Tuesday, December 13, 2011

And just today in Kenya ...

  These are our kids in Kenya today, or at least some of them.

They're in school, so they get to eat.  It's a simple mid-day meal, but for many, that's all they have.  We're doing our best to help out the families.

Just a few miles away is the home of these three little girls; the photo is from June.  Their mom died and their dad abandoned them.  Grandma and three granddaughters, in a hut of mud and rocks with literally nothing.  We bought a few things for the house, mattresses so they wouldn't be sleeping on the dirt, and some food.  We bought school uniforms for the girls and got them enrolled.  Their future is dependent on education to a great degree.  Africa is hungry for educated workers.

It doesn't take a lot to help someone who has so little.  Much like our grandparents during the depression years, they're just trying to survive, but they hope for better things for their children. 

Our boys (right) in Guruguru; in the middle with a red t-shirt showing under his uniform shirt, that's Wakili.  I know his name because he was the first and well ahead of a crowd of thirty to run home and say thanks when I visited.

Some of the girls (left) in the same village; in their new uniforms at school, they're on a path with a future.  It's a difficult one, to say the least.

Times along the African coast are deadly.  For many, just surviving and perhaps keeping the kids in school as well are the simple focus of a family's efforts. 

Want to bring extraordinary joy to a family?  Help them provide for their children.

In Kenya, a couple hundred dollars will pretty much keep a kid alive and in school for a year.  It's not enough by itself, but it's a beginning.  Feel free to ask me how it works for the folks we know.