I love happy endings. Don’t you? I intentionally pick books and movies that have them. Life is hard and when I want to escape, I love stories that end with hope and resolution.
I realize this is not always realistic . We live in a broken world and sometimes there are circumstances, pain, and loss that are horrific, unexplainable, and leave us with more questions than answers.
One of the reasons I recently traveled across the world to Kenya was to visit my dear friends, Juli & Allison. These friends have founded Living Room Ministries International (www.livingroominternational.org) : a home where no one has to die alone. They provide dignity and quality of life to people in Kenya who are affected by HIV/AIDS and other life threatening illnesses. Their vision is to create a community of compassion that honors life and offers hope.
Let me just tell you: It is sacred ground. There’s no other place like it.
Come with me on a walk through the Living Room. You’ll never be the same.
Walking in to the breezy hallway you can immediately sense the peace and beauty of this place. And then you remind yourself, this is a home for the dying. In a matter of moments you’ll be greeted by smiling faces of national caretakers who give their lives to serving people here. Rachel is one of these angels. With a nursing and medical background she is the clinical director. It’s obvious she is highly educated, but what strikes you most is how she deeply values the individual patients (whom they refer to as “guests”).
You are guided through the hallways into the rooms of guests, many who have traveled miles and miles in hopes of quality hospice care. It’s often their last hope. Here, no matter their physical condition, they are welcomed as guests, and known by name – so different from what you’d find in the cities where hospitals are filled with people , at least two to a bed, where the conditions are less than ideal. Their stories are listened to. They are individuals whom God loves and they are offered the best emotional, physical, and spiritual care free of cost.
I’m pretty sure if Jesus still lived on earth, this is where he’d hang out.
Walking out to the patio you see many guests lining the walls. You walk up and shake their hands to greet them, because that’s the culture here. You’d meet Evangeline and Zipporah, women dying of cervical cancer. In hushed tones, you’d hear about their children and though they’re in the last stages of life they somehow smile as they speak. They’re mamas like us. There is a quiet tension in the air: the reality of pain and death is eminent, yet a strange peace also hangs in the silence.
You walk from there down the ramp to the gorgeous outdoor surroundings. Flowers, and trimmed bushes, and green lush landscape, it reminds you of what the Garden of Eden may have looked like. Patients are encouraged to be outside – to enjoy the sunshine- and so mats are laid upon the grass. In the shade of the trees, they rest.
You meet Eddah, a mama who has suffered with an undiagnosed leg wound for years; but here she is liveliest of the bunch. She’ll challenge you to a game of Othello and you’d better watch out because she’s competitive and she’ll probably win!
Nearby, the childlike smile of Sharon captures your heart and though she’s the size of a 5 year old, you learn she is actually 12 -born with HIV and recovering from burns that disfigured her hand and face. Precious girl. She is here, getting stronger, and waiting for the day she can have reconstructive surgery. You learn that while she’s been here at Kimbilio hospice, her mother passed away at home. She is now another of Africa’s millions of orphans. Jesus, have mercy.
You reach out to greet Violet, and her little bony hand rests in yours. To the eye, she is merely skin and bones one of the most malnourished sweet things you have ever seen. And then you hear her heart -renching story: at 17 years old, untreated diabetes is eating away at her body. You wonder if she’ll be one of Living Room’s “Lazarus” stories of being nursed from death back to life – you sure hope so.
And finally there’s Chepchumba whose face radiates with joy though her body is contorted with cerebral palsy. She’s been here at Living Room off and on for several years. In this caring environment she progressed all the way from a desperate state of malnourishment to being able to smile and laugh again. She’s a teenager, whose body has been held captive to this disease. Her groans reveal that there’s so much she’d like to say. 
Up the hill, Living Room employees are carving wood preparing caskets. The funeral home is awaiting the arrival of another family. You don’t want to, but you wonder…who will be next?
On this earth there aren’t always happy endings. Here, all are prayed for – some will die-being ushered into the presence of the King and some will be stories of victory where they are nursed back to life. Is God good either way?
How do we respond to what we’ve seen here?
“Seeing suffering does not move me to act if I think of the person as “him”….but when I think of that person as part of “us”, part of “me,” then I am moved to bless.” (Soul Keeping, p. 160)
How then shall we love?
How then shall we live?
These are the questions we are left to wrestle with.
My spirit longs for the day when: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4
-Alyssa
(For more information visit, www.livingroominternational.org)
