Just a few pictures from the week

We've had a busy week showing the new team around Kitale. It was great to see new people fall in love with the place and people that I also love so much. Here are a few pictures from the places we went to this week. 

Moses, who lives at Sister Freda's.

Allan, Marvelous, and Stella, plus a few extra at Purpose Driven Academy.
I just can't get enough of these kids

Hanging out with Phillip and Kevo at Discover to Recover.

Sweet Elizabeth goes to Oasis of Hope every day and on her way home comes and sits outside of our compound waiting to greet us at the end of the day.

Life on the Streets

Kitale is a beautiful place. Everything is so green at this time of year. The sky is clear and beautiful and the rain brings beautiful clouds that roll through everyday. At night the stars are bright and I have never seen them look any clearer. Despite all the beauty that is around me there is also constant pain. The thing that breaks my heart the most is when I see children dealing with pain that is way beyond their years. 

There are so many children that we encounter daily as we walk through town. These children leave their homes and travel very far because they imagine that life is better in Kitale town than it is in their home. Many of these children leave home because there isn’t enough food, some leave because they live in abusive home and others have no one left to take care of them so they set off to find a place where they can try to take care of themselves. 

As you can imagine life on the streets is incredibly tough.  Everyone living on the streets is fighting for survival. These children have little food, so they result to sniffing glue to dull their hunger, help them feel warm and help them forget the emotional pain that comes with living on the streets. At night, if you drive through town you see people sleeping under any place where they will be able to stay dry if the rains come at night. Despite the fact that this is Africa, the weather still drops down to somewhere between the low 60’s or high 50’s during the rainy season. These children have nothing but the clothes on their backs, but still manage to put smiles on their faces when they see us in town.

Luckily there are places like Oasis of Hope that reach out to these kids in need by providing them with an informal education, a couple of meals a day and a chance to hear about God’s love. As we walk through town we show these kids as much love as possible and let them know that somebody cares about them. 

Me with Harmington at Oasis of Hope

Johnstone

A group of sweet smiling street boys in town

         

A double blog posting today. Starting next week the rest of the team will be arriving so we will have much more to do and I will only be able to do one post a week. So this week I am going to try to share as much as I can about what we are doing and how God is working through us as we love and serve the people in Kitale. 

During the weekend I went back to Purpose Driven Academy to show the kids support on Parent’s Day. We were only able to fit in a short visit, but it was great to spend more time with them. I am blessed to know these kids and be able to spend more time getting to know them. 

Smiling Stella and Junior

With Stella, Baby Marvelous and a few friends

Today I went back to Purpose Driven Academy to talk to Margaret about a few things. We got to talking and decided that Baby Marvelous needed to be tested for HIV/AIDS. I went to her class to pick her up and all of the sweet little babies were sleeping on the floor. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. After we woke her up we brought her into the testing center that is located at the school. We went into the back room and the lady pricked her finger to take her blood. She didn’t cry at all and sat there the whole time just snuggled up against me. We sat quietly as we waited for the tests to produce results. That may have been the longest five minutes of my entire life. After the wait it was a great relief and a gift from God that she tested negative. It amazes me how God has protected these children. 

All of the sweet babies napping. Marvelous is front and center. 

Baby Marvelous

Discover to Recover

On Saturday we had the chance to go back to one of my favorite places in all of Kitale. Discover to Recover is a center where children who are effected by HIV/AIDS can live and be supported. There are about 50 children who live at the center. About half of them are infected with HIV/AIDS  and many of the others are orphaned or unable to be cared for due to the effects that HIV/AIDS  has had on their families. These children are some of my favorites and I absolutely love spending time with them. It felt so great to be greeted with great big hugs and ear to ear smiles when I saw all of them. They all have grown so much since the last time I saw them. Here are a few pictures with a few of the kids. 

Me with Silvia, one of the sweetest twelve year old girls I've ever met. 

Here I am with Derek, Churchill and Benja, some of the youngest boys at the center. 

Leila came to Discover with us this week, she is my very best friend in Kenya. She has the biggest heart and a huge passion for helping the children who she sees daily who are in desperate need of some sort of support and help. Two years ago, I got to watch her become a Christian and it is great to see how much her life has changed. Currently she volunteers her time at Oasis of Hope and loves on the many street kids who come to the center daily for school. I am looking forward to getting to spend more time with her. If she could, she would grab up every child she found that needed a home and care for them. She also has a huge passion for the children of Discover to Recover and I am looking forward to serving with her and learning from her during the time I am here.

Here is Leila with Kevin, one of the newest arrivals to the Discover to Recover Center. 

The orphanage where he was living closed and he was brought to the center in the middle of the night and dropped off. 

Now he is in a good place where he can get the love and care that he needs. 

It's great to be back!

After many long hours of flights and layovers, I finally made it back to Kitale. It’s so great to be back here. It’s been a great first few days of settling in, getting to know the team that been here for a few months, and preparing for the new incoming team.

Ever since our plane touched the ground I couldn’t wait to get back to Purpose Driven Academy and see Junior, Stella and Allan. We got there when all the students were in class and the head teacher went to go get the boys out of their classroom so that we could greet them. Allan was his normal shy, quiet self but still looked happy to see us. Junior is normally very happy and energetic, but was very reserved and didn’t smile once. We didn’t have anyone with us to translate to help find out what was wrong, so we walked him back to the class.

While we were waiting for our ride to come pick us we were playing with the little preschoolers. There was a tiny little girl with a huge smile on her face wandering up to me. I picked her up instantly because she was so adorable and looked way to small to be in school. Margaret Wanyoni showed up a couple minutes later and I greeted her and asked how the kids were doing. She asked me if I had seen Baby Marvelous, who we met last year when we went to visit the kid’s mother in Endebes. Margaret pointed her out and she was the same little baby girl that I had just been playing with. Then she went on to explain that she had taken Marvelous to the school because her mother is not doing well. Junior has been sad because he knows that his mother is sick if the baby is no longer in the home. It was not as happy of a reunion as I would have hoped for, but it was great to see them all. The last time I saw Baby Marvelous she was so skinny, starving and didn’t smile once the whole time I was with her. This time she looked healthy and happy. I look forward to visiting the mother in her home and seeing if there is any way that we can help her. I also look forward to spending more time with the kids and giving them all the love and support that I can.

Me with Junior and Allan

Sweet little Baby Marvelous