Becoming Parents Again

We have some GOOD NEWS, and if you want to help us with this, please let me know.  Write me at charles@madeinthestreets.org.  We have a former student who had a baby when we met her and was pregnant, and she was only 15 at the time.  She left us without learning English very well and was never interested in learning a skill.  She ended up living with a man who did not want her children around.  So this precious little girl and boy have been shifted around different places - after we had all fallen in love with them!

Jackton and Millie Omondi have had meetings with the young woman, with local authorities and people from the children's department, and they have received custody of Mna (or Purity) and Larry. We are thrilled; they will become like our grandchildren, since they are in Mitsville also.  Larry has been with them for the past two months, and today they brought Mna home from the latest place where she has been.

We think Jackton and Millie will need some help with school fees and other expenses for the kids.  If you are willing to help, please let me know.  I am hoping to get somewhere between $100 and $200 per month for them.

Mna in 2010 at the MITS Learning Center.  She is cute and worthy!!

Guard your Friends!

The guards really are our friends.  Twice a year Darlene and I are taking the guards from Kamulu out for lunch.  Last time we took John Wambu and Moses Mwangi along with us.  This time we took Jackton and Milly Omondi along with the 6 guards.  They all guard at night at Kamulu properties, sleep in the morning, but by 3 PM they are ready to eat.

I had ordered in advance -- 6 kilograms of goat meat roasted, 9 sausages, two bowls of ugali, a bowl of kachumbari (like pico d'gallo), 3 big bottles of soda, a bowl of rice and 3 quarter chickens.  At the end I got each one a bowl of ice cream and a huge cookie called a "tea scone."  We all had a great time.

We are sitting at table outside the Tusky's supermarket and take-out cafe.  Darlene and I left while they were eating ice cream so she could teach one of the 4.30 Classes back at the literacy center (she is currently reading C.S.Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and discussing it with them).  After we left, Jackton and Millie invited the 6 guards to begin attending a Bible study at their house on Wednesday afternoons.  So far as we know, none of them have ever been in a worship service or done any study of the Bible.  So....how exciting!  Guard your friends!! 

Musing about the Future of Kids

Francis Mbuvi was in town this week to be with the Team that works out of the Eastleigh Center. He always meets with them, then goes out to the Bases where the street kids are.  Following is his thought after going out to Pumwani Base.

"Among many things that are difficult in the streets is how the young ones live. The older ones mostly try to get them to live like adults, and they are pushed to it in every way. So as early as just a few months, soft drugs (if there is anything like that) are forced on the young ones. I can't help but think that maybe the children think to themselves, "I don't want this kind of life", but then again, what choice do they have? So they grow in this hard situation knowing hardship as long as they live, unless somehow God sends people like the MITS team to pray with their parents and encourage them towards seeing that their children can live better if they allow God to guide them. We hope to reach one child at a time, as many as God allows us to.
This is at Pumwani base.
Blessings, Mbuvi"

Creative at Kamulu

We are happy to have creative teammates at MITS. John Wambu, who has been with us from the beginning, is making sand from the rocks at Mountain View. He has designed a "sand roller" that breaks up small rocks, and we have used it in Nancy's new house. Since it is pure, the concrete is rock hard. He used a small engine and built the crushing roller.