Pastor Makuku, how did you first learn about AIDS?

My first knowledge of AIDS was when I was doing my work as a pastor in Kayaba, Nairobi. My own father died from AIDS two years ago. He never accepted that it was AIDS that was killing him…we have cousins and very close relatives who also have AIDS. In Kibera in the past year that we have been working there, everybody who tells us that they are sick of a number of things may mean that is what are suffering from.

Would you say in a community like Kibera that almost every family has been touched by AIDS in one way or another?

Yes, most families are touched by it because of in the urban city the percentage of infected people is very very high. But of course in the slums it is much, much higher. There is a lot of exposure out there. You cannot avoid it because of the [sinful] lifestyle of the people themselves.

Explain to us how AIDS would impact the lives of children in a place like Kibera.

In Kibera, the slum culture is very close to the tribal closer. You live near a village or a clan or a brother. When a breadwinner in the family has AIDS… the pressure is so much that people cannot cope with the kids. Some kids are beginning to fall through the cracks and some are kids are being asked to begin fending for themselves at a very early age. We have already had people who are beginning to look to the church as the new family in the slum to help care for the kids (spiritually and economically) whose parents have AIDS when it becomes overwhelming for the extended family.

So when a breadwinner or parent begins to get sick with AIDS, what happens to the children at that point? How do their lives change?

What we have discovered so far in Kibera that before the parent dies, relatives will take the that person to the rural areas, to the country side where they were born, to await death there. They will take the child to live out there to live with the grandparents. There are some children where that option is not available. They do not have strong relations with the people in the countryside where they came from. When there is no strong family in the countryside, the children are basically on there own. I know that it is the law in Kenya right now that they should have inheritance rights to their family land and parent’s property but when you have nobody being an advocate for them, they fall through the cracks. For example, Philip [one of the children in the Kibera church] cannot go to his own biological father because the father already remarried and there was no reconciliation with the mother before she died. So, in a case like that the children are basically on their own and they have to make their own living and get their own land in future.

How many AIDS orphans do you think there are in Kenya? And do you know how many AIDS orphans there are in Kibera?

For the number of AIDS orphans in Kibera, I have no number. It is quite huge. It will be in hundreds. The newest estimate in Kenya is 1 million. The population of Kibera is about 700,000, that is based a government survey.

How is the church responding to the AIDS epidemic in general with adults and specifically with children?

We are trying are best we can to respond to what God has given to us. Before Philip’s mother died, I as church planter would go out to help physically and in a monetary way to help meet the needs of the family. So, if it was food that was needed, we would provide that. We as a church were able to help his mother get her out of the room that she was sharing with the rest of the family so that she could have her own small room with just her kids. We paid rent for that and helped them meet their basic needs. And then we also instituted within the last 3 month, a food bank, where every communion Sunday, we can at least have the church members bring food stuff to the church. So, then as a church when we do visitation and evangelism as we come across the needy and sick, we can go back with the food as a token of love from the church and as a way of showing Christ love to the church. As a church we are sponsoring one kid through school. One child’s mother had a very bad abscess on her leg and they went to the countryside. We are giving spiritual nourishment to the people so they are at least they have that hope that grounded in the Bible. We have one lady who when we had visited her that she had gone to a church that had rejected her because she had AIDS. Then we had some people who when they went to the church, they were told “now that you are going to die, you are want to burden us with your expenses?” They were basically rejected from the church. So when we read the other lady with the good news, she is able to start to make her relationship right with God. She said that she had totally turned her back on God. She didn’t know why God had brought AIDS into her life. Through that we are able to help in a small way to make those right relationships with God.

When children end up to one degree or another on the street, in places like Kibera, how do they provide for themselves as far as food, shelter and clothing?

Right across from Kibera, it is all surrounded by middle class housing. Most of the kids from Kibera, will go to scavenge in those areas. We have hundreds from Kibera who go scavenge in a nearby market. Then off course we have those who do child labor. You will find them on the streets selling nuts, roasting maze or just hawking goods all over the place just to make an income. In Kenya, we do not have a welfare system so if you don’t go out to work, you will stay hungry.

Do you see the church having an impact on the morality of young adults?

We see the church having a great impact in there. If you go to the internet, you will find across 3000 sites dealing with Kibera. The other day I came across a PCA church that is doing AIDS work. Some of the medicine that is being researched is being tested on some of the prostitutes. A lot of place bring condoms into the place. But the people in Kenya will not been seen getting a condom so they go at night to get it when no one will see them.

In December this year, our church, we had a small youth retreat—for 4 days with 5 young people. The best message that they remember is purity. They are seeing their friends die of AIDS (as early as age 17 years suffering). We believe that God will use these small beginnings so that they will remain pure and faithful until they are married.

You mentioned the 5 young people, that was at a Christian camp, right?

Yes, our church organized it at a Christian camp. We have a youth ministry targeting the young people in the are of Kibera that we are in. Mostly they have been concentrating in the area of sports but we are going to branch out into other areas so that we have a well rounded ministry—go into vocational and education and as a church we can ground them in the scripture at an early age.

How are you trying to teach young people about marriage, especially in an environment where so many marriages are broken down but promiscuity and AIDS? How is the church approaching that problem?

The way we are approaching is from a very strong emphasis of teach the scripture because they can get their foundation in scripture at a very young age. We have a lot of hope as a church in the future. They have their own youth group where they meet on Saturday and then also on Wednesday evening. On Saturday, they talk about areas where they are able to talk about areas that they are shy to ask questions about in an adult setting. We have a young man, age 23, named John Mandu who specifically is able to help them with that. He is also in charge of the sports ministry. We are giving him some training in theology so that he can pass it on to the children. He grew up in Kibera himself. Been there since 1982. His mother was a single mother and there are 7 kids in the family. He is about to lose one sister by AIDS. He was sponsored for his education in primary and 2 years in secondary by a lady in the states. Then something happened with the organization that was sponsoring him and he was no longer able to be sponsored. So, after 7 years of working and doing then coming to the Lord, he was able to get in touch with that lady through one of the Interns (Cindy) in Kenya last year with the lady who sponsored him. She is 87 years old and was so happy to get in touch with him. He is talented in art. We hope to get him into a college so that he can get training in professional art.

Thank you, Imbumi.

Imbumi Makuku is the founding pastor of the Kibera Reformed Presbterian Church, serving the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. This interview was originally published in the Spring 2003 edition of the StreetChild newsletter.