2010 Year in Review – Education Services

In 2010, the local Kenyan ministry, Camp Brethren Ministries (CBM), saw their vision for delivering quality education in the name of Christ to the children of Eburru realized when they opened their first schoolhouse. Previously, they had been teaching a select number of children in existing, makeshift buildings. In January 2010, the first official CBM schoolhouse was opened and education for kindergarteners and 1st graders commenced. During the 2010 school year, the need for a preschool class and 4th grade class were recognized. Both classes were added and are temporarily housed in existing structures. By December 2010, the total number of students enrolled in the 4 grades at CBM school had reached 126. Supported by 4 full-time Kenyan teachers and a cook for lunch, the CBM campus has become a bustling area of activity between 9am-4pm Monday through Friday.

2010 brought a lot of ongoing construction to the CBM school campus. As the new school year begins in January 2011, returning students will experience many new changes to their education environment. One of the changes will be an increase in overall students at CBM as two new classrooms will be opened and 2nd grade and either 4th or 5th grade will be conducted in those new classrooms.

2010 Timeline (view larger)

2011 Goal

Some Education Services projects DHI is raising funds for in 2011 include:

• Build a playground similar to a western playground with a playhouse, slide, swings, etc…
• Additional classrooms to support 3rd grade in 2012
• Additional boy’s and girl’s restroom
• Opening the Boys and Girls Orphanage (on the CBM school campus)
• Furnishing of the Boy’s and Girl’s dorms with bunk beds, lockers, mattresses, and more
• Furnishing new classrooms with desks, chairs, etc…
• Hiring of an additional full-time cook
• New uniforms for students

Katie & Kari in Eburru: Kari’s Highlights

I think Katie and I could write a book on all of what God has shown us and how He has grown us through this experience.  Below are just a few short vignettes about the people and ministry happening in the remote, Kenyan village of Eburru:

Church Kenyan Style- The last two Sundays Katie and I have had the blessing to worship with the African Inland Church (AIC ) here in Eburru. Pastor Steve started the church here in 2004 and it has since grown to be the largest church in the areal. Let me tell you, this Kenyan church knows how to praise the Lord in song and dance.  The young men are playing the drums, the children are performing traditional dances, and the older women are banging on the tambourines.  Church service begins at 11am and goes well into the afternoon.  This past Sunday there was a special time for people to come forward with specific needs for the church to pray for.  How awesome it was to hear prayers going up in four different languages- Swahili, English, Kikuyu, and Turkana.   Although our words were varied, our hearts were united in the Holy Spirit.

Teacher Eva- Currently, there are 3 teachers that work here at the Camp Brethren Mission School- Ms. Nancy, Mr. Kago, and Ms. Eva.  I have really enjoyed getting to know Ms. Eva, the lead teacher.  What I love about her is that she ALWAYS has a smile on her face!  This joyful teacher lives in a simple one room “apartment” that is attached to the clinic.  She uses a small coal burner for cooking and heating water for her bucket showers.  At night, she has a paraffin lantern for light and an outdoor “squatty potty” for her bathroom.  Even with such rustic living conditions, Eva radiates the joy of Christ to all around her.   While at the market the other day, I asked Eva if she ever has a down day when she feels sad or lonely.  She explained, “I may have a minute or two when I am sad, but joy quickly returns to me.”  I further inquired    how she maintains such a joyful spirit.  She quickly replied, “ I sing praises to Jesus.”  Our conversation ended with us standing in the “parking lot” of the market singing Eva’s favorite song, “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice.”

Ministry of David’s Hope International (DHI)- As you probably know, I am here serving alongside Katie Futrell who is part of DHI.   This non-profit organization was formed by a mission team that served in Eburru back in Dec of 2008.  God gave this 16 member team a vision to continue serving this small village and, thus, DHI was founded.  Wow, how God has blessed their ministry!  Through their efforts and funding, in less than 1 ½ years, a school of 90+ children has been founded, a maternity ward to the clinic has been added, and plans for an orphanage have been drawn up.  Through these projects, lives have been saved- physically and spiritually.  I am humbled to have had the opportunity to serve with this organization and am excited to see how God continues to work through them.

We look forward to sharing more stories and pictures with you when we return.  Thank you for making this trip possible through your support, prayers, and encouraging emails.  We truly feel like we have an extended team through you.

For God’s Glory Always
Kari:)

Katie & Kari in Eburru: Homeward Bound

Well, today is our last day in Kenya. We will be flying home tonight and should arrive at Dulles by 1:50 pm Tuesday. It was hard to leave Eburru yesterday but at the same time I think Kari and I are both looking forward to showers that aren’t in a bucket and toilets you don’t have to squat in.

