Awards for Exceptional Service

Some time ago I had opportunity to be with all 82 students at Made in the Streets with the Team not present.  So I asked the students, "Who loves you?"  Then I gave them 5 categories for the ways Team members have loved them.  I used 5 questions to elicit responses:

• Who has loved you in the Spirit?  (or Who has had great spiritual impact on your life?) 
• Who has loved you by being of strong character?
• Who has loved you by doing good deeds? 
• Who has loved you by serving with joy?
• If you have only one gift to give at Christmas, what Team member would you give it to?

So...we had 5 winners who received certificates for exceptional service

• Mary Mwende       Award for Spiritual Impact
• Irene Akinyi          Award for Character and Integrity
• Moses Okoth         Award for Doing Good Deeds
• Francis Mbuvi       Award for Service with Joy
• Phillip Kariuki      Award for being Worthy of Honor

And since each award came with a $100 bill, it was appreciated all the more!  Both students and Team were delighted with the outcome -- they cheered and clapped when I made the presentations.  Our Team truly is worthy of honor, for they love deeply and purely...they give themselves away for the sake of street kids.  Something hardly anyone is willing to do.

Mary Mwende receives her award for spiritual impact on student life

Francis Mbuvi receives the service with joy award

Alex Atema Graduates

Two full years Alex has spent at Nairobi Great Commission School since finishing his computer skills program at Made in the Streets.  We are proud of him for sticking with it and doing the work required. Today was graduation day.  Darlene and I left after 9:00 AM to go to the graduation.  Saturday is never a good day to drive in Nairobi.  It took us an hour to go by way of the Eastern Bypass to Mombasa Highway.  Before we reached the highway, we could see that it was backed up toward the airport - and not moving.  That means it was more than a 3-mile backup from Nyayo Stadium.  After reaching the stadium, we would still have a 45-minute drive to NGCS.  We concluded that we would arrive about the time everything was over.  So we turned toward the airport, circled around to the Bypass and returned home.  We are a little sad to have missed it.  Francis Mbuvi went, but he said he spent more than half the day in traffic and only had an hour at the graduation.  So...we got a lot of work done at home. I got a house and a Bible study room designed on graph paper, with the materials list made up also.  And we closed up the house and gave away the food left over and did a lot of other things to prepare for leaving for a while.

We are hoping to use the designed Bible study room as a "preaching point" (really a Discovery Bible Study point) where Jackton Omondi and Alex and possibly others can be involved in preparing the way for a new congregation.  The place is about halfway to town from Kamulu, and thousands of people have moved into the area in the past few years.  So...please pray for our ability to spread the word, to lead people a little closer to Jesus and build up the kingdom.

Here is a picture of Alex in a Discovery Bible Study group at Kamulu a few months ago.

That's Alex looking toward the camera.

Can't Do It Without You!

I often say this to our friends and to churches that love what we do with street kids in Nairobi.  We could hardly have even dreamed about street kids having a new life without knowing that our friends would love those whom we love.

So...at the end of 2013, and in 2014, we need your added help once again.  We hope in 2014 to spend about $120 per month on each street kid whom we serve well and have great impact on.  Since we plan to serve at least 350 youth with great impact -- we will have some influence on about 2,000 more -- the budget gets much too large for us to dream of doing it without you.

So...this is an appeal for you to begin helping us or increase your support for next year.  We do a great deal with the money you send to Made in the Streets, 409 Franklin Road, Brentwood, TN 37027.

• Have two congregations and many Bible studies
• Run a farm where we grow some of our food
• Run a boarding program with residences for 100 former street kids
• Operate our own Literacy School for younger students aged 12 to 15 - the school primarily teaches Bible, math, English and computers, but also prepares students for the KCPE (national 8th grade exit exams) by teaching science, Swahili, social studies and more.
• Maintain a library with about 3,000 hand-picked books for students and teachers.
• Receive visitors from churches in the USA who have skills and can train our Team and maintain facilities for their visits
• Receive visitors from USA universities who inspire and work together with Team and students
• Operate an inner-city facility from which a Team goes out daily to serve street kids and invite them to programs at the Center while recruiting 13 to 14 year olds for the boarding program as well as evangelizing and befriending older street people
• Operate a skills training program where students 16 and over can learn hairdressing, catering, woodworking, tailoring, computers and auto mechanics. 
• Maintain two water wells that serve our facilities and are used for irrigation
• Maintain housing for several Team members on MITS property
• We have begun an online school called HOPE School of Leadership -(hopeschoolofleadership.org) that includes some of our Team members as students, along with young people who conduct a great children's ministry in Mathare Valley, the deep slum near our Eastleigh Center.  Orientation is going on now; regular classes begin in January 2014
• Conduct business classes (including Bible, business and computer offerings) in the afternoons at 4:30 PM (so we call it The 4.30 Classes) for all our skills students. 
• Have daily chapel with songs, prayers and talks from students and Team members.
• Have an "Animal Program" with 2 cows, 15 goats, 2 fish farms and 3 chicken houses to provide experience for the students and additional food for them. 
• Have a "Child Care" facility for small children of girls who were living on the streets and had babies and are now in our skills training programs.  
• Operate shops along the highway so our cooking and hairdressing students can gain experience.
• Maintain a playground next to the highway for use by community people.

