More New Students

Our school is also growing bigger by the day. It’s great to see so many people coming to the gate asking if they can enroll their children. On This week we welcomed four new students. 

The kids greeting their new friends.

Ashley is quiet and reserved, but is adjusting well to being in school. 

Her younger sister Grace has the exact opposite personality. She is a sassy little girl who loves being the center of attention. 

Yusu is a sweet little boy who loves playing on the swings. He is bright and has never been in school and is catching up to the other kids quickly. 

Melody is quiet and shy, but enjoys being in school. I met her a few years ago when she would come with her mother to a bible study we were doing in town. Then she was so small and terrified of me, but now she makes sure she comes up and says hi to me every morning. 

We are blessed to have more new faces showing up everyday. We are glad that God is expanding our school and are looking forward to what He has  planned for us in the future. 

Updates on Ida's Family

 After staying at the hospital for a week Ida’s wounds on her feet were healed and she was able to gain enough strength to go home. We moved her out of Kipsongo and into a house closer to us and near two of our staff members so that they can keep an eye on her and let us know if there are any problems. Her mom came to stay with her a for a few weeks to help her cook and clean and do things around the house before she goes back home. 

Ida is now doing great. It’s encouraging to see how much improvement she has made in such a short time. It’s almost like she is a completely different person from the first day I met her. Now that she is out of Kispongo, and seems excited to be able to start changing her life. Her body is still weak, but her spirits are up because now God has given her the hope that she needed to take initiative to start working to improve her life. Ida said that she is blessed to still have Selina and is taking good care of her.  She was also telling me the other day that God saw her pain and came to her rescue. 

Selina is doing well. She is such a sweet little girl. Every time she sees me coming she starts running and gives me a big hug. It’s great to see how she went from such a sad, quiet little girl on the first days we met her, to now being so full of joy. 

We took Alex to go visit his family and they were happy to see that he is growing up, doing well in school and being well cared for.

Selina and Alex

Alex and Ida

Stephanie

This blog has been a hard one for me to write. I’ve started and stopped so many times and can’t seem to find the right words. Nobody wants to read a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s worse when that story is real.  When you pray for God to increase your faith, you forget that our faith grows through trials. Meeting Stephanie and taking her to the house was a trial. Praying and pleading with God to reveal what our next step was and deciding to take her to stay with her grandmother was another trial. 

I thought that the trials were over after that. That after that would come the easy part where we bring her food, take her to the doctor when she is sick and get to watch her improve and get healthy. God had another plan. Stephanie went to be with the Lord five days after we took her to her grandmother's house. This trial is still the hardest because the doubts creep in. Did we make the right choice? Did I take the easy way out? Would she still be alive if she stayed here with us?

The answers to these questions only God knows. I am trying to rest in the fact that we were able to provide Stephanie with a few good days on this earth with food in her belly, clean clothes, a warm bed and loving arms to hold her before she went to be with God forever in paradise. 

There’s a line from a song called “If You Want Me To” that says, “You never said this would be easy, you only said I’d never go alone.” That keeps popping up in my mind. Things aren’t easy, but we are never alone. To me that doesn’t mean that God is just silently standing beside us. He is playing an active role. He’s guiding us, even when it seems like we are going the wrong way. Even when tragedy strikes, God is still at work. Romans 8:28 says “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Remember that when everything in your life seems to be spiraling out of control, God has His own less chaotic spiral that is causing everything to work out in your favor. God calls us on his path and he is with us through the winding roads of our life on this earth. I was blessed to have had Stephanie in my life even for such a short time and am thankful for how big of an impact she had on my life. 

New Students!

Sorry for the long break in blog updates. We’ve had a crazy few weeks. More updates to come soon, this is just the beginning. The school is back in session and doing well. Our new students are settling in and we are blessed to have more students keep coming in. 

The Kindergarteners hard at work. 

Baby class

Silly Daville

Sammy loves playing with his tires

John and Caleb on the swings.

Sweet Rael

We made a separate room that is set up for teaching students that need more individualized instruction. We pull the kids out one by one so that they can have some time to learn at their own pace and focus on grasping a few important concepts at a time. Out of our 25 students we have 8 that we pull out for individualized instruction. Here are some pictures of some of the kids hard at work in our new classroom. 

Rael working with touch and feel letters.

Cyril is still working on stacking blocks.
She gets frustrated easily so we are starting off with easy tasks.

Julie loves her puzzles.

Willy working on his colors and matching.

Augstus had been staying with us for the month of April because when school closes he has no place to go. He’s such a great kid with a very big heart. Without being asked he dives right in and changes diapers if he sees one of the kids is wet, he helps at feeding time, he breaks up little squabbles between the kids and always is so full of joy no matter what he is doing. He went back to school for a week when I got a call that he was sick. He has an umbilical hernia that has been causing him to have some stomach pain. I took him home from school for the weekend before he had to go to the doctor. He needs a special diet, a bunch of small meals throughout the day, which is hard to provide in the boarding school environment. So we decided to move him into the house. Now he is going to Milimani Primary with Lillian. They go to school in the morning and then come home for lunch. We are glad to have him here for good. The doctor said that if with this diet, he still has pain that he may need an operation so please keep him in your prayers. 

Sammy was living with Leila’s kids and his dad came to take him home for Christmas and never brought him back. We went to visit him a few weeks ago and found him in bad shape. He was skinny and dirty and just sitting at his house by himself. So we talked to his father and moved him back to Leila’s house. He is now coming to school at our house and he loves it. We also found out this week that he has an inguinal hernia. The doctor gave us some medicine to help and we go back in a week to see if he needs an operation to have it removed. We are praying that the medication works and that he doesn’t have to have surgery. 

Last year, Julie stayed with us at the house for a week and then we had to bring her back because at the time she was not a good fit for the house. She was too aggressive and would hit the other kids, and many of them can’t even defend themselves. Since then I’ve visited Julie monthly to make sure that she is doing well and to make sure that she has her epilepsy medication. Most of the time I find her at home by herself during the day. It’s dangerous here to leave a girl like Julie, who is unable to talk at home alone because people can easily take advantage of her. So now she is coming to school at the house. Her mother drops her off in the morning before she goes to work and then comes to pick her up afterward. She is doing great in school and is getting along great with the other children. We are excited to have her here and see how she improves. 

Julie just hanging out after school.