Jesus Loves The Little Children

1) This blog post is not being written using my iPhone which means that there should be less mistakes than in previous posts.

2) Today's post is going to share about Mathare Child Development Center (M.C.D.C) in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Their students are all street children who are from the slums.  The school provides the children an education and several other life enhancing programs (programs to teach responisbility, rehabilitation, use of technology, health education, and vocational skills). 

There is no way that I could write about this school, what they do, where the kids live, and give you an accuarate understanding of what it is like there so I decided to include a link to the youtube video about the school (the video is about 13 minutes long but it tells and shows a great deal about the school):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9StCkqfRPic

*Please note that they did not ask me to write about this and I am not trying to make anyone feel like they have to send in money or support the schol, but I wanted to share so that everyone could get an idea of some of the places that our team went on our trip. I also wanted to share because of the amazing things that this school and the wonderful people who run it are doing for their community.*

We were lucky enough to visit both locations and it was such an amazing experience.  The picture at the top of the post is from the newer building and shows a class of 4th graders before we entered the classroom to meet them.

The school provides a free education for around 1,500 students now (I hope I got that number correct I just remember hearing a large number and being incredibly amazed by what is being done at this school).  When you drive into the compound the first thing you see are vegetables being grown and students caring for the garden.  You will also see children playing on their playground (they are mostly playing soccer and it is a mixture of ages involved in the game). 

Currently over 30 children live on campus and all students (unless they are members at a different church) attend the church on campus every Sunday with their families. 

God is truly doing some amazing things with this school.

*This is a picture of our team and Charity (in the purple) and some of the children from the primary school.  Charity's parents are the couple who started the school.*

The Biggest Size IS 9....

God showed up in so many amazing ways during our 3 days of shoe distributions.  The first day we we serving the older students (what we would refer to as grades 4-8).  Some of these students, mostly boys, were very tall which meant they had large feet.  That was part of the problem.  We only had a certain number of shoes sized 10-13 and, using our first grade math skills we quickly discovered that the boys outnumbered the shoes.  We knew God would come through because we knew He wanted to love on these children.  The ladies who were running the shoe store would here us request a size and if they notived that we no longer had that size they would grab the biggest pair left (which on the first day were size 9) and pray over them asking God to bless the child and alow the shoes to somehow fit. Everytime that first day the size 9's fit boys who measured feet as 11-12 1/2.  God is so good!!  The next day we had even more times for God to show us His amazing faithfulness and desire to bless these children and love on them in special ways.  We had more growing boys, boys who while very young made almost all of us feel very short I might add, anywaywe had these growing boys and socks.  These were special socks.  They were size 4.5 Toddler.  That's right we had toddler socks and teenage boys.  Now, math is not a storng suit for many people so let me help you out with the math equation we had 2 toddler socks + 1 teenage boy = walmart run.  Funny thing about where we were in Kenya......there was no WalMart.  Instead of Wal Mart we got more of God's amazing faithfulness. Just like with the shoes before ladies in the group put socks on the older boys they said a quick silent prayer asking God to allow the sock to somehow fit.  It may have taken some stretching and patience but those toddler socks worked and stayed on the feet of those teenage boys.  For those of you who have had or currently have teenage sons it's ok to pause here and just take a moment to praise God because you know first hand how much of a miracle that would be.

Theis is a picture of one class waiting to get sized and measured for their new shoes.  To all my teacher friends out there yes you read correctly these students are all in the same classroom! 

In this picture the students are getting their feet washed, some lotion rubbed on their feet, new socks, and fitted for their new shoes. Most of the time they were so excited about the shoes that they were already half off before they sat down in the chair.

We brought 16 of these large duffle bags into the country filled with different sized shoes.

Before we did any distributing we pulled out all 16 bags and sorted the shoes by size on the sidewalk at the hotel.  It was an amazing sight once all the shoes were out.  After inventory we found there were over 500 pairs!

New shoes!

Take a second to look at your shoes. I bet they are awesome. Probably not too old, good sole and heel. More than likely you probably have a few more pairs in your closet (and ladies if you are like me that "few" is probably the same few you use when talking about having just a few cookies j/k). I'm just going out on a limb here but you probably don't even need most of your shoes. This week I went with a team of 7 other ladies to a small Maasai village in the great rift valley area of Kenya. The mission was to give kids shoes but it turned into something so much bigger. The kids (ranging in age from 3 to 19) are all students at a public school in the area area. Let's define closest: some children walk over 7K to get to school. When we saw the kids we did not see a single pair of shoes that were intact. If the shoes did not have a crack running the length of the shoe then the shoes had no sole or heel. Some kids only had one shoe that was in no condition to be utilized the way they needed. The kids never once would have complained though. They were happy and thankful for not only what they had but the opportunity to get one to school (partly because at school they would get a meal that was likely their only meal for the day). We thought we were going to bless the kids but what ended up happening was God showing us His love and provision in amazing ways. There were so many amazing things that happened I will have to write about them more in my next post, but I want to end by sharing that 472 children were able to receive new socks and shoes this week!

