We have had a very busy time after
Christmas, as we had to find secondary schools for a
total of nine kids! As I am writing this, only one of
them has still not gotten a school. It is quite a
tedious process, as half of the kids who sat for Kenya
Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) countrywide,
will not get a school. This amounts to a staggering
300.000 kids! You can all imagine what a tragedy this
is for many families. Our kids scored from very poor to
very good, as could be expected. Three of the Soweto
kids who sat KCPE did not manage to obtain the required
pass-mark to enter secondary school. All of them scored
around 225 points out of 500, while our pass-mark is
275. These will be offered vocational training, but we
do not know yet whether their families will accept
this. In Kenya, many believe that secondary school
means everything; while the problem is that a poor
secondary result is almost worse than having no
secondary school at all… Another student scored 274, but
had around 310 during the year. This boy, who also
comes from Soweto, is already in school as he has proven
himself earlier. The two girls in our Maisha Mema
family who sat for KCPE, Nimo and Tete, scored 337 and
303 respectively.
Life is sometimes quite funny. Nimo has
for a long time said that her dream was to enter Doris’
old school. After Doris died, we have had no contact
with that school. But one day as we were out eating on
the other side of town, we “accidentally” met the
headmistress of that school. Asking if there was a
chance for one of our girls to be enrolled in her
school, she answered that “I will do it because of
Doris!” A few days after, Nimo was in school, and in a
letter to us recently, she writes “Wow! This school is
nice! Thank you for bringing me here!” It is not
always we are praised for what we are doing, but it is
nice when it happens!
Another of the students going to Form 1
this year is called Joseph. He scored 408 out of 500
points at KCPE, but is an orphan. His uncle, whom he
stays with, could not afford school fees, and Joseph
feared ending up in the streets. The headmaster of
Tumaini approached us, asking if we could do something.
Joseph is now in a very good secondary school, and we
expect him to do well!
Our Christmas celebrations last year did
not turn out as we expected, as Nairobi Chapel somehow
had to cancel the plans of accepting children into
families to give them a special Christmas. We therefore
had to come up with alternative ways of celebrating.
But the congregation did come to us on 21st
December to deliver gifts for the children. This turned
out to be a wonderful event, with both children from
Nairobi Chapel and our own children performing. And
Miss Kenya 2004 visited us! As you know, beauty
contests these days are not just about outer appearance,
but also inner beauty. Quite many of these girls are
therefore involved in and are promoting charitable
work. And by the way, Miss Kenya is attending Nairobi
Chapel. Not bad! We found it was important, especially
to our older girls, that a positive role model could
make an impact by presenting herself in a good way.
Newspapers, magazines and television are presenting
enough of the
Miss
Kenya visited us! And if you are in doubt (as you can
easily be, seeing this picture), Miss Kenya is at the
left, while Tete, one of the girls in our Maisha Mema
family, is at
the right.
bad ones…
We also had a very nice Christmas celebration on the 25th
December with lots of good food, entertainment and
fellowship. Great! Another big event was a tour to
Village Market just before Christmas. Besides being a
modern, Western style shopping centre with lots
of
exciting shops, several different
restaurants, a cinema and an open-air market, it also
boasts swimming facilities with big water slides. You
can imagine this is popular! The kids really enjoyed
their time, and if they could, they would have gone back
there even the next day! On the way back home, we
passed a restaurant in town to have some chicken and
chips and a soda. A real treat! After Christmas, we
also made a tour to City Park. This is a park where you
go to have a picnic, play some football or other games,
and just generally relax. Success!
Two journalists from Bergen Arbeiderblad and a journalist (Reidun
Gudmestad) and photographer from Stavanger Aftenblad visited us in February.
The
two last ones also went to Soweto. In a letter to Jonny afterwards, Reidun
tells that she was very much touched meeting the children there.
We do need someexposure now, as we so
much want to start building our new centre soon! Such articles make people
more aware of what we are doing, and hopefully some also want to donate towards
the building project… We urgently need around GB£ 25.000 / US$ 40.000 to start
the building process in June. Every contribution and every idea to make us
realise this, are welcomed!
Some of our biscuits
ended up with the monkeys in City Park… (And just
to make it clear, this one
was not part of the
Miss Kenya competition!)
Jonny
will be going to Norway around 20th March for
the annual month of meetings. Fred, our football coach
(see the June newsletter last year), will also be
going. They sing together, Fred will be telling about
his work with the boys’ football teams and the Club
House activities, and Jonny will also be preaching in
some churches. An important part of the program is of
course socialising. There are a number of people we
will see in Norway, including the staff at the Mission
Society of The Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of
Norway. And not to forget, Jonny’s mother is famous for
her sumptuous meals. They are normally enough to fill a
whole regiment, and no visitor has ever gone from her
place feeling hungry. This is an added advantage of
going to Norway… Another part of the tour we also look
forward to, is visiting the three schools at Askøy (an
island just outside Bergen). One of them, Florvåg, is
having their annual Maisha Mema action day just when we
are there. It is just touching to see all these
children do their best to “make a change in a child’s
life” in Kenya, as our slogan reads. We cannot
thank them enough, and say God bless you! The schools
are now contributing a generous part of the Maisha Mema
income, and it would have been difficult to manage
without them!
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