On that note, I was thinking about how different the school in Arusha was from the school in Eburru. In Arusha we had running water and electricity but not in Eburru. As a teacher from the States you really have to be creative in how you teach with such limited resources. The closest copying machine is two hours away in the city of Navisha,. My school alone has four copiers and I complain loudly when one of them breaks. Also, the students do not have textbooks as the school can not afford it. Instead, there is one text book for the teacher to use and she will write on the board for the students to copy in their composition books. It is pretty time consuming and I am hoping this is something DHI can help provide in the near future. I will be going back to my American school in September with a different perspective on things.

The last two days I was able to work with Brandon Neil, a fellow Frontliner and DHI supporter. His background is in business and I could already see he is going to be a great help with the business side of things. On Saturday we went to a local café in Eburru center. It is owned by a lady named Mary who is an active member of Pastor Steve’s church. However, a few years ago she was not a Christian and her café was then a bar. When she got saved she did not know what to do with all the illegal moonshine she was selling. So the church decided to do a “liquor pouring” offering. They would give some money to buy some of the liquor and then they poured it out. Mary is now part of the women’s ministry of the church and a light to the community. However, her restaurant is not bringing in enough income. This is where Brandon comes in. On Saturday he sat down with her and helped her figure out her expenses and profit. He plans to teach basic book keeping classes to some of the businessmen and women of the church since it is something completely foreign to them. We also came up with the idea of selling something that the other cafes would not offer in order to bring in more business. We helped her make guacamole – something they have all the ingredients to make but have never heard off. We served it with their chipotas (flat bread). I even went around the town giving little samples to the townspeople, telling them they could only buy it at Mary’s café. Brandon plans to continue to work with her for the next two weeks and hopefully we will get her a sign to put outside her door that says “American guacamole Exclusively sold here!” I thought it was pretty amazing that God could take my one of my weakest areas (I took economics twice in college ) and still use it to help those in need.

Katie & Kari in Eburru: Vignettes of our Time

Dear Prayer Team and Supporters!

Wow, I cannot believe that I have been in Africa for over a month. God has and continues to bless our time here. I feel like I am becoming quite the native. . .I am becoming “fluent” in my one word Swahili vocabulary, I can walk to and from the school by myself without getting lost, and I begin and end each day with my Kenyan chai tea:-) Look out- this mzungu is becoming quite African in her ways:-)

Katie and I are now in Eburru, Kenya serving with David’s Hope International. Below are a few vignettes of our time here in the past week.

1) “Jack & Jill of ALL Trades”- Pastor Steve and his wife Mary are the inspiration behind the church, clinic, feeding program, and school here in Eburru. They work tirelessly serving in whatever capacities are needed. For example, in addition to his responsibilities as a pastor, husband, and father, Pastor Steve can be found hauling construction material to and fro, hosting mission teams, providing transportation for hospital visits, playing keyboard at church, and a myriad of other tasks. Mary works long hours as the head nurse at the mission hospital in Kijabe where they live during the week. On the weekends, she serves at the clinic and church in Eburru and always is the “hostess with the mostess” for visitors. I thought I had a lot of energy until I saw Mary in action:-) What self-sacrificing servants of the Lord this couple is!

2) Eburru “Retreat”- Eburru is a remote village tucked away in the north central part of Kenya. If you look up Eburru in the encyclopedia, it will actually describe it as being in the African bush. Although this isolated place lacks in the modern conveniences of electricity and running water, it overflows with natural beauty and the friendliness of the people. Each night we lay our heads down beneath the black African sky illuminated by the shining stars and we wake up to the sounds of chirping birds, gobbling turkeys, and a cocka-doodling rooster. The perfect alarm clock- God’s creation!!:)

3) Faith of Children- The children of Eburru have captured my heart. Before the school and the feeding program which is sponsored by David’s Hope International was here, many of the children would go for days without food- let alone any nutritious food. As a result, these young ones are quite small for their age. For example, little Mary is 7 years old, but she is the size of my 3 year old niece, Abby. Although these precious ones may be small in stature, but they are big in heart.

My favorite part of the school day is break time when we have chapel hour. My heart melts seeing the smiles and the joy of the children as they praise God. This week the students learned Psalms 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd. I have all that I need.” Wow, these little ones may not know where their next meal is coming from, yet they are confident knowing that their Heavenly Father will provide all that they need! The great faith of children- a lesson we can all learn from.

I pray that these stories encourage you about what the Lord is doing here in Africa and also encourages you in your walk with the Lord. As the children of Eburru exhibit with confidence, we serve a God who is a Provider:-)

A Humbled Teacher,

Kari:-)

Katie & Kari in Eburru: School Days

“We have had many teams visit Eburru but your team that started David’s Hope International was the only one that caught the vision.”

