Allyson Stinson

Imagine yourself being very young. Either one or both of your parents have died from or currently have HIV/AIDS and your care-giver does not have enough money to provide you with food.

You search your neighborhood for food, because you desperately need it to continue to live. You have been very sick and you feel as if there is no hope.

And then hope arrives. You are introduced to a man or woman who wants you to go to school. You think you are too young to go to school, but when they tell you they have food, you jump with excitement. They talk with your guardian and before you know it, you start your first day of school at an early childhood development center.

You are given clothes, and you finally have a pair of shoes. The shoes will help extremely — especially after the rain when the road gets muddy.

The school has not only given you food, warmth and security, but it has also given you an abundance of love. For the first time in your life you feel special. You feel as if someone REALLY loves you.

These are the children I met two weeks ago.

Every day they are told by society that they are unloved, worth nothing. They are seen as a sickness since one or more of their parents have or had HIV/AIDS.

The classrooms have no electricity, no running water and no "welcome to school" posters.

I was shown the nap room and when I saw the mattresses, a sting griped my heart once again. The mattresses were worn and stained.

I didn’t know what to do. I was thrown into a situation that I could not fix.

I walked away speechless and weeping.

Questions of what to do filled my mind as I had my music player on shuffle.

A song that came on really stuck out to me.

Here is the part that hit me most:

“Just love them like Jesus, carry them to Him

His yoke is easy, His burden is light

You don't need the answers to all of life's questions

Just know that He loves them and stay by their side

Love them like Jesus”

Tears flooded my eyes as God answered my own questions flooding my mind.

When I walked outside the host family home, my vision was changed.

I started to see.

Where there was destruction, I saw beauty.

Where there was sickness, I saw life.

Where there was darkness, I saw light.

God did not give us eyes so we can focus on ourselves. With our eyes we are to love what we see, not the reflections. So many times our status quo determines who we love and how we love. If one person is reflected a certain way, our love for them may alter compared to someone else who is reflected differently.

Allyson Stinson is a  Bay Minette native studying journalism at Troy University and chronicling her summer in Kenya.