This is not all, but you can see that we try to do a great deal, to have a whole life ministry, to be family to the kids and to one another as leaders.  And we can't do it without you.

A picture of two of the sweetest girls you could ever want
to know.  They are Lucy B and Nelly, great friends from the day
they came to Kamulu. One more year before skills training. For
these kind my heart's desire remains to bring street kids a
new life, a life in Christ, a life with hope.

CAN'T DO IT WITHOUT YOU! 

FARMS FOR LIFE

Our Team working at Eastleigh has spent a great deal of time with a group of street kids and youth at the railroad tracks in Doonholm, on the eastern side of Nairobi.  Several young boys from this base are moving out to Kamulu soon to begin a new life.  Visitors from the Decatur, Texas, Church of Christ helped this base start a farming project last summer.  Now they want to develop it further.  With a little help they can do it.  Someone who has been blessed by God with the means is requested to give $300 toward helping the young men at Doonholm become self-supporting.  Send to Made in the Streets, 409 Franklin Road, Brentwood, TN, 37027 with a note saying it is for "street farming."  

                                              DOONHOLM BASE AND FARMING

Darlene and Charles visit the Doonholm Base, pray with
the young men, and look at the gardens.

   In Nairobi. Kenya, a majority of the residents live in slums and shanty areas, because houses are cheap and life is affordable there. Families in this kind of setting live below a dollar a day for food. An increase in population pressure has lead to scarcity of resources and high unemployment. This makes them encounter difficulties to acquire basic needs such as food, shelter and clothing. Many youth and children are forced by circumstance to run away from home and seek refuge in the streets. There are other factors such as child sexual abuse and battery, child labour within the families. All this contributes to children going to the streets, where they live in groups and the common name for their home is “Base”.

   We have frequently visited Doonholm base. In this base we have youths in the age bracket of 10 to 25 years old. They are all drug users and many sniff jet fuel, smoke marijuana and cigarettes.

   They earn their daily bread by collecting scrap metals and plastics for recycling and by going through garbage dumps for food and plastics.  Some engage in robbery or begging to get daily bread. Many have been caught stealing by angry mobs and killed. Some are now in prison and some are in wheel chairs due to serious beating by a mob.

Life has become so hostile and difficult for these young men.  But a few of them have come up with new income generating activities to satisfy their needs rather than risking their lives. In this base they have started to practise small scale agriculture.  They stay in an open space near the junction of  railroad tracks. 

   They had a great idea but no means to accomplish their goal - until a summer visit of a group of Christians from American led by Jeremy and Dr Chad helped them to purchase some farming tools and seeds.

   Currently it’s no longer a farming idea but a practical farm work that everyone can see, the guys in this base have planted kale, spinach, tomatoes and other vegetables. Coulston visited and said the tomatoes look better than his at the MitS Farm.  The farm is not as productive as they would wish, so we are appealing to friends to help them.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

Ø  TO STOP DRUGS

Ø  TO STOP ROBBERY AND OTHER SOCIAL CRIMES

Ø  TO FIGHT DISCRIMINATION BY SOCIETY.

Ø  TO REGISTER THE GROUP WITH THE AUTHORITIES

MISSION

To be productive and independent in society

VISION  To be a main supplier of vegetables in the county.

To increase a variety of business opportunities by

·       Rabbit keeping

·       Goat keeping

·       Increase variety of vegetables.

SUSTAINABILTY OF THE PROJECT

·       Ploughing back the profit from the farm.

·       Put some savings from the farm in the bank

·       Do a simple loan project

TARGETED MARKET

§  Food kiosks within the slum near the base

§  Residents within Doonholm

§  Outside Doonholm as production grows

NEEDS

TOOLS

Ø  1 Hose pipe 20 metres 

Ø  2 Forks

Ø  1 spade  

Ø  2 mattocks

Ø  3 machetes

Ø  2 rakes

Ø  2 spraying cans

Ø  2 tins pesticide

Ø  4 irrigation cans

SEEDS

Ø  cabbage 2 tins  

Ø  spinach 2 tins

Ø  onions 2tins

Ø  Dania 2 tins

Ø  Kunde

MITS as a ministry does not intend to keep buying the same tools and farming equipment every year. We agreed together with all those who have a farm at this base that we as MADE IN THE STREETS shall try our best to buy the best tools and leave taking care of the tools in their hands.  They all agreed to take care of the tools and use them for the better glory of God.

Written by the MITS Eastleigh Team

Bill Arnold - Common Sense Success

Bill Arnold from Southlake, Texas, has given wonderful seminars at Made in the Streets and the Kamulu Church of Christ.  This picture is in our chapel, and the attendees are businesspeople from Kamulu, Ruai and inner city Nairobi.  They all have small businesses, and they were delighted with what they learned.  The "success principles" were presented with humor, with sincerity and with clarity.  MITS is thrilled we have friends who can offer this kind of service to people we do business with.  And we can draw them another step closer to the Lord.  Bill has done these seminars for numerous companies and organizations in the USA, Europe and Asia.  We are grateful to receive this blessing.  Our whole Team and our older students also loved Bills' teaching.