Canadians in Kenya

We take many teams of Canadians to Kenya each year, and while they desire to serve and to bless the children at MCF, they are blessed in return.  Here a few of their stories...

I first went to MCF in March of 2005, mostly because I wanted to check it out.  I knew Sheila and Keith had an interest in going to Kenya at some point to do medical missions for a year, and had been supporters of MCF. I decided the time had come to experience it first hand.  This was the year I took hundreds of pounds of yarn, hundreds of pairs of knitting needles with me, and taught some of the girls at Yatta to hand knit.  I could not believe how quickly and eagerly they learned.

…back again

In July/August 2006 we went back as a family to MCF.  During the 2 weeks we were there, Keith examined all 800 kids and learned a lot of Swahili.  Rebecca and Katie (my granddaughters) went to school and made a lot of friends.  Sheila and I spent as much time as we could in Yatta teaching both hand knitting and machine knitting.  We also had great fun fitting 500 or so girls for bras that we had taken with us, all donated by friends.

…and again!

The summer of 2007 found our family back at MCF, this time part of a 32-person team with Careforce International.  Half our group were teachers/educators who gave the teachers at MCF some amazing professional development experiences.  Keith teamed up with Barb, a nurse from the east coast.  Together they delivered a 3-hour First Aid course to all the grade 9 and 10 students.  They clearly enjoyed themselves and Keith got to practice his Swahili again.

Becca (12) and Katie (10) went to a few classes this year and spent time playing with their friends after school.  It was such fun to see the reunions!  The skipping ropes we took were a big hit.  The girls also helped the endless task of sorting bras, yarn and helping the team.

I missed a few days of work with the girls at Yatta because of meetings with members of the MCF board.  Vikki, Jennifer and I met with Charles, Grace and Kaleli for almost 2 full days of information sharing.  I left with a much deeper appreciation of Charles’ plans for the future and the current needs at MCF.  A new a water system is tops on the list.

Sheila took materials and a great idea with her to MCF this summer – reusable sanitary pads made from flannelette, fleece and toweling.  Esther and Feliste, the sewing teacher, loved the idea.  The girls could use them but also make them to sell I their shops! Annie joined the small group and they started cutting and sewing.  Becca turned out to be a natural on the treadle sewing machine and she made a few.  At one point Sheila asked Esther how many she wanted and she replied, after much thought, ’10,000.’ I think they made 6 that day so they had a way to go!

• The Bras

This year we took thousands with us.  Literally.  Lynda, a great friend, had invited women to bring bras and undies for the girls at Yatta rather than a gift for her 60^th birthday party.  You never saw such a glorious selection of dainties in your life!

A local bra manufacturer donated bags and bags of seconds to us.  Becca and Katie spent hours sorting through them so that we took sizes we knew would be most useful.  I couldn’t believe their patience and dedication to a boring but important task.

Alison, Pat, Emma and Carissa joined Sheila and the girls in fitting and distributing the bras at Yatta.  They had a great time!  This was a whole new group of girls from the ones we gave bras to last year.  For most of them, this would have been the first new item of clothing they ever received. 

• The Knitting Machines

We took 20 manual knitting machines with us this year.  Friends had donated some.  Others were bought with the benefit of Michael’s coupons.  These machines allow you to make basic items fairly quickly, which is important if you want to do this as a business.  We set up 2 at the back of the sewing room, and Sheila continued to work with Feliste to show her the basics.  Sheila knit a child’s sweater in a day just to show them it could be done. 

From my meetings with Charles, I know he wants to have the curriculum for the knitting program approved for a high school credit and have it up and running in a year.  We took over enough yarn to make close to 600 sweaters.

• The Hockey Bags

The Careforce team organizers were wonderful and so supportive of our efforts.  They gave us an allotment of 31 hockey bags for the ‘stuff’ we had collected.  In the weeks before the trip our family sorted, packed, weighed and distributed to team members their bags to carry as part of their luggage allowance.  In addition to the bras and yarn, we were able to take over 500 plus meters of donated fabric for the sewing program that was the source of much excitement when people saw it being sorted.

The great joy and happiness of the children at MCF.  They now know love and hope, and its shows.

The beauty of the bougainvillea growing along the fences at Yatta.  Charles has taken care to create a beautiful as well as safe place for the girls.