These last three days working at the  school have been so good. It is hard to believe that it only started 6 months ago. Currently, the school has three teachers and three full classrooms but every day people come wanting to know if we have room for their child. They like our school better than the other primary school in the area because they can tell quality education is being offered. Not only that but they are being taught the word of God daily.  The pastor and teachers want the children that are the most destitute  to be the ones that are accepted into the school….the children that would never have a chance of education otherwise because they would not be able to afford it (education is not free in Kenya). One of the best things about the school is its feeding programing. Many of the students that go to the school were extremely malnourished before but because they get a cup of porridge in the morning and a bowl of beans, vegetables, and grains for lunch many of these children are now at a healthy weight. In fact, most Kenyan schools would be on break for the next three weeks but the David’s Hope School has decided to stay open because if the school is closed, the children do not get to eat.  Because of the funds raised through David’s Hope the school now has a garden and three goats (two are already pregnant ) in order to have self-sustainability as these will provide vegetables, fruit, grains, and milk for the feeding program. In fact some one already asked if they could buy the offspring of the goats which will also help bring financial sustainability.

Pastor Steve says that Kari and I will be “pioneers” since we are the first American teachers to visit the school. In addition to helping the teachers and leading chapel hour, the pastor also wants us to develop a “training guide” on how the school runs so that other education teams that come to work in the school will have an idea before hand of what is being taught.

Live From Kenya Part 5 – Solvable Problems

Friends of David’s Hope,

As I try to sum up what I’ve seen, smelled, tasted and touched in the past two weeks here in Eburru, words fall short of describing the desperation of the situation here. The livelihoods of all living in this town and surrounding area are perilous, and if conditions do not improve, death is certain for many. The culprits? Drought, Isolation and Famine.

Those who have read my previous posts know drought and famine are ravaging Eburru, Kenya. It has rained twice here between January and May, a time frame known as the ‘rainy season’, yet yielding little to no rain at all this season. This unusual and unseasonal lack of rain is causing crops to fail – a death wish for a town dependent on agricultural production for life. While the rains have teased us occasionally this month, and the color green has started to crop up in the fields, looks are deceiving. Eburru is just about to enter a harsh three or four month period of no consumable or sellable food while the corn, potato and wheat fields move through their growth cycles, assuming the rains continue. Let pray together that God will bring the rain to Eburru, a dry and weary land where there is no water.

ECOLOGICAL ROOTS OF FAMINE IN EBURRU
It’s no question that the entire world is experiencing the impact of the current global economic crisis, particularly as it related to the cost of food. For Eburru, the current circumstances go much deeper then the global economic crisis, spike in food prices and civil unrest after Kenya’s most recent elections. The complications in Eburru are rooted in its own climate and unique ecological conditions.

You see, Eburru is located near the equator on a dormant volcano, where temperatures regularly climb into triple digits and steam is naturally released up from the ground. Crops need extra water as the sun bakes from above and the steam dries from below, sucking the soil dry and making the crops much more susceptible to drought and failure. You can see how important the rainy season is and how drought can have double the negative impact in conditions like these.

In a typical year with a rainy season, the months of July through September are the driest and food the most scarce. This year as Eburru moves into the dry season, there was no rainy season to build up reservoirs of water. When combined with skyrocketing food prices, the people are entering a catastrophic situation. Not only can they not feed themselves, they have no crops to sell, meaning no income for these agriculturally based families who already live on less than $2.00US a day.

In a town like Eburru, where survival is the goal, when money is scarce priorities change.

To illustrate, I ran into a pack of kids on Friday who were playing outside. I asked why they were not in school and they said Friday was exam day, which means a supplementary fee to pay for the paper exam. Cost: 30 Shillings or about $0.25 US. Well, they didn’t have the money so school wasn’t an option that day. And these are the children actually in school. But when forced to choose between an education and food, you can guess which option the parents choose.

ISOLATION BREEDS DESPERATION
To make matters worse, Eburru is relatively isolated and very difficult to get to. Located high in the mountains at 8,000 feet above sea level, Eburru is accessible only by dirt roads so filled with potholes, dips and dives, that every time Pastor Steve drives to Eburru he has to get his vehicle serviced. “On the road to Eburru, you don’t drive on the right or left side. You drive where there are no potholes,” he says. Obviously, this remote village is not a preferred destination for educated professionals, entrepreneurs, or general service providers. There is no running water, no plumbing, no electricity, no trash removal, and you get the idea. Schools are overcrowded, health care is practically non-existent and civil organization is challenged regularly because teachers, doctors and lawyers just don’t come to this mountainous dust bowl deep in the African bush.

