Saturday, October 29, 2011

BIG smiles! 
It’s been a bit of a crazy week, but this morning I made it out to Purpose Driven Academy to check on the new kids I took there last week. I walked onto the campus and  saw sweet Augustus running towards me. He gave me a huge hug and running behind him was Franco. They were so happy and smiling. When I took Franco the staff seemed worried about how he would fit in as such a young boarding student. He is doing great and him and Augustus are getting along great, which is awesome because Augustus can help keep an eye on him. I ran into the office to talk to the teachers for a little bit and when I came back Augustus had Franco on his back and was running around the schoolyard and they were both giggling. I am glad that they are doing well and adjusting to their new home. 

Friday, October 28, 2011

Thank you all for your prayers. It is amazing what God can do when we take the time to remember to ask him. Brian is doing much better than he was yesterday. The first night he stayed at the hospital was with his father, who the nurses told me doesn't quite know how to handle a child like Brian. They told me that he didn't sleep the whole first night and cried all night and most of the day. So when we saw him in the morning he looked worse because the poor little guy was just tired. They did the lumbar puncture yesterday and he is a little sore, but it went well. They started him on his medicine today, so pray that it continues to do its job. It is a long process and not something that will go away quickly, but he will start feeling so much better once the medicine starts working. Brian will have to be on the medication for sixth months. Pray for the medicine to have a quick effect. The doctor is keeping him in the hospital for a few more days for observation, but after that he can go back home to be with the other kids. I love this kid more and more each day as his little personality comes out. He loves making silly faces so I have a ridiculous amount of pictures of him... enjoy!
Hanging out with Brian, John and Martin
Brian loves Bella
Emily and Brian

Me with Bella and Brian
Silly face... probably trying to eat the camera
because one of the kids has it  so close to his face. 

Brian's face right before the tears come.
Usually because he's not getting his way. 
Pretending to be sad, but letting the smile creep in a little.

Thanks again for all your prayers. God bless!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

We need your prayers here in Kitale this week. Brian has been sick on and off since we took him and all of the doctors in town had not been able to figure out what is wrong with him. Two days ago, it got really bad and he was admitted to a hospital in town. 
When we first took him his father, Masai, gave us about two weeks worth of medicine for him. When it ran out we asked him if we needed to get more or if he would be alright without it. Masai told us if we wanted to give it to him we could and if we didn’t want to we didn’t have to. So we looked in town for the medicine and none of the pharmacies had it and Masai didn’t seem like it was urgent so we stopped looking. Today we found out that the medicine was to treat Tuberculosis. It was supposed to be given for six months, but it was stopped after about four months. So when they test for TB it doesn’t show up, which is why no doctor could figure out what was wrong with him and why he wasn’t getting better after the other medicines we were trying. 
Since the TB has gone untreated for so long its really bad and Brian keeps getting weaker. They are going to do a lumbar puncture to drain some of the fluid in his spine. If that doesn’t help him improve then they are going to start him on the medicine again. The only problem with that, is because it was stopped early last time he may be resistant to it. Please pray for healing and a rapid recovery for Brian and that God will bring this sweet little smile back to his face. 

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Grace

I blogged a little about Grace last week. She lives in Kipsongo slum, is HIV+, has TB, is only eighteen and has no one to take proper care of her. She has been unable to walk for two months because she is so weak and she can barely talk. She is literally skin and bones and you can see all the pain she feels written all over her face. The instant we saw her our hearts broke and we knew that there had to be a way to help her get back on her feet, but how.  We went back last week to see how she was doing and her brother told us that he had taken her to the district hospital to be treated. He told us that they had placed her in ward 7, which is where the people with the most severe cases are taken. 
District Hospital is heartbreaking in itself. It is a government run hospital and at times it seems like the staff doesn’t care for their patients at all. We went and found Grace and she was lying in a broken bed looking even worse than she did when we first saw her. The other women in the room were sleeping two in a twin sized bed and looked almost as bad as Grace. One woman told us that if we didn’t get her help that she was going to die, and that only God can help her at this point. She had been there for nearly a week and no one had come to visit her. We knew that she couldn't get adequate care at District Hospital so we found Grace another option.
We got her discharged and took her to another hospital today. It is called Cherangany Nursing Home and we are hoping that there she can get the care she needs. She has her own bed, the hospital is clean and they will actually treat her there. It is a little expensive, but now she will have good meals so she can take her ARV’s and other medicine so that she can start getting healthy and strong again. Thank you to all who decided to support Grace and show her God’s love through your gifts. I will keep you all posted on her progress and please remember to keep her in your prayers this week. 

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Sammy's doing great! It was really hard to get a picture of him when he wasn't crying at first because he was a little scared of the camera being pointed at him. Now he is doing great and running around the yard playing with all the other kids. Special thanks to all of you who prayed and supported Sammy!
He's getting better at walking every day.
Soon he'll be running around with everyone else. 
Playing Peek-a-boo

He wore this hat all morning.

