Communion.

It was one of those rainy, miserable days in Nairobi. Since I had skipped morning Mass at Hekima College, the Jesuit school of theology where I was studying, I had to get out my umbrella and walk to Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, near Adams Arcade, on the edge of the Kibera slums. I had more on my mind than the drizzle and the sporadic lightning. I felt the weight of all the papers I still had to write--on the sacraments, on social justice, on canon law. I thought about the dreaded four-teacher panel I would face at the end of my studies. Would I be ordained? Should I present myself for ordination? The child-molestation scandal had just broken in Boston, and I had been too ashamed to reply to e-mails from family and friends asking about it. The small community of Jesuits I lived in had seemingly endless, niggling problems, and the thought of sitting down together later that evening to talk about who was not cleaning up after snacks or who was monopolizing our communal cars only added to my stress.

As I walked toward Ngong Road, the drizzle gave way to driving rain. Clad in winter clothes, I was warm enough for the ten-minute walk to church. Now I pulled my huge multicolored umbrella closer to my head to shield myself from the wind.

On the premises of Guadalupe, under the eaves of the wooden kiosk where sacramentals were sold on Sundays, were two children.

"Broder, money!" one said to me.

"No money," I said.

"Shilling, kwa bread," the other insisted, touching his stomach.

I ignored them. I knew they were part of the gang of street kids that hung around Adams Arcade. I was sure they had recognized me, as they did most of the seminarians. They were no more than seven or eight years old. Their hair was wild, and beads of water sat on them like morning dew. They were barefoot, in shorts, and their wet T-shirts stuck to their bloated stomachs. They squatted side by side, each rubbing his palms together as if praying to some god of warmth. Their eyes, hard and calculating, took in the few people arriving for Mass: civil servants, slum-dwellers, traders, reverend sisters.