Eburru’s challenges don’t end with location. The town is sandwiched between Masai tribal lands southeast stretching down to the Masai Mara safari game parks and huge East African flower plantations roughly to the north. The colorful Masai warriors are one of Kenya’s most enduring tourist symbols and thus protected when the going gets tough. The flower farms around Lake Naivasha, while hardly paying a large wage to its workers; do employ tens of thousands of people, powering a decent economy. Eburru, stuck in the middle, might as well be located on Mars. No one knows, recognizes or cares about the situation unfolding in Eburru. The town is abandoned, as are its inhabitants, left with little hope for survival. If something doesn’t change in Eburru over the next few months, men, women and children will die. Not sure I can say this any clearer.

DEATH BY MALNUTRITION AND FAMINE

Seeing this situation unfold before my eyes is indescribable. Children are stick thin, bloated with malnutrition, and their brains are deteriorating. And “these are the ones you can actually see because they can still move around,” said Pastor Steve’s wife, Mary, a medical professional. Ironically, one of the final stages of death by malnutrition is loss of appetite. I’m told you just stop functioning and give up, lying on the ground, blank stare, until death and burial.

Making the situation even more real, I found out the other day David’s (of David’s Hope) 8-year old sister died in 2004 of severe malnutrition. When Pastor Steve and Mary learned of the situation, they rushed the young girl to the hospital in Kijabe, but it was too late. The other day I walked by her gravestone next to the family mud hut, phew. Remember my blog post about David a few days ago? I believe he was not far from the withdrawal stage of malnutrition when we fed him last week. David and his 12-year old cousin, Mary, are now set up for a daily meal at Pastor Steve’s preschool facility and medical clinic.

CREATING A SELF-SUSTAINABLE MINISTRY
As I try to process all that’s happening around me I can’t help but ask God: “So what next?” Go home back and cry? Not an option. Live full-time in Kenya? Nope, they don’t need me here. They need prayer, resources and sharp business assistance.

The next step for David’s Hope is clear. After spending the last two weeks with Pastor Steve and his colleagues, we know exactly what’s needed to turn things around in Eburru and its time to mobilize the troops. With your help, we will power the growth of Pastor Steve’s ministry in a self-sustainable way.

Pastor Steve has a big (yet realistic) vision to create an economic engine that finances a drastic expansion of his ministry serving the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of orphaned and destitute children. The plan will build upon his current ministry, which includes two churches, medical clinic, maternity ward, preschool, pastoral training program and feeding program.

The epicenter of his plan is the 10-acre Morgan House property. After two years of uncertainty, the title of this abandoned British farm house was officially transferred to his Pastor Steve’s name in May. Now his vision calls for a business, orphanage, preschool, school (K-8), vocational training and feeding program on the grounds of Morgan House. Pastor Steve’s plan has been in motion (and obviously blessed) for about six years now. It just needs a big boost. The timing could not be more right as Eburru fights for survival.

I’ll be writing a lot more about the business side of Pastor Steve’s ministry this week. Really exciting stuff. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

A Teacher’s Reflection on Education

By Katie Futrell

As an educator in the public school system here in the United States, I was quite excited to be able to go to Kenya and see for myself what the schools are like in the villages of that African country. The differences were simply a shock to me as I saw such a great disparity between what American children and teachers experience and what they experience in this one facet of life alone.

First of all, education is not free and therefore an overwhelming number of children never are able to go to school or complete their education. There is also a great lack of quality teachers because the governments of the localities or the nation cannot afford to pay teacher salaries and the opportunities for teacher education are slim. What schools they do have are greatly overcrowded; with classrooms often being only a third of the typical classroom size here and have even more children in each room than one would even consider here in American. Educational materials are scarce and sadly lacking.

Another detriment to the education of these children is the limited health care that is available. Many of the school children in the villages are HIV positive and have numerous health issues. Simple, basic dental and vision care are almost non-existent. As one might imagine, poor health greatly affects a child’s ability to learn. Lack of proper nourishment and even a lack of just enough food also impact the learning process, as often the children come to school hungry and have little chance of much to eat for the day.

Part of the vision of David’s Hope is to see that the orphans not only have a place to live, eat, and sleep; but also have a school. These children desperately want to learn and I found that they are in so many ways just like the children that I teach every day. They want attention and love. They get excited about candy, love to

I came back from Kenya with a thankful heart at how blessed I am to be able to teach in a system with so many resources and materials and also a vision for the Kenyan schools to also be so blessed. Through David’s Hope, this goal can be accomplished and the lives of children forever changed.