Walking with the poor - notes from Kenya

MISSION AWARENESS TRIP TO KENYA
Sept. 15 - 29, 2007

Sponsored Masai youth share their proud heritage in a performance.

Beautiful Kenyan scenery contrasts with grim slums

Kenya is one of Africa's major safari destinations and the lucrative tourist industry has bounced back following the slump that followed bomb attacks in Nairobi in 1998 and Mombasa in 2002. In addition to corruption, other pressing challenges include high unemployment, crime and poverty. Most Kenyans live below the poverty level of $1 a day. Droughts frequently put millions of people at risk.

Visits to the Kware (Quarry) slum

Jessica is a 35-year-old mother of five. Only Douglas is sponsored. For some 20 years, this family has been living as squatters in this slum—no water, no electricity, a landfill dirt floor, a foreboding latrine in worse shape than the house. Jessica is shy and retiring—didn’t say much about her husband. The house consists of two small, dark and hot rooms. Outside walls and roof are made of scrap lumber and old rusty pieces of corrugated tin. The roof leaks when it rains and they have stretched some black plastic to help catch the water.

Desperation of poverty

Poverty leads people to take desperate measures. The young women and girls in these neighborhoods escape to prostitution as a means of getting some income, and this has added to the spread of AIDS. When these women who are mothers die, they leave behind orphans under the care of grandparents who do not have the economic means to take up this challenge. These are the children we in CFCA Nanyuki would like to reach out to, so that our support can help in giving them a chance in life.

A dream of being a doctor

Dignified housing and a piece of land would make all the difference in the world for the majority of our families in Kenya.

Peter, a sponsored young man, tells us: “Before this sponsorship opportunity, I had lots of problems at home and in school. I will be joining one of the local universities soon to study surgery. All this wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the dedication of all the CFCA sponsors and all the staff members.”

The girl child

Testimonial from Lispa (Nanyuki Project)—“Often it is assumed that investing in boys ensures the continuation of the family line. Generally African societies underrate the girl child. Again we say thank you and God bless you for saving us from this kind of unjust discrimination which finds expression in heavy work, early marriage, female genital mutilation, and sexual abuse and prostitution. I am much grateful because I am now treated as an equal child … am shielded from harmful practices and prevented from exploitation as a girl child.”

Dignified housing and a piece of land would make all the difference in the world for the majority of families in Kenya.

Sister Joanne Gangloff of the Sisters of

St. Francis, Syracuse, N.Y, who is coordinator of Timau, tells us:

“In the mid and late 1990s, people were informed village by village that they had to relocate as the government land was being re-possessed. Some of these evictions were forceful and traumatic. People lost all they had built up over 25 years. Many of these displaced families are now squatters on land they don’t own with no place for planting. Many are living in dingy little rented rooms for $5 or $6 per month, sometimes whole families sleeping, cooking and living in that single room. After being evicted, some of these families were just camping along the roadside in makeshift shelters. Desperation for food led to a great amount of prostitution, and this led to AIDS and more poverty, a vicious cycle.”

Nancy (not her real name) is a single mother living in a one-room plank home that rents for Ks500 ($7.80) per month. She is raising two toddler daughters. At 19, her tender face speaks of hurt and vulnerability. Nancy’s mother died when Nancy was very small and she had no opportunity to go to school. Shortly after Nancy became a mother, the young father of her child drowned in a swollen river. Nancy’s in-laws became hostile and ran her off. Her father also refused to take her and the baby in.

With no food, little clothing, no blanket and eight months pregnant—the result of a rape ordeal—Nancy spent three nights in the cold with her 2-year-old daughter. CFCA staff members tell us that when she came to the project, she looked frail, fearful, confused and was on the verge of giving up. CFCA rents a warm room for her and provides her with food and other daily requirements. In July 2007, under the care of CFCA, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. This day, Sept. 21, 2007, Nancy was sponsored by Ghislaine, who is from Haiti but lives in New Jersey. Today also is Ghislaine’s birthday … and a new day for Nancy.

The Sister Luise Raddlemeier and Juja experience

Sister Luise is surrounded by children as she watches performances by sponsored children.

Sister Luise Raddlemeier, a Dominican sister from Germany, has been in Kenya 20 years and 51 years in Africa. Women dressed in native, long flowing robes with matching headdresses meet us on the road into Sister Luise’s orphanage for 120. Sister Luise explained that some of these women are sponsored and others are mothers working with AIDs orphans. She now lives with 20 orphans in her convent home, plus the 120 at St. Monica’s home…Sudanese, Somalis, Kenyans.

At one of our rest stops and with our driver/guide distracted, several full-sized baboons sneaked into the bus and made off with a good quantity of snacks. Thank you for traveling with us through Kenya … and now on to Uganda. Please know of our love and prayers.

God's Blessings,

Bob Hentzen
Nairobi, Kenya
Sept. 23, 2007

Sponsor a child in Kenya

Read the notes from other mission awareness trips