Even when he was drinking his porridge. 
This week was a busy one, but a good one. I went to Purpose Driven Academy on Thursday and sat and talked to Margaret Wanyoni, the head teacher for a while. She was telling me about their theme for this term, which is Psalm 102:17. It says, “He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea.” They decided to put this verse into action and use it as a pathway to step out and help the community around them. The school decided to take one child in every class at the school (Preschool through Highschool) that comes from the slums in the area and currently does not have the opportunity to come to school. The class is raising the money to pay the student’s entrance fees and the school is covering the rest. They only needed the initial things: soap, clothes, uniform, bed, sheets and other personal items to get started. Margaret knows that I spend a lot of time in Shimo, so she asked if I could find some kids to fill the open spots before the term ends next month. She asked me to find a second grader and a preschooler that were not in school. It is encouraging because many of the students at the school are needy themselves and they are reaching out as a whole to help those around them who are needy. I’m sure that most of the kids that the school helped would have never had the chance to get a real education.

The dorms where the boarder at the school stay
The first kid that jumped into my mind when Margaret told me this was Augustus. He is a total orphan who is living with his aunt in Shimo. He went to Oasis daily, so we knew that he would be able to make it and fit in perfectly in second grade. So we went down and talked to Gladys and she agreed that he could go to school and he will come back and live at home during the breaks. Augustus was so excited and is doing great. He is making friends already and has been hanging out with Junior, Allan and Hillary.

So happy to be heading to school!
The next child, who is the most in need, that came to mind was Franco.  Not only will he get the chance to go to school, but he will also get 3 good meals a day. He can finally get to a healthy weight and it relieves a little pressure on his family. This is a little off topic, but his family is doing great. They moved to a new house and Patrick has been working so the family now has some source of steady income. I think that the situation with the children’s officer scared them enough to get their acts together. That was not exactly what we had intended, but its a good thing for the family and the kids. Franco will get to go home when school closes and spend time with his family. 
Franco getting his new school shoes.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

This week we went into a slum called Kipsongo. It is the area in town where the Turkana people live together in Kitale. It is one of the most impoverished slums in town. People live in huts made of trash, clothing or whatever materials they can find and can’t afford to feed or care for themselves or their families. 



Alex and Stacy who both live at the baby home are from Kipsongo. We tried  to find Alex’s mother and see how she was doing. She was nowhere to be found, her phone has been off for about a week and their hut is completely gone. She is HIV+ and had been telling us that she was getting sicker and asking us to take Alex’s little sister. We told some people to tell her to give us a call so hopefully we will hear from her soon. Stacy’s home was locked and the neighbors said that her parents were in town so we didn’t get to talk to them either. Praise God that they were able to get out of Kipsongo and into a home where they can be safe, healthy and well taken care of. 
Stacy
Stacy's old house

Alex

While we were passing through we ran into several people who told us about a girl that was sick. We got to the house and found her brother sitting outside. He told us that her name was Grace and she is eighteen years old. She is HIV+ and has been so sick with TB that she can no longer walk. She is taken monthly to the district hospital to get ARV’s, but since she has no food they only make her feel sicker. The minute we saw her, our hearts broke. She reminded us of Salome, Emily’s mother, who passed away a few months ago. We are praying that God opens doors and provides ways for us to help her improve her situation. 
Grace
The devastation in Kipsongo is heartbreaking. Here are some other pictures we took on our short little visit there. 












I had heard about a school in Endebes that catered to the needs of kids with physical and mental disabilities and today I finally had the chance to visit the school and check things out. We met with the man who is the head teacher of the children with disabilities. He told us that they have 27 students in all that attend at the school and also board there. 
Some of the classrooms. 
The dorms where the children with disabilities live.

Another shot of the dorms.
All of the children have some sort of physical disability, but not all of them have mental disabilities. It was encouraging to see a school that includes children with disabilities, but there is still a lot of progress that can be made. The children with disabilities are included in the classroom with their typically developing peers. Those who can keep up with the rest of the class do and the ones who struggle are just left behind. The head teacher showed me the workbook of one of the students, Pauline, and said she just sits here and scribbles all day. 
Pauline
The class sizes at this school are pretty big and there is not room in the budget to give these kids more one on one help that they could benefit from. We got to walk through a few of the classrooms and meet a few of the kids. 

Baraca, which means blessing, with his classmates





Me greeting the students in fourth grade


Even those this children are included they are still stigmatized. The head teacher pointed out every student who has a disability in each class that we went into. He even asked these two girls to get out of their seats and into their wheelchairs and they were not happy about being singled out. 


Keep these children and other's like them living all over Kenya, who aren't lucky enough to attend school in your prayers. They also had some interesting HIV/AIDS awareness signs posted all over this elementary school. Enjoy!