Tumaini---Hope

Tumaini is the name of a camp we visited on  Tuesday. In Swahili, Tumaini means hope. Yet, we soon found that Tumaini is a place that is drowning in hopelesness. Tucked away behind the main Maai Mahiu camps such as Eldoret and Narok, Tumaini has had little attnetion or aide. The camp is made up of 50 households, many of which are single mother families because their husbands have either been killed or are working far away trying to eek out a living. The first thing you notice when you enter the camp is that no one is living in houses. Everyone is living in the same tents thew occupied 2 or more years ago...nothing has changed since we were last here in 2009. The people are quiet, and the air is almost literally thik with shame and hopelessness. As a team, we were quite disappointed that we hadnt visited this camp yet this summer. Today we had one of the single mothers from Tumaini come to Kijabe to get a needed ultrasound for an infection she has had for some time. The news was good-Praise God! We sent her home on a piki (motor bike) taxi with some food for her 6 children. This mother had AIDs, as does her some of her children. This is not an uncommon situation in Tumaini camp. We already had the opportunity of praying with some of the women in Tumaini and we are praying in the Name of Jesus for HOPE! Please join with us in praying for HOPE CAMP to fully receive  with faith, what God has for them. Please pray for us as we seek to build relationships in this camp with the intention of starting some small businesses that will provide these people with their daily bread. PLEASE PRAY for TUMAINI!

1st Video

Our friend Caleb is making videos for us now! So you can see who we are working with and where we are working. Currently we are in the last stages of the paper work for the Peanut Grower Company (PGC). We have also come across the possibility of getting water to the camp we are working in from another camp. A borehole was dug in a nearby camp, but the water was incredibly hot because of the volcanic activity in the area. This caused overheating of the standard water cooled pumps. From what we have heard the Polish embassy is buying an extremely expensive pump that can deal with the hot water. Praise God for his working in this! Yesterday Henry went and visited a camp that was further away and it was still in pretty terrible condition. There were 50 family's in this camp and they were still in tents. Please pray for God's wisdom as we look to help them. A possibility may be to purchase a pipe to pipe water to their camp. Yesterdays church service was incredible. There was lots of dancing and praising God. I love how the church service is under an acacia tree. It is a very real reminder that the church is not a building but a people. One of the songs had lyrics that said "We are dancing in the house of God, we are dancing in the house of God." I couldn't help but smile as we danced under a tree :)

-Noah 

1st Proposal

Church below the Acacia tree. The men, women, and children take turns dancing and singing

We spent some time after church singing and praying with the
youth. The man on the right wants to start a boda boda service
(motor bike taxi)

Yesterday was a big day down in the camps. We enjoyed a wonderful time of worship below the acacia tree with some Kikuyu IDPs. Noah was asked to preach and he gave the congregation the story of creation and redemption. It was awesome! Afterwards, we met with the