THEGIVINGCOOKIE
Beginnings Katie Pearce Founder The pungent smell in this place was different than anything I’d ever experienced and, although I was starting to get used to it, I still had to resist the urge to cover my nose. I watched the group of young boys in the muddy, unpaved street use a Coke can as a soccer ball, as I slipped into the back seat of the RAV4 SUV we had spent so much time in this past week. I was ready to go home, but I knew that I would be changed forever by the things I’d experienced in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. The orphans I had met would always have a place in my heart. The men and women who had dedicated their lives to helping these children would forever have a place of honor in my mind. The sights and smells and sounds of poverty would urge me forward in my efforts. This was where our foster daughter had spent a large portion of her time after fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo. Before she boarded the plane on Christmas Eve several years ago, very sick and pregnant, she lived in a dilapidated, corrugated tin house, just like the ones that passed through my view as we drove away from the slums. I felt relief that she and her sweet little baby were now safe in the United States going to school, learning, and working, never to smell this scent again. We stopped at an intersection and a big bus rolled up beside us. I looked up from my backseat window and saw a little face in one of its windows. I could only see her big, dark-brown eyes peering through the glass, but they looked sad and empty. I gave her the biggest smile I could muster and tried to say in my smile that she was beautiful and that even in this hard place, there was hope and somehow, everything 10 SEARCHSOUTHAURORA | NOVEMBER 2020
