I can’t remember another time in my life when I was instantly shaken to the core. 

The day was October 11, 2011. I was on a mission trip. The place was the Mathare Valley, the oldest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The size of the slum is approximately one square mile and the estimated population at the time was 600,000-800,000. 

I struggle for the words to adequately describe the significant impact that place had on my life.

When we first arrived in the valley we started our mission trip at the Mission of Hope International. After our orientation we walked into the valley in teams with a guide. As I descended into the valley I turned a corner and was instantly confronted with a violent struggle of my senses. The magnitude of the poverty, the cacophony of different conflicting sounds, the horrific combined smells of urine, human feces, and large piles of garbage, and the touch of a multitude of children clinging on to my legs was profoundly overwhelming to say the least. And as odd as it may seem, I could taste the stench of those repulsive smells. 

But…the children. I will never forget them. They are beautiful, happy, and carefree. Most of them seemed oblivious to their intense poverty—almost content in it. How could that be? Didn’t they realize the dreadful circumstances that surrounded them? I was conflicted. In that moment, my life was seriously altered.

The photos in this gallery are of some of those beautiful children.