The gift of having such an amazing experience as a family – again.  Did I mention we saw the millions of pink flamingoes that flock to Lake Nakuru?  They are amazing, but not as amazing as MCF.

The opportunity given girls as well as boys at MCF.  This is truly unique in Kenya, and most African countries.  Most homes just take boys.

Observing the children conduct their own daily devotions.  How many 12 year olds could stand up in front of a group of 100 or so children and lead them through a program, and have the kids behave? 

Seeing the team members sitting around knitting.  Some were experienced knitters; others novices.  It caught on and we left a dozen colourful, garments behind.

The sound of the children singing and dancing.  It truly moves you!   

Who knows what my/our next involvement with MCF will be.  What I do know, is that I have MCF in my heart and blood now, so expect updates to my story.  Elizabeth

Elizabeth lives in Belleville, Ontario 

Kellie Allen  

Burlington, Ontario  

We were  SO impressed with the project and programs at MCF because they are geared toward self sustainability and managed with a precision not common in the developing world.  Obviously THE KIDS were a highlight and communicating with them in English was a joy. 

Day 1 I met a girl named Diane who took my hand and showed me her dorm room and her wooden bunk bed with pride.   I met her friends and heard her sing a song "it's ok, it's ok" which our team proceeded to sing whenever anything went haywire throughout the trip.  Every day we played  with them after school and I enjoyed getting schooled at soccer and attending nightly devotions where the volume and enthusiasm of their singing would nearly knock you off your bench. Their passion and joy for God was so contagious that I felt immediately full of His presence and in awe of their committment in spite of having so little.  These kids come from some of the worst slums and conditions that you or I can imagine but they share their stories with such HOPE for the future....WOW, very humbling. 

One of the reasons these teams are so addictive is that you connect with people   on such a real level in a very short period of time.  Our team bonded in a remarkable way and shared so many new experiences in authentic community - including a minor midnight flood in our dorm washroom fixed with duct tape, "slashing" - aka cutting grass with machete like tool, knitting sweaters and tasting new foods like ugali (white porridge like staple) and the list goes on.   

Sheila Gregoire

The following article appeared in Sheila Gregoire's  syndicated Reality Check column.    Sheila and her husband Keith and two daughters have travelled to MCF twice.  

If it had been sunny we would have swam and laughed and enjoyed ourselves, but that would have been it. Instead, our camping trip turned into a soggy mess we will never forget.

         Keith was working, so I took my two daughters and three of their friends for a trip in our tent trailer. No problem, I thought. I’ve done it all before. But this time the ground was not level. If one child was in the dining area, two had to sit on the beds to balance her out. A Good Samaritan came over after a few days to lessen the slant, the only problem being that now our awning was inadvertently level as well. I didn’t discover this until the torrential rains came and the water, instead of running off, puddled in the middle. I had no idea metal poles could bend like that.

After the awning collapsed, all hope of staying dry evaporated. The six of us huddled in our trailer for days on end, waiting for the sun. And then came the news: tomorrow the weather would break! We rejoiced as we settled into bed, only to be greeted by a strange dripping sound. The roof was leaking.

My only choice was to pack it in and head home. A few minutes on our way, though, forty heads of cattle suddenly jumped up onto the road. They quickly lost momentum as they slowed to a crawl, with me following behind and praying for the Parting of the Red Heifers.

As I began to wonder if getting out and yelling would be a better strategy, a driver in the opposite direction came to the same conclusion. He yelled. The cows jumped. And then all forty of them turned and galloped full speed straight towards us. The girls stopped breathing. At the last minute the cows split apart and our little band was saved. 

African cows are much smarter. They run quickly from the careening cars trying to avoid the bovine-sized potholes. I happen to know this because we have just returned from Kenya, where we were working at the Mully Children’s Family, a home for abandoned and orphaned children. We were there last year, and loved it so much that we decided to return. It is the children you can’t forget, and their stories are as individual as their smiles. There is Elizabeth, whose older siblings couldn’t afford to feed her after her parents died. Hope, who was left for three days by a riverside when she was three months old. Jennifer, who fled at the age of seven to avoid an early marriage. And yet, what strikes you when you meet them is not the hell they’ve endured but the healing they’ve received. Mully Children’s Family is as close to a definition of hope as I have ever found on this earth.