Kenya: day 2

It's day two of my Kenya trip and today was rather restful, but I'll get to that later. First I'll tell more about yesterday. After I posted yesterday our host missionary came by to talk with us. We learned from him that getting our shoes in the country today was nothing short of God intervening for us. He said he recently met with people from TOMS shoes and they told him that Kenya is the most difficult country to get new shoes into. To their knowledge only one organization has been able to get shoes in country which means it was a big deal that we were able to get in 16 large duffle bags of new shoes. Now that brings me to today. Today we dumped out all 16 of those bags and sorted the shoes by size and took inventory. It was quite an incredible sight. People were in awe to see what we later counted and discovered to be 564 pairs of shoes laid out on the sidewalk. Tomorrow morning we leave for rural Africa to take the shoes to a Maasai school and pass them out to the children. We are also going to take food to distribute. I will post pictures later because I haven't taken any on my iPhone except for 1 and it goes out to my friend kristy, I had this at lunch I. Her honor. I'll post more in a few dad after we get back from camping because we will not have any Internet access in the Maasai village.

Finally Made It

Finally got to Kenya. We landed at the perfect time: sunset. It was gorgeous to start landing and see the sun shining through onto the trees. We also had the best airplane meal I have ever had. Thank you swiss air international! Oh my goodness it was good enough to make you want to move to Switzerland for the airline food! Anyway after we landed we had a smooth transition getting our visas but then we got to customs and got to have our first memorable moment. The customs agents were not going to let us through and kept telling is that we ha to pay for the shoes we brought (apparently they have a formula for that, whatever that means). After several minutes of back and forth and prayer the customs agent just changed his mind. Literally he said ok well I guess you can go now. And that was that. It was so amazing how in just a moment he changed his mind and let us through!

ProVision

Africa journey: entry 1

God always has lessons for us to learn. My first lesson in my Kenya journey provision= ProVision. I arrived at the airport all excited and bee-bop through security (although for a minute I thought they were going to go through my bag because I required a lot of technology when I travel and it was all clumped together probably resembling some sort of craziness). Anyway, after sauntering through a Starbucks, which if you know me at all means you know this is essential to my well being, I arrived at my gate. What was awaiting me? Why that would be huge red letters under my flight number that saiKenyaCANCELLED. Being me I automatically thought, "well that's less than ideal" whereas God was probably saying, "hey baby girl I want to show you how I can provide for you". He has amazing ProVision and the reason I have a capital V there is because really isn't that what He is? A professional at vision and being able to see what/when we can't and past what we see/comprehend. Before a real chance to panic (but I have to admit not before a mass text asking for prayer) the lady at the counter informed myself and the lady with me that we were taken care of. When the flight was cancelled she noticed our final destination and connecting flights, made a few phone calls and was already half way to having us on a later flight. Hallelujah God is good. It was just a reminder to me of His provision and His ProVision.

Well Isn't That Magical....

Well, after a long debate with myself I finally decided that, yep  I'm going to start a blog.  Now I know what you are probably thinking, "oh great another person who thinks we all want to hear about how amazing her life is".  In fact if you are probably having a conversation in your head (it's okay you can admit it) it probably sounds like this: "Really, a blog...what's she going to write about" then I have fun news for you! 'Cause I haven't actually figured that one out yet. It's like an adventure we can all go on together!
In the very near future there will more than likely be A LOT about my trip to Africa (or as Kat loving calls is Afreeca).  As Ricky Riccardo would say I "got some 'splanin to do". 
A few months ago I was presented with an opportunity to go to Nairobi, Kenya.  It was a very quick descision that left very little time for fundraising and a great deal of space for trusting God.  Within a month I needed to raise about $2,300.  Well, in true "you really need to trust me" fashion the money came in the day it was due.  This left me with aroun $1,000 that still needed to be raised, and again only a month of fundraising time.  Thankfully I was able to get all the money in on time.  the how and such is not as important as the fact that HALLELUJAH it's all paid for!  Then came the fun part of getting everything together.  Did I mention 10 days worth of stuff needs to be able to fit in a carry-on....and that I'm a girl....
Well there is another miracle because *cue the magician music* dun da da...I got everything I needed in a carry-on and backpack.  Oh and I have room to spare. Please, please hold the applause.
All that's left are a few last minute errands and a knife demonstration tomorrow. 
Yeah, you read that right, tomorrow night someone is coming over to give me a knife demonstration.
I'll let you know how that goes later and I'll leave you to guess what a knife demonstration involves.

Laters,

Jessica