. A girl with one leg that came in with her arm around a friends shoulders, hopping, left with crutches. A girl crawled into a wheelchair, beaming at us all the while. So the pendulum swings, from elation to despair, in the matter of a moment. And it was the best birthday of my life.
- David (in Kenya, November 5th, 2013)