Today we visited our Christian School in the Dagoretti Slums. The kids know us very well now and express great joy whenever we come. As we walk through the gate we are mobbed by hundreds of kids who want to give us “high-fives”. We made a special effort to visit them today because tomorrow our sports teams will officially begin a new year of competition. They knew we were coming with new soccer balls and volleyballs; theirs were in very poor shape. Our slum school is number one in soccer and volleyball out of the 23 schools in the Dagoretti School District. They are very strong kids and I know that one of the main reasons for this is that we have been feeding them breakfast and lunch throughout their years at the school.
We spent a wonderful hour with the teachers while the kids were eating lunch. The 14 teachers in our school are all volunteers. They are teachers who are waiting for jobs within the Kenya School System, but there are many more teachers than jobs. Most of our teachers have been waiting 5 years or more. They are working for us to keep sharp and because they want to serve the Lord in a practical way. From time to time we try to bring them some money, so today we gave each of them 5000 Schillings (about $55). Might not sound like much to you but believe me they were enormously blessed. Afterward I felt lead to ask the teachers what supplies they needed in their classroom. They were a little shy at first but then the floodgates opened up. We ended up making a shopping list of 12 essential things they needed; composition books, poster board, chalk and erasers, printing paper, geometrical kits, pencils and pens, crayons and modeling clay and on and on. Talk about “making bricks without straw”, they didn’t have any of this. The kids were actually doing their math on the backs of used paper. When we come back in two weeks I intend to have all these things for them, one way or the other. I’d appreciate any donations to help us buy this stuff! It’ll cost about $500.
THE FRUIT OF OUR LABORS:
The highlight of the day was meeting a young man named Josphat. Josphat is a kid from the Lenana Slums. He started in the 3rd grade at our School in 2005. He left in 2010 and went to a high school 300 kilometers from home. He graduated from high school this year with a B average and came back to Lenana to volunteer to help the kids with their studies. He told us he wanted to “give back” to the school, because he was given so much there. He has now been accepted into a teachers college and is determined to become a teacher. He is literally one of the “first fruits” of our ministry. It is a very rare thing for a slum kid to graduate from college, but we all believe that we are going to see many of our kids get that opportunity in the future. When you are poor, the only way you can go to college is to have exceptional grades, or to excel in sports. Our little slum school is doing very well in both of those categories. Thank you so much for your ongoing support of our feeding programs and of this vital ministry to impoverished children.
Tonight our Worldcomp team prepared a sumptuous meal for the Northwest University Team before their flight back to America. But they were caught in a traffic jam for over 3 hours and only were able to be with us for 10 minutes of prayer and goodbyes. We did however have a few minutes to tell each other how much we appreciate and love each other. The team of nurses were just wonderful and together we served thousands of needy people in the last 30 days. God bless them as they travel.
Tomorrow Valerie and I will fly to Mombasa for a few days of rest, we are both very tired. We will also visit Kathy Pryor on the WYAM base in Likoni. Bless you all dear friends. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.
