The Church at Work

One of the girls in the Kamulu Church Sunday school had no uniform for school, and her mother appealed to the church for help. The school makes kids go home until they have a proper uniform. It is really great that we have a uniform shop and a factory that makes uniforms at Made in the Streets, so the church could easily buy a uniform for Damaris. Now she is a happy little girl, back in school, and her mom is happy too. We are happy we can do some good works for kids and for people with sickness in their families or other serious trouble.

Possible Job for a Student

Recently Laurent Mogambi (our former student who teaches part-time in cooking at MITS) and Hollye Conway visited Java House in Gigiri and talked to the manager. They were seeking to place an intern for a temporary position. The manager told them that Java does not do internships, but that there is a job opening. So Laurent plans to take Sarah Aono, who has recently turned 18, to see the manager.

It will be a blessing if Sarah gets this job. She works hard and is willing to do what needs to be done. The job is basically cleaning up, not a cooking job. But a student who does well opens the door for future students. We hope this will be the case with Sarah.

So please pray for Sarah and this appointment.

Helping Single Moms at MITS

Mercy came off the streets to us at MITS, along with baby Arnold (named after Schwarzenegger). She's an orphan. What she wants to do as a job is to work as a secretary. So what the Team decided is that she learns computers well. What she does now is go to Maureen at World Bible School, right on our MITS property, in the mornings. There she learns office work and simple computer work. In the afternoons, she attends computer class.

I was talking with Joel this morning; he says that in his university business classes, he has right now a business computer class. So what he does is bring home the power points and has a special class with Mercy. In my opinion, this is just the best thing for Mercy! Secretarial colleges here still mainly teach filing, shorthand, and not much computer instruction is available. Thanks to people who donate time and resources to be available to someone like Mercy.

This morning in chapel, Arnold made the rounds of almost all of us, shaking hands and smiling. What a different and wonderful life he has (and he delights all of us!). In these days, he and the other children are in our new MITS Children's Centre, taught by Helen and Millie. I think he really has a future!

Kennedy Weds Grace

Saturday was another banner day at Made in the Streets. Kennedy Odhiambo came through our program, finishing in January 2006. He was unwanted by his birth family, with one of his sisters calling him "cockroach" when he would come around the family after running to the streets. He has endured much abuse and ill-will in his life. He did not get a continuing job after leaving MITS, so when we did a hiring in summer 2006, he applied for one of the positions. We had intended to hire 6 people. 45 people applied, and after extensive interviews we invited 19 of them to join us for training.

These 19 lived at MITS for the next 9 weeks. We taught them classes every day for several hours, and the rest of the time they worked with the team and students. After 6 weeks, we took them all to Eastleigh and had them work daily on the streets for 2 weeks. Then we had one more week back at Kamulu. At the end of the 9 weeks, we voted on who ought to be hired, and Mbuvi and Coulston did exit interviews with the rest of them. We ended up hiring 9 people, because 3 of our own kids had applied and did a great job in training. We hired Kennedy to go back to the same streets he came from as a street minister. He has done a great job for the past 3 1/2 years. We have great appreciation for him.

And Saturday was his wedding day, to a girl named Grace who works at another orphanage in Nairobi. We had a delightful day, with about 250 people present. They ate a meal, witnessed the wedding ceremony, tasted wedding cake (baked and decorated by Darlene Coulston and Laurent Mogambi). They received a gift of a one-night honeymoon at a resort lodge at Lake Naivasha.

We are proud of the young people who come from the streets, who do not forget the streets but rejoice that God has been with them through it all, and who return something of their lives to make a better world for the poorest of the poor. Rejoice with us!

Prayers for Team

BREAKING NEWS: MONDAY morning - 3 May 2010

Moses drove Robin to the hospital this morning for his appendix surgery. The hospital was able to push up his surgery one day, since he had the money to pay. Thank you for praying; please keep it up.

Robin Ndunda felt pain on his left side Friday morning. As the pain became worse, he went to the hospital and discovered that he needs to have his appendix removed. But they also told him to come with money. Even though Robin is on the national hospital insurance fund, they are very slow to issue membership cards (it has been more than a year), and no one can get benefits without the card. So he had to have 41,000 Kenya shillings (about $550) to be treated. He returned to Kamulu and got the money, then returned for surgery. However, when he arrived back at the hospital, they then told him that he would have to be scheduled, and there are other surgeries before him. So they sent him back home with pain medicine and with instructions to rest. Now we are waiting for Tuesday, trusting that the appendix will not burst. Please pray for Robin's health.

Another note is that Robin was helping prepare for his mother's burial at the time he began feeling pain. His mother has been ill for about a year, was once misdiagnosed and not treated property and finally succumbed to kidney failure. So also please pray for Robin's family. The doctors told Robin not to try to go and help with the funeral until after his surgery.