FEBRUARY 2021

We have been following the news from the UK and with the recent announcement hopefully it feels like there is some light at the end of COVID tunnel. With international travel able to resume from May we'd love you to consider a trip to Kenya!

It feels like we have spent most of the last few weeks at the garage dealing with punctures. Fortunately a repair is only about KSH200-300 (£1.30 - £2). We also had to get our first tow as we came off the road and got stuck. There have been some intermittent rains as we lead up to the rainy season and as the roads aren't tarmacked the rain has absolutely battered them. The road down to our house is particularly bad and one car got pretty badly stuck. Having had a taste of what is to come we felt like we couldn't just live with the status quo so we have been working with Kijabe management, which I guess is a bit like the town/ village council and we paid for 18 tonnes of hardcore to be delivered and laid on the road. It has made a huge difference and everyone is really grateful. To be honest as much as it helps everyone else we just didn't want to get stuck when we left our house...

We continue to get involved with life and Naomi's Village and Cornerstone Preparatory Academy. As we get to know the staff and children more and more we realise the magnitude of what it is we are involved with. The difficulties and the backgrounds faced by the children reminds us of why we are here. We long to see these children grow up educated, equipped and empowered to change their communities and this nation. We want to see the chains of generational poverty broken and families living with autonomy and agency, no longer bound by the limitations that come with extreme poverty. Dr Bob Mendonsa, the founder and CEO of Naomi's Village often talks about the importance of having a builder mentality. We are building something that we cannot yet see and it is vital we don’t lose sight or get weary of what we are building. We often find ourselves reflecting on those words because it can be so easy to lose heart at the size of the task before us. Cornerstone Preparatory Academy serves all of the children from Naomi's Village as well as a couple hundred more from the local community, families who live on less than $2 a day. These families have been hit hard by COVID and many of them have been employed at the school where several portions of land have been turned over to farming. The parents then tend the land and sell the crops. Alongside this, at the beginning of this month the parents were invited into school to participate in a health workshop that included things like hand washing which isn't that simple when you don’t have running water and can't afford soap. It has been incredible to be able to support and empower these families during this time.

Jonah continues to thrive in Grade 1 at Rift Valley Academy. RVA serves around 500 missionary children whose families serve across Africa with many of the older children boarding. This means that on the weekends there are often various events going on which Jonah has loved. Recently, he has enjoyed the waterslide and a roller disco. As RVA starts school a year later than the UK, Caleb has joined a preschool in Kijabe. It is just around the corner from our house and he is loving it. It is led by 2 wonderful Kenyan teachers and he is enjoying playing with his new friends from Kenya, Italy, America and Tanzania.