Sunday 18 March 2012

Reunions and Goodbyes

My last morning in Kisumu before the afternoon plane home could only really be spent at Kibos church.

Nicky and I enjoyed breakfast together at Sunset, before Anton came to pick us up. I packed my case, paid my bills and wished goodbye to the staff.

I have been coming to Sunset Hotel, overlooking Lake Victoria for 8 or 9 of the last 11 years since I first came. It has become a familiar second home. The staff greet me warmly by name “Hi Tim, How are you?” is asked of me at least two or three times a day and I have to say that I enjoy this familiarity.

I also enjoy the gardens and the birdlife. It is a place to think and to be at peace. It is an open air office for meetings and rich in illustrations for a budding preacher. This morning as Nicky and I sat waiting to be picked up a chameleon scuttled up and down the tree in front of us, a beautiful shining blue, the colour of the jacaranda flowers in the branches high above.

We had arranged to be picked up at 10:00.

Sure enough, on the dot of 10:35 Anton arrived. It was market day and the traffic was slow on the roads around Kondele. I loaded my case into the dusty boot of the Toyota and we headed for Kibos.
This has been my church ever since we built it in 2002.
I can remember standing on the land as the timber frames were erected and the poles sunk into the ground, to be covered in concrete.

We had no idea if we would find a congregation amongst the varied houses and compounds that make up our village, just outside Kibos on the outskirts of Kisumu.

But today the church is flourishing. I guess we could do with some more seats and benches really, but we always seem to cram people into the available seats. The space at the back where we don’t have chairs, well that’s used for dancing.

As we pulled up at Kibos Anton let us out of the car at the house so that we could walk the hundred yards or so to the church.

I heard Nicky squeal with delight and turned round to see a real sight for sore eyes. Maynard, his wife Carolyn and their two 6 month old twin girls had just arrived on a couple of boda boda’s (obviously the children were being carried by their parents – although I have seen worse on Kisumu’s streets!)

We were thrilled to see them.

Maynard was in the very first group of boys we took in from the streets almost 10 years ago. He lived with Moses and Tatu at Kibos, progressing through school, before finding his independence. He now works with the Matatu’s, that ply their trade on Kisumu’s roads

We walked with Maynard and Carolyn to the church, where Moses was doing bible teaching.

Kenya church starts at 8 with prayer. Bible teaching from 9 until 10:30, then praise and worship for as long as it takes. The preacher usually comes on after 12 and often wont finish until well after 1pm. It’s a commitment that increasing numbers are staying all the way through.

Moses is a really talented worship leader. There is a small worship group in the church, with varying talents, and they provide backing and harmony to the songs. Isaiah tapped away on the keyboard, before Anton came on to play for the last couple of songs.

We sang and danced like it wasn’t 30 degrees and lost ourselves in wonder, praise and thanksgiving, the time just didn’t matter.



Then Moses invited me to preach the main message, which I happily did

I talked of Abraham, about his journey. About how God told him to leave the place he was and to walk with him. Abraham packed up his things and left. We are told that he camped between Bethel and Ai, between restoration and ruin, between the rubbish dump and the place of new life.

It was a picture of Abrahams prophetic destiny, brought about wholly be the grace of God. It also spoke to me of our vision, of our destiny, of our calling.

We are on a journey.

We made the choice, like Abraham, to step out and go when we were told. We haven’t reached the place of full restoration, that will come later when the least of these children will be first in the kingdom of heaven. But we, like Abraham, are now somewhere between Bethel and Ai, believing and trusting n God’s promises.

I thought back to my own promises, to Isaiah 58.

“I will be with you always. I will meet your needs in a sun scorched land”.

We are journeying, in the strength and by the grace of God.

In the great scheme of things, we have affected just a small number of lives here in Kisumu. But our boys are now spread out across Kenya, with children resettled in Mombasa on the east, Nairobi in the centre, Kitale and the Sudanese border in the north and of course Nyanza and Western province where we are concentrated,

Our first children are growing up and maybe, like Maynard, will soon have beautiful wives, husbands, children and families of their own.

I hope and pray that will be so, because I am a son of Abraham, an inheritor of God’s promises to him and like the stars in the sky I believe that our children will be so numerous they cannot be counted.

I felt so blessed today as I ate green grams and chapati’s in Kibos with Moses, Tatu, Maynard and Carolyn.

I was sad when it came time to depart for the airport for the short flight to Nairobi, clutching my gift from Moses of a CD of his debut album. I will play it when I get back to England. I will be happy to see my gorgeous family again, but sad to be leaving my beautiful Kenyan brothers and sisters and children and grand children too.

I fly to Amsterdam first thing in the morning, and then on to Manchester sometime tomorrow afternoon, but I hope to return in the late Autumn, when we are planning our music festival with the Isaiah Trust family.

Nicky has remained in Kisumu and will spend the next month there, visiting the children in the homes, in the schools and in their rural settlements, talking to them, encouraging them and planning their futures with them. She will soon be joined by Becky, then later by Hilary, Emma and Phil. I know that they are part of our family too, they share my love and passion and calling to this work.

May there forever be “Tumaini Mtaani” – Hope in the Streets.