Right before we left last year, 11-year-old Nicolas breathlessly ran up and presented me with an elaborate racecar he had made out of scavenged milk cartons and bottlecaps. He wanted us all to know that even orphans can be creative and play. He was beaming as we took a picture of the two of us together, the last one I took on that trip before waving good-bye.        

      This year, as soon as we stepped foot on the compound, the children came running. Girls squealed as they hugged my kids, the boys smiling from ear to ear as they hung back a little bit. But as I scanned the faces, one seemed to be missing.      

   Later I asked Elizabeth where Nicolas was. “He’s at Eldoret,” she told us. Eldoret is the pediatric AIDS treatment centre, the place where they send the truly sick ones. My children did not realize the significance of the statement, and so they kept on chattering. I didn’t. I paused, and thought of my little friend.

   And so that is what I will remember from this summer. Rain, cows, and a milk-carton car, made by a boy has already known more rejection and more love in his short years than most of us will in our entire lives.

Paul Boge

Paul visited MCF in February 09 and offers this insightful story.

Remembering to Forget

Her name is Maria and her story is one I will never forget.

I sat beside her at Mully Children’s Family in Kenya conducting research for a follow up story to the life of the founder, Charles Mulli. MCF is a home that rescues children from the slums of Kenya. I was there for the first time five years ago. I came to teach for 3 months. But when I got there, I was invited to write Charles’ Mulli’s story - how at the age of six he was abused by his father and then wakes up one morning to discover his family has completely abandoned him.

Charles went from hut to hut begging for food. Unable to afford school he started working and eventually started his own businesses. He ultimately became a multi-millionaire and was on a first name basis with the president. Then one day, God called him to sell all he had and to go into the slums to rescue street children.

Today he has more than 2,000 children under his care.

One of them is Maria.

I sat beside her and took notes about her tragic life. Her parents divorced when she was young. She went to live with her father. Then one day while her dad was at work she took Maria and left for a remote village. She never saw her father again. Her life with her mother went from bad to worse. Her mother became and alcoholic and turned violent towards her daughter.

I found it difficult to hear her story. At this point she stopped and looked at me.

“Are you taking notes of this?”

I felt terrible. I explained that I was doing a follow up book on Charles Mulli and…

“Yes, yes I understand that,” she said with typical African compassion and kindness. “You explained that all to me. It’s just that all of this that I am telling you up to this point is just background information. The real suffering in my life hasn’t happened yet.”

I sat there stunned. Too shocked to continue writing. I looked into her young eyes, eyes that had experienced more pain and suffering than many of us could even imagine.

She began to recount her life story. I’m not sure that there are wordsto describe what she went through. I recall an interview with Tom Hanks about Saving Private Ryan. He commented about recreating the Normandy scene and said something to the effect that what it looked like they can get, but what it felt like we’ll never know. I hope no one has to experience what Maria went through.

But I realize that this is wishful thinking. There are Marias all over the world going through what she went through.

She stopped halfway through the interview and heard the singing of the children in the evening devotions. She asked if we could go and join them. We walked in and she got onto stage and called me up. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Then she invited me to join her in leading the group in singing the song “I’m trading my sorrows…for the joy of the LORD.”

So there, in front of 400 kids, she sang her heart out about how much she loved Jesus.

We came back and finished the interview. I was in a state of disbelief. How does someone who has been through so much still love Jesus? I felt outclassed. Embarrassed. Ashamed of my Christianity.

Mostly, I admired her. I was with someone who had totally transformed my thinking.

She finished her story. She described the real suffering in her life.

After a long pause I turned to her.

“Aren’t you angry at God?” I asked. I probably shouldn’t have. But I had to know. You can fake Christianity for a while. But you can’t fake getting abused, then getting up in front of 400 kids and singing your heart for Jesus. There was something deep going on.

“No,” she said. She smiled.  “That’s all in the past.”

How is it that this young girl who has lived through unspeakable pain can be so loving to Jesus?

It reminded me of the Apostle Paul’s writings in Philippians 3 – Forgetting what lies behind…I press on toward the goal.

That’s a challenge for us as Christians.

We need to remember to forget.

We need to remember where our focus should be.

Am I more interested in complaining about my past, or more interested in pursuing Jesus Christ?

Paul H. Boge is the author of Father to the Fatherless: The Charles Mulli Story. He is working on a sequel to this book that will include lives of some of the children at MCF.