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 4^th floor, only for God to deliver us to the 5^th. 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.