Saturday 17 March 2012

One Big Family - The Next 10 Years

It was my last full day here today, before I jump on a plane back to England and to my gorgeous family.
Nicky and I had a meeting today with all of the people who work for the Trust in Kenya. It was the culmination of the week for me and a chance for us to reflect together on the things that have been achieved in the ten years that we have been working in Kisumu and the surrounding provinces.

It was also a time to share our vision and ambition for what we believe that God has put into our hearts for the next 10 years of the Trust’s work here.

The day started slowly.

Moses is an immensely talented musician, songwriter and worship leader and over the last few weeks he has got together with some musician friends to record his debut album at a small studio in Kisumu.

We have listened to it in the car on all of our journeys over the last few days. It is full of familiar songs, which we sing in church and in fellowship whenever we are here. They are not songs from a book, but songs written by Moses from a life’s experience as a pastor, a teacher and a worship leader.

On Thursday Moses received a phone call inviting him to be at Lake Victoria Radio at 10:00 this morning to talk about his album, his inspirations and his faith and for them to play a selection of songs from his album.

Lake Victoria Radio broadcast to Western Kenya, around the Lake Shore, from Southern Nyanza and the Tanzania border right across to Busia and the border with Uganda.

Moses was accompanied by Nicky and by Isaiah, one of the boys from Kibos who has recently graduated from high school. Isaiah loves music and has not come down from the adrenaline rush of talking on the radio. He is a minor celebrity around Kibos these days!

Moses media experience was over by 11:30 and we met on the terrace at Sunset with Paul James to continue where we left off yesterday, talking and sharing about the children in the various programs we run.

At 2pm the other workers arrived.

John, Anton, Boniface and Paul James talked, while Moses rushed off to run a couple of errands, before returning an hour (or two) later with Tatu and Verity, their 6 month old daughter.

This was a precious time for Nicky and I. A chance, together, to reflect on where the Trust has been and where we are going.

John has been with us since the early days of 2004. He knows what life is like on the streets, having faced hardship and tragedy in his youth. He is a quietly spoken man with a passion to help change the lives of young people help back by poverty.

Anton has also worked with the Trust since 2004. He is young, but more than willing to learn and happy to try his hand at anything he is asked to do.

Boniface is one of the biggest miracles of the last 10 years. A former dealer in marijuana and other drugs he was feared around the rubbish tip. He is now a reformed man. He has attended bible college for the last three years and currently acts as the pastor and leader of the fellowship in Kachok, under the watchful stewardship of Moses.

Paul James joined us just as we took the first boys from the streets. He was an itinerant teacher, offering home tuition in the estates around where we worked. Tatu met with him one day and suggested he come to work with some of our first street boys. His role has flourished since those days and he now runs the Trust’s smaller rehabilitation centre and home in Mamboleo. Along with Moses he is a Director of our local board.

We would not be talking about a work of 10 years without the passion and calling of Moses and Tatu. A husband and wife team wholly dedicated to changing the lives of street children. They have made their home a place of hope, where desperate children find love, compassion, stability and a new family life.

As we met, we went round each person in turn and asked everyone what they are most proud of over the last 10 years.

Each person talked of the transformation they had seen in the lives of different street children, the most desperate, the dirtiest, the most ragged, the ones that ran away the most frequently. Lives, for the most part, transformed by the grace and the love of God and the work of these men and women in His name.

We have had many successes, boys in training, those who have graduated high school, those who are now in college or considering new courses and options. There are many stories too of children who had gone through the program and who were now settled at home.

We can’t forget those we had not reached, or for whom the call of the streets was too great. Boys who entered one of our homes, but were not ready to accept the discipline needed to be part of a home or class in school.

For those boys we are sad and we hope and pray that another chance, at a different time, might find them in a more accepting place.

And so we turned to the future.

A call to work in the kingdom of God isn’t one that is for the short term. It is a lifetime’s work, a prophetic destiny, and one that finds fulfilment in the prayerful giving of time, thought and labour.

Nicky shared the scriptures she was blessed with when we began the work, from Isaiah 61,, she talked of a garment of praise replacing a spirit of despair, that sense of hopelessness from the streets replaced with thoughts of college and careers.

Nicky and I shared a picture from God when we began the work, of our hands bound around a fishing net dropped into the waters of a lake.

Moses shared that sometimes, if you use a drag net, you catch good fish, but you can also catch sharks and frogs.

We talked together about what we have learned through the successes and the failures we have had in the work so far. We agreed that there has been much that we need to celebrate, but also things that we need to change.

We need to fish smarter, to catch the ones that are ready for landing, to focus our efforts and our limited funds in the places where w will make a real difference.

We planned for new programs, one to one counselling, new outreach possibilities, new home reintegration programs and an annual “Festival of Music, Drama and Dance” for the whole of the Trust’s family wherever they might be, where all of the children in our care will camp at Kibos, mix, socialise and share, whilst enjoying music and drama.

We agreed that we don’t do enough of that sort of thing, bringing our family together to know each other better and to celebrate their achievements.

We resolved to do much more of it in the future.

Nicky had brought some wristbands that were made and donated to us back in England. We gave one to each of the workers.

The wristbands bear the legend "Tumaini Mtaani" - Hope in the Streets. It's the name of the program we began here amongst the rubbish tips and dusty streets of this city.

Our afternoon merged into the evening and we went to a small restaurant in Kisumu town to share a meal together.

God has blessed Nicky and I with a burden for this work and has brought together a group of people who share that vision and that burden.

I hope there will be many more trips like this one, much more hope on the streets of Kisumu.

Friday 16 March 2012

It could be a year, perhaps more. Or less.

It has been another warm and sunny day in Kisumu. Temperatures reached into the 30’s and the humidity is rising as the rainy season approaches. Soon clouds will form over the hills surrounding the lake basin and thunder storms will flash in the night skies.

We are in the build up to the “long rains”, a season which lasts from the end of March to May. Much of the farming success of Western Kenya is dependent upon these rains to germinate the newly planted crops. It is also when the grass is longest and lushest in the nearby game parks and animal concentrations are at their peak, with many new births providing rich pickings for hungry hunters.

Nicky arrived last night on the evening Easycoach bus from Nairobi, after a long and bumpy journey. The road is being diverted from its regular direct route, to account for major roadworks along the Nairobi – Kisumu highway. Instead of the usual 4 hours the coach took almost 8, arriving into Kisumu at 6:45 last night.

We planned to have a less strenuous, though no less important day, sat talking with Moses and Paul James about the programs we are running and about the children in our care.

We arranged to meet at 10:30.

Sure enough, on the dot of 11:00 Moses texted to say that the vehicle was being worked on and that they were running a little late. On our way back from the farm yesterday we had a puncture and had to change one of the front tyres by the roadside in the dark. Moses spare tyre was an inch smaller than the other tyres, which had made for an interesting final leg of the journey, as the steering juddered and pulled to the left. I was glad he was having it repaired.

Nicky and I got a coffee and sat quietly for a while on the terrace, enjoying the birdsong and the soft breeze.

Before too long Moses and Paul James arrived and we walked down into the bottom of the garden at Sunset, under the shade of a large tree. We arranged four chairs and a table in a shady, level spot and ordered some cold drinks. It was a perfect open plan office.

And then we talked.

We began with the boys in Mamboleo, going through them one by one. Paul James talked about their school work, their performance, their background, their home life, their hopes and fears and dreams and aspirations.

Last year we took three new boys from the streets, Silas, Fidel and Brian. I wrote about them in my blog last April. They had been in other homes, but had not been happy and regularly returned to street life.

I was pleased to hear from Paul James that all three are still with us, they seemed to have settled and they are a happy, active part of the home life. They have returned to school at St Pauls Primary in Mamboleo, where we have a really good relationship with the head and the teachers, having placed a number of children there.

We have a number of new children in Mamboleo since I last came, Brian, Felix, George and Steven. Each one has a heartbreaking story of broken homes, parental abandonment, beatings or poverty. Each one will take time to come to terms with their circumstances and heartache and to renew their hope for the future. We try to give that time in our small family homes. Paul James is a quiet man with a beautiful compassionate heart and the children feel comfortable opening up to him. The often find healing for their hurts in his counsel and his prayers.

We don’t manage to keep all of the children who come to us, but we are proud that most do stay and become part of our family, our own flesh and blood.

After Mamboleo, where we now have 11 full time street children in our care, we talked about Kibos. Here we have 19 full time as well as a number at secondary schools who come home for the holidays.

We went through the children one by one, knowing their hurts and their backgrounds, talking about their future plans and dreams, about how we can best support them in their life to come.

We talked about Daniel, a very hurt young man who can’t remember where his family is from. He knows it’s Kitale somewhere, but he was young when he left and he hurts because he doesn’t know his identity.

We talked about John, whose uncle used to beat him and abuse him, about Dominic and Raphael, brothers whose father died and left them alone, of Moses whose Mother is still alive, but is trapped in poverty unable to look after him.

We talked of Francis who is 16 and is two years away from completing primary school, as he missed so much on the streets. Francis is a handsome boy who the local girls love. His brother came to us for a while, but left to go back to the streets, unwilling to subject himself to the discipline of family and school life. If there is an errand to be run to Kibos, Francis is always the first to volunteer. “there are many nice girls in Kibos town” said Moses, “He will go there on his knees, he will pass through rivers if he has to. His errands always take much longer than they should!”

We talked of other boys, of Jackson, Amos and Gideon who have just started secondary school near to Kibos and of our girls, Lorine, Sheila and Florence also working their way through secondary schools.

As we talked monkeys played in the grass and on the small rocks around us. An impala from the nearby reserve wandered up to the hedge on the boundary of the hotel and peered in, curious to know what brought us to that place and listening to our conversation.

We talked about boys who have been resettled at home and those who have come new to the program.

It was a rich and fulfilling day.

We went through the new boys who have joined Kibos on the past coupld of months, Brian, Stanley, Asman, Steven, William and another Brian. I asked Paul James how long Steven had been on the streets. “Ah, a long time” said Paul James, “Perhaps for one year” He paused for a moment, “Or perhaps more”.

“oh”, he said, “or maybe less”

That’s the sort of quality information we expect from our men on the ground. It made me proud.

We glanced at our watches and realised it was already 5:30. The day had flown by and Moses needed to rush to pick up his daughter . We ended with an agreement to meet again tomorrow to consider all those now in Home Support programs, Training programs or Home Repatriation Programs.

It could be an equally long day.

But there is no greater joy than talking about and understanding these children, their needs, their dreams and helping them to be something more than they believed they could be.

It’s why we started the Trust all those years ago.


Thursday 15 March 2012

A Sustainable Future

I woke at 5:30 this morning, to the low resonant sounds of hippo’s grunting in the shallows of the Lake. I pulled back the mosquito net that covers my bed and looked out from the balcony over the cool African dawn. The treetops were bathed in orange light and a few small fishing boats had cast their circular nets around the lake shore.

I headed for the shower and an early breakfast.

We headed North today, to the site of our farm, where 10 acres of land gives us food for all of the work of the project. Food security is an important issue in Kenya, where lack of rains can send maize prices rocketing.

We had arranged to meet at 7:00.

Sure enough, on the dot of 7:40 Moses arrived and we headed North, towards Kitale and the villages where our farms are located.

The morning was cool and the air fresh. As we headed out of Kisumu on the road past Mamboleo we picked up Paul James and then climbed the steep hill out of the lake basin.

Rural Nyanza, to the North of Kisumu is beautiful. Steep sided valleys, lush with eucalyptus trees are dotted with the shiny iron sheet roof tops of mud and thatch houses, glinting in the early morning sunshine. Small plots of land surrounding each house are filled with a mixture of crops, some early maize plants, cassava, beans and napier grass for the cattle

After half an hours drive we approached the border of Nyanza and Western Province, crossing the equator into the northern hemisphere at a small metal sign barely worthy of its role at the centre of the world.

In Western Province the maize plantations give way to sugar cane. The big sugar factories at Mumias provide international export markets for small holding farmers, though the prices are low and the farmers here compete with subsidised farmers across the Americas for larger contracts which they hardly ever win. Fair trade it may be, but free trade it certainly isn’t.

It is clear you are in sugar country as the roads are suddenly alive with tractors laden down with badly stacked sugar cane, taking up more of the road than they should and making it impossible to pass.

The large fields of sugar cane give way to small holdings of tea production and fields bordered by banana and mango trees, paw paw and avocados, providing shade and fruit to the homesteads.

We passed through Kakamega, the largest and capital town of Western Province, home to many boda boda’s and a good number of matatu’s and tractors, neither of which make for fast progress!

Not many kilometres north of Kakamega is the Forest Park, home to a wide variety of different monkeys. I often see baboons walking by the roadside, or black and white colobus monkeys in the trees on the short drive through the dense indigenous forest. Today however there were no signs of wildlife and we hurried on our way, through the obligatory police checks either side of the road.

After a couple of hours we arrive in Webuye, where the large paper factory has now laid idle for the last two or three years, reducing the surrounding villages to poverty as the jobs have dried up.

We climbed once more, out of the town, further North still until we arrived at last in Kisikhu, home to one of our two 5 acre plots.

We picked up Steve, a young man who is helping organise our farming activity this year and he led us down a red mud road, along increasingly small trails, where the rain has worn furrows into the surface and made a real bone shaker of a ride. Either side of the car thorns scraped their reminders of this route into the white scarred paintwork as we edged cautiously down the track.

We drove between a barbed wire fence and a line of tall eucalyptus until we emerged at a field edge. “Hapa” said Steve, We are here.

We got out and had a walk around the edge of the 5 acre plot. We have already done the first ploughing, but the tractor had struggled to break up the sugar cane that had been grown here last year and a second ploughing is required before the planting could begin.

We plan to plant a mixture of maize and beans, two staples of the menu in our homes in Kibos and Mamboleo. The beans will be harvested in July, whilst the maize will be harvested in November. From April until July the beans and maize will grow together, then, once we have harvested the beans, the maize will grow high and mature independently.

We need to plant before the rains come in April, as the rains will cause the maize and beans to germinate and help them on their way. The land looked promising. All around the farmers were planting sugar cane, but this is a cash crop and we have hungry mouths to feed. We have opted for food security first, cash may or may not come later.

We then headed off to the second land, some 20 kilometres further north. We have had to farm in two plots this year, as we weren’t able to get 10 acres together.

We drove down some very small, dusty roads for quite a distance, before turning sharp left through a gate into a rural homestead. Instead of the usual mud and thatch huts this one housed a fine brick building, surrounded by barns and sheds.

As we stepped out of the car we were greeted warmly by the owner of the farm, Rasto Ojago.

And Rasto is a passionate and charismatic man. I can only say now, that I believe we have been blessed to find him.

He is renting out 5 acres for the first time this year. He has turned traditional farming methods on their head and turned his whole farm into organic, bio farming. He doesn’t plough his land as he believes it lets moisture escape from the soil, he wont use artificial fertilisers or pesticides on his land as he doesn’t believe they should be in the food chain.

And his harvests and yields are more than double the best we have ever achieved per acre.

As we talk with him we realise that we have been blessed. We are the first to rent his land, he wants to evangelise his farming methods, show them to people who are interested and help to change the way that traditional rural agriculture is viewed. He has a contract to supply the government with 5,000 bags of maize next year and he hopes to share what he has learned with Steve and our organisation.

As we sat under a mango tree back at Steve's home, with his family, we talked about what we had seen.

It will be an interesting year. We have one plot that we will farm using traditional methods and another using the organic soil conservation route.

I hope and pray that the latter wins. If it does, we have already agreed on ten acres for next year.

I believe that our move to sustainable food production has begun.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

A leaky bucket will leak wherever you put it

I am sat on the terrace at Sunset, looking out across the lush colourful gardens with their shady trees and neat borders. There’s a very welcome cooling breeze providing respite from the late afternoon sun.

Small, green, iridescent sunbirds flit from flower to flower in the Jacarandas overhead and a dozen or more small doves are wondering on the lawn, amongst the scattered lilac petals of fallen flowers.

A couple of vervet monkeys run down the path, their long tails waving behind them. Another appears from behind the long grass and soon a small family have disappeared into the treetops.

I don’t know what it is about monkeys, but they always look like they are up to mischief!

I am enjoying a cup of tea on the terrace after a long day of meetings. To be honest, I really think I deserve it! We have been talking rent and leases and disputes and all manner of things.

Our landlady, Leah, died last year and ever since there has been a dispute about who we should be paying rent to. As the tenants we are caught in the middle, with seemingly few rights.

I had arranged for Moses to pick me up at 9:00, so that we would have some time to prepare for the meeting at 10:00.

Sure enough, on the dot of 10:15 Anton picked me up.

I arrived at Kibos to find the house empty, except for Moses and Tatu. I asked Moses about the delay and he explained that the family we were meeting had also invited one of the village elders and also the ex-chief of the area. This was to be a serious meeting.

The system of local chiefs and village eldership seems to work well in Kenya. The elders know the villages and communities well and are able to mediate in disputes with a degree of elderly wisdom.

I took the time before the family arrived to talk with Francis, one of the older boys, who was home for a couple of days over half term.

Francis joined the program just as we moved into this house in Kibos in 2004. He had gone all through primary school with us and is now in Form 2 at Hobunaka Secondary School in Western Province. He was really happy with how things were and had just called back at Kibos to get some spare parts for his bike.

Francis is a good example of the Trust’s exit program.

It is all well and good to keep on taking children in, but sooner or later you have to think about their future. In some homes that future is all tied up with the orphanage, children never really claim their independence and expect the home to look after them well after they are grown up. But Moses has always pursued a different policy. For every child we take in we try to find the right place and the right time to resettle them at their rural home, so they understand their land rights and inheritance and are reunited with their roots.

For Francis this has meant going back to live with the brother of his grandfather. I wondered if this was the best thing for him, but I needn’t because he is genuinely happy. His grandfathers brother welcomed him home warmly, not judging him for the time that he spent on the streets. That acceptance meant a lot to him.

Francis started in a good boarding school, his marks at primary were excellent, but he wanted to spend time at home too, so he opted for a day school near to his home and we moved his studies to there.

He said that Moses talked with him about the move. He recalled a proverb (“Pastor Moses likes to use proverbs” he said).

“If a bucket has leaks, then it doesn’t matter where you take it, you can take it to Western, to Central, to Rift Valley or even to Mombasa, but it will still leak. But if the bucket is strong then it will be strong wherever it is.”

He said that his aim is to be a strong bucket of knowledge, to achieve the aim he has had since class 2 in primary school, to be an electrical engineer.

I believe he can make it.

As we finished talking our visitors arrived.

We sat and listened to them talk about Leah, about her husband, Jeremiah, whom we never met and about the cultural claims to the land and the property. We listened for a long time and found we were in agreement with much of what was said.

We agreed that we would meet this afternoon with Kennedy, our lawyer, and the family would make their case to him.

Our appointment was at 2:30.

On the dot of 3pm we walked into Kennedy’s office, having called at the families rural home to pay our respects at the graves of Leah and Jeremiah. Thankfully Kennedy was also running late, having spent the morning in the high court.

We talked again. This time in Luo, one of the more elusive tribal tongues and native to Nyanza province. I sat attentively, nodding and smiling at the appropriate points, but not understanding a word.

Fortunately Ken is patient and wise. He summarised for me in English and talked authoritatively to the family. After an hour or two we reached an agreement that we are all happy with. For the moment, at least, we do not need to leave Kibos.

As we turned to leave the wood panelled offices, I thanked Kennedy for his time and patience. His is not the front facing, child raising face of the Trust, but he is a good friend and we would not be where we are without him.

As I drank my tea and reflected on the day I was thankful to Francis, for the reminder of what happens when we get things right. We took on the house in Kibos because it was much bigger than where we had previously been and we wanted to take more children. Francis was the very first of those street boys to enter the house and now, 8 years later, he returned to the place where he grew up, to share about his new life back home with his family.

Many more boys have passed through this place and I hope and pray that more will yet come.

I pray they will be buckets of knowledge for their school years and the electrical engineers, lawyers, soldiers or social workers of the future.

I might toast that with a Tusker later, but for now a very English cup of tea will have to do.

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Is this the 4th floor or the 5th?

The lift in the hotel has been playing up.

I should have known when, on the day I arrived, my bags were taken by Joseph, one of the hotels many efficient employees, and I was led to the lift.

We entered, and Joseph pressed the button for the fourth floor.

Some few moments later the doors creaked open. “Ah, its ok” he said, “we can walk down from here” and he marched off, clutching my case, to the stair well just in front of us.

I followed dutifully, wondering if I was just tired from the journey and hadn’t noticed that he had pressed the wrong floor.

But no.

Every morning after breakfast and every evening since then, when I arrive back from my travels, I press the button for the fourth floor, only to land inexplicably on the fifth.

I have accepted the quirks with patience and resignation. It’s just what happens around here sometimes!

This morning we had arranged to go and see two of our students in secondary school. Ruth is in Form 2, but has been struggling at secondary, since she got excellent marks in her KCPE (primary school exams). Lorine has been part of our program for the last 6 or 7 years, a really popular, lively member of the Kibos family.

I had arranged for Moses and John Odhiambo (one of our social workers who works particularly with some of the girls in the education program) to pick me up at 10:30.

Sure enough on the dot of 11:30 Moses arrived and we set off to town. We went to Nakumat to buy bag fulls of supplies – soap, bread, juice, sugar, hair creams and more. Lorine had lost her gum boots, so we stopped by the Bata shop to get some replacements “Size 8” said Moses, “Are you sure” John and I cried back at him? “That’s enormous!” We settled on something a little smaller, and headed out of town.

The schools are both on the road to Maseno, along the lake shore, west towards the Uganda border.

The road, as with many in Kenya, is riddled with potholes, bumps and police check points, but eventually we made it to Archbishop Okoth High School for Girls, where Ruth has been studying for the last 15 months.

I wrote about Ruth a year or two back. Her story really touched my heart. Her mother died when she was 12, leaving her to bring up her young family whilst her father, a drunkard, contributed little to the home. We made arrangements for her brothers and sisters to be helped and supported and then paid for Ruth to be a boarder for her last two, important years of primary school, where she flourished

She passed her KCPE exams with excellent marks and we had high hopes for her doing well at Secondary school.

She greeted us with warm hugs and smiles as we sat outside the Principals office and we talked with her about her new school. She likes the school and has made new friends, but she has been struggling to keep up with the work and her marks have fallen away.

We talked with her form teacher, who had known her in the first year as well. He went through her marks and it was clear that when she was in school she was doing well, but when she came back from a holiday she hadn’t managed to get her studies done.

I talked with John. It seems that when she goes home she spends her time looking after her siblings again and only studies when she is back at school.

We need to give her some more support at home, to help her find time to study.

From Ruth’s school we travelled on to meet with Lorine. She is a girl full of joy at finding herself in a good secondary school, one she would never have dreamed of. A total orphan, her father and mother died when she was 8 years old and she has been part of our program ever since.

And she has blossomed.

Her teachers Knew her instantly, in spite of the fact that she has only been in school for 2 months – “oh Lorine Okoth, ah yes, she is a good student and a happy girl”

I can truly hope for no more than that. I don’t expect that the children will set the world alight academically, just that they find who they are and are happy and fulfilled.

We headed back to Kisumu, and to our outreach program at the city rubbish dump, Kachok.

We meet in a dusty, fly ridden hut on the edge of the city stadium by the rubbish dump.

But you couldn’t hope for a more inspiring place.

Moses led worship, a wonderful time of harmony and song. We had many testimonies tonight to the power of God to change lives. Boys and men who have been with us over the last 10 years and whose lives have changed as a result.

Samson talked of his new home, how he has been resettled, how he has left a life of scavenging on the tip for a farm, a wife and a new family. He has goats, cows and “more than 10 chickens” and has fresh milk for tea every morning.

Cosmas talked of his new home where he has just settled. He talked of the life he used to have and of his new life now. After years of struggling he is finally at peace with himself

Haggard and Isaiah shared about their happiness at completing their secondary school exams and getting their KCSE certificates, of how they never dreamed that would be possible.

And then Romanas stood up. A small man with a wonderful presence and charisma. “I praise God” he said. “I praise God because of the man that I have become. I used to be a drug seller, I used to deal in drugs around this whole area. But I came to the program and it changed me. When I met with Jesus Christ I went home and burnt all of the drugs in a big fire. I have not touched them since”

There was loud applause.

After the meeting I talked with some of the children from Kachok just starting Form 1 at secondary school, Elizabeth, Jeffrey & Jared. I talked with Naphtali, who has some land at home and who would like to follow in the footsteps of Samson.

I talked with children with hope and belief in the eyes because of those who have gone before.

And I wondered, perhaps, just sometimes, I have pressed the button for the 4th floor, only for God to deliver us to the 5th. Samson, Cosmas, Haggard, Isaiah and Romanas have found that when you hope and when you trust, then you can go beyond what you thought might be possible.

It was a good day in the Isaiah Trust.

Monday 12 March 2012

It’s like two elephants fighting

I was in town this morning.

Moses had got back late last night from the funeral in Bungoma and hadn’t surfaced yet. I didn’t want to waste the morning, so I walked to the top of the small road outside the hotel and caught a boda boda into town.

Boda boda’s are fun and/or scary. It entirely depends on your driver.

The basic principle is a simple one. You take a bicycle, add a cushion onto the back and lo – you have a bicycle taxi.

They originated at the Kenya – Uganda border in Busia, a couple of hours drive from Kisumu, where a half mile stretch of road spanned the two border controls.

The paperwork required to operate vehicles in the no-mans land between the two was prohibitive, as anyone who has done paperwork in modern day Africa will surely testify. So there sprang up an opportunity for enterprising bicycle owners to ferry people Border-to-Border.

That’s the history lesson over.

Today’s bicycle taxi’s owe less to the colonial era and more to the 50cc engines of the Japanese. Pedal power has given way to petrol and the Kisumu’s busy streets are testament to their popularity.

Finding no bicycle available, I opted for the motorised boda boda and settled into the comfortable seat behind the driver. For just 50 bob (about 35p) in under 5 minutes we were in town, at Nakumatt Nyanza, one of a popular chain of supermarkets across Kenya.

I made my way through the busy plaza and crossed the street outside to the small shopping mall where the foreign exchange bureau is housed.

Half an hour later, after a quick walk around some of the shops to pick up a bottle of water and a newspaper I made my way down the main street to the cyber cafe and coffee house.

The iced coffee here is lovely. Rich icy bitter espresso topped with melting sweet vanilla ice cream. Just what 30 degrees demands.

As I sat reading the paper my phone buzzed a text message. It was from Moses “Am at Sunset”.

Great.

I have waited two days to see Moses and just as I come to town he shows up at the hotel!

He swiftly agreed to come over and meet me over a soda and soon we were catching up on the past few months since I last came. We made plans for the things we need to do over the next few days and the pople we need to see.

My phone buzzed again, it was Kennedy, inviting us to a meeting at 2:30 in his offices.

Kennedy Owiti is our lawyer in Kisumu. We seem to manage to keep him fairly busy, with land purchases, rent agreements and legal disputes,

He is also a really nice man and meeting with him is always a pleasure.

Moses and I made our way to his 7th floor offices overlooking the lake at the top of the main street. We needed to discuss our lease agreement.

Last year our landlady died. We have rented the rehabilitation centre in Kibos since 2004 and have never missed a rent payment. Unfortunately, as appears to often be the case in Kenya, the legal position is less than straight forward. Two parties are claiming the rights to the rent – the relatives of the deceased lady and the relatives of her previously deceased husband.

“I see your problem”, said Ken astutely, “It is like two elephants fighting - only the grass suffers”

I know how the grass feels.

“Is there any chance of you moving out and leaving them to resolve it?” Ken asked.

If you want to know the answer to that, you may have to read yesterday’s blog post.

Perhaps I need faith more urgently than I thought I did.

As we walked out of Ken’s office I noticed the signs for Kisumu’s university campus. My thoughts turned to our students, to those we support in college. I asked Moses which campus our students were at.

“Truphena is here in Kisumu” he said, “I will see if she is around”

Moses called Truphena, and we agreed to meet for a soda at Nakumat Mega, a large shopping mall 5 minutes drive away.

Truphena looked so well, as delighted to see us as we were to see her.

She is currently studying special needs education at college in Maseno with practical lessons in Kisumu. You only need to see her face to know how much she loves it.

Truphena’s journey has not always been an easy one. She has faced many challenges, has poor health and could easily give up. But her heart is big and her desire to help those less privileged shines through what she says and what she does.

It made me think that, perhaps the grass may suffer sometimes, but it always renews itself. It finds a way of standing tall after the storms, of reaching for the skies in spite of the trials that come its way.

The elephants may fight, but the grass wont suffer for long.

Sunday 11 March 2012

A Delay is not a Denial

I woke this morning to the familiar blue skies of equatorial Africa. Black kites circled overhead and a fish eagle settled into the branches of the tall tree by the Lake shore.

Outside my fourth floor window the lilac flowers of the jacaranda trees attracted sunbirds, bulbuls and vireo’s, eager for a sweet breakfast of nectar. The cool breeze of last night had given way to stillness and a warm peace.


Paul James had arranged for me to picked up at 10:00, to go down to church in Kibos.

Sure enough, on the dot of 10:45, Paul James arrived to collect me.

Kisumu’s streets were busy this morning. The largest outdoor market in East Africa happens every Sunday afternoon on the road to Kondele. The streets are lined with sheets, pillowcases and towels, pegged on makeshift washing lines, strung between the tall trees to show them off to potential sellers (they must get so dusty it’s a wonder anyone ever buys them!). In front of the cotton backdrop are lines of roadside sellers. A woman with her young son sorts through piles of shoes looking for the right size. Next to her hang Arsenal and Man Utd shirts, bright and red in the sun (authentic the stall holder swears - though probably not!). The next stall sells furniture, three piece suites, large wooden sofas and chairs. Next a coffin maker, a welder and a barber working side by side.

The roads by the market were bursting with matatu’s, beeping heir horns, their drivers shouting and slowly edging their vans into the best position before unloading their sweaty payload into the greedy jaws of the market stalls. “Do not wash”, it said on the side of one of the dustiest matatu “Scientific dirt experiment in progress”. I am sure it physically impossible for a matatu to go in a straight line, or indeed for a regular car ever to get past one.

The journey to church this morning was slower than usual!

It is 10 years since we founded the church on the two and a half acre plot by the side of the dusty mud road in Kibos. I love to go, and look forward to Sundays there with my church family.

Moses is away at the moment, back at his home, attending the funeral of his sister who died of breast cancer last month. This morning’s service was taken by the church Pastor, Hesbon, with a guest preacher from Migosi Church, who has been helping all week with a church revival outreach.

Pastor Paul Otieno was a lovely man, with a powerful voice and a passion for God. He preached from his heart on Hebrews 11. He talked of patience, of waiting, of faithfulness and righteousness. A delay is not a denial he said, of prayer and faithfulness. Sometimes God gives you a picture of what he is going to do, but it might take some time for it to happen.

While we wait, we are to be faithful and worship.

Pastor Paul really spoke to me in his message.

Ever since we first came to Kenya we have had a vision for a children’s village. Not a big orphanage, not an institution, but somewhere where our family can live and grow together. We have laid the foundations, dug the drainage on the land, brought in power and connected the electricity to the church and the rehabilitation centre which we rent..

But we have not yet had the capital funds available to start our own building.

We have a passion and a faith in our hearts. But, so far, we have no bricks.

But a delay is not a denial.

I found myself believing with some certainty this morning, as we sang and worshipped together, that this will all be here one day.

After church I walked around the land. I stopped and looked, seeing in my heart the houses and the village that are already here in faith, but not yet in practice.

And I am more sure that one day we will build.

On my way out of church I stopped to talk with Isaiah. Isaiah is one of the boys we work with. In December he completed his KCSE, graduating from high school.

I asked him what he was hoping to do next.

“I want to do a college course in ICT” he told me. He had been down to the college to ask about entry and enrolment for the first year certificate course starting in April

We do not have the funds for his college, but if I believe for a village, then I have faith enough for college fees too. My time here has taught me to trust and believe, to seek in order to find.

A delay is not a denial.

Because with faith, you and I can move mountains.

Friday 9 March 2012

It's that time again

I leave for Kenya this morning.

I should arrive in Kisumu, to the familiar sites and smells of the lakeside town, sometime tomorrow afternoon.

It should be an interesting trip.

It has been over 10 years since Nicky and I first went out to Kisumu, since we first walked around the dusty streets and onto the rubbish tips of the town.

We want to spend a little time, along with Moses and Paul James, reviewing the work and thinking about our original calling and vision.

For me, God spoke very clearly from Isaiah 58: -

"(I want you) to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"

Whenever things have faltered or seemed beyond us in that time I have held on to the promise of verse 11: -

"The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. "

Whe I first read it I knew it was for me. I knew that God was reassuring me about this work and about His hand upon it. I knew that this was something I would work on with Him.

There have been many times over the last 10 years when I have felt challenged. Times when people have tried to take money, hard earned money, meant for orphans, for their own benefit. We have sacked people, been abused by people, been deceived, attended court and been threatened.

But we have also seen children blossom in the hands of God. Street children, the most vulnerable, needy, helpless children in God's kingdom healed and made new by His grace,

We have seen children who lived on the streets complete secondary schools, children with nothing walk tall.

We have never had lots of money, but we have always had enough.

We have never been rich in earthly wealth, but we are rich in our inheritance.

On this trip there are issues that need resolving.

Our landlady of our main home in Kibos died last year and different relatives are claiming the rights to the rental income. I have meetings planned with our lawyer, to understand Kenyan inheritance rights, and then with the families.

I also plan to visit some of the children who, in January, made the leap from primary to secodnary school. It is a big step for them, and financially for us also (primary schooling support costs are about £50 per year, compared to more like £500 for secondary school children)

I am also hoping to get up to our new 10 acre farm, to meet our new farm manager and to talk about a sustainable program of farming that will supply, not only food for the ongoing work, but also help to provide an income and training for some of the older street boys we work with.

Nicky arrives on Thursday, and we hope to spend a little time together reflecting on what has been built since those first tentative steps more than 10 years ago.

We had an interesting evening in church last night with Holly bush fellowship, from near Thirsk in North Yorkshire. Their pastor, Jim Wilkinson, has an incredible testimony about God's blessing and goodness on their fellowship.

One thing he said struck me in particular.

If it's not a work of God, he said, then I would give it no mor than two years, before the effort of keeping something going would fail. But if God has called you to something, then he will strengthen and sustain it.

It chimed with me, with my promise from Isaiah 58:11 - "He will satisfy your needs ... he will strengthen your frame".

I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in Kisumu, to resolving problems and to looking forward to new visions and directions.

I will try to update the blog throughout the trip, but please bear with me if it is not every day, as wifi and electricity are not always consistent.



If you would like to suppor the work of the Trust, please go to www.isaiahtrust.org.uk

Mungu akubarike sana, Bwana Asifiwe