Serious Thoughts from Taylor (gasp!)

``Alright everyone, get ready, I'm about to be serious for once.  Don't worry, I'll get back to silliness with the next
post.

On Wednesday June 17 2009, I met possibly the greatest person since Ghandi.  Coming from me, that is an amazing compliment.
Ghandi is a personal hero of mine.  His ideas of nonviolence in order to achieve your goals is amazing.  Because of him, India
achieved its independance from Great Britain.  And all he did was tell his people "Don't fight back, no matter what they do.
Let them beat you, imprison you, insult you, even kill you.  Just don't fight back and we will win."  And it worked.  That blows my
mind.  Ghandi took his anger at the injustices that were occuring in British India and instead of doing what normal people would do,
he refocused it on making a real change.  He also made permenant changes to the Hindu religion, one of the oldest religion on earth.
He basically got rid of the caste system, which is pretty much a form of slavery for the lower castes.

Anyways, the point is, Ghandi is the greatest person in history.

Joshua Mbithi is now, in my opinion, #2.  Actually, it's a fact.

Joshua is the founder of the Neema House, which is basically an orphanage for children who are HIV exposed or positive.
4 years ago when the youth went to Kenya the first time, Ellen DH donated the money that was raised at a garage sale to him.
That money paid for him to get started.  Now he has farming areas, a temporary school (he his getting ready to build the real school),
and a house for them to stay.  We went to the school and met the children before we saw Joshua because he was running errands.

They are some of the happiest children I have ever met.  Many of them would run up to us and jump into our arms.  At one point 7
kids climbed on me at once.  Playing with the kids was inspirational but comparing it to talking to Joshua is like comparing a 5$ cheeseburger
with a 40$ steak.

Joshua returned from his errands and we went into his house and he told us his story.  Joshua is a very religious man.  He has more faith
than anyone else that I have ever heard of.  He used to live with a group of teenagers.  They were pretty rebelious so when he
would try to get them together as a family to pray, they said no.  He tried many times, until finally he said that they could have
all there time to themselves except for half an hour a day that they had to spend together as a family.  This transformed them
and they all grew together into the family he wanted.  Joshua is big on family.  He told us that he really makes a point  to have
the kids he works with feel like a family.  They call each other brothers and sisters.

After those teens moved on.  He set his sights on children who had HIV.  The problem was money.  Joshua was never worried because he said
that if he was supposed to help these kids that God would provide.   He has never asked for any sort of help.  Good things just happen.
He had no money to start and our church paid for it.  He was able to buy property and build a house.  Another time they ran out of everything.
A truck came and gave them plenty of supplies for an entire month.  They said that it had every possible thing they could have needed.  That just happened.
A 5 year old boy who came with his family to Africa visited Neema House.  When he went home he saw all of his toys and said "I have toys, they don't have toys,
I want to give them my toys."  So they gave them all of his toys.  Then he said, "They don't  have a slide"  So they sent his slide.  All that was amazing.  I mean the kid was 5.
But after all of that, he said "I have a play set, they don't have a play set.  I want to give them my play set."  So he sent an entire playground over to Neema House.
they sent the set, cement and men to put it in.  And now they have a fantastic playground.  That just happened.

When one of the kids is sick, Joshua will stay up the entire night with them.  Or if they are in the hospital he will call every hour to check on how they
are doing.  To him these kids are everything.

Going to see Joshua has made me decide many things.  That I have to return to Kenya to help him out in everyway I can.  That I want to be as much like him as
I can.  And most importantly, anything is possible as long as you believe that what you are doing is right.  That may sound corny, and normally I would get angry
at something corny, but this is the one time that that wasn't corny.  That was completely genuine.  I have never felt this strongly about anything in my entire
life.

Joshua Mbithi made Taylor Archibald write something that was not basically a joke.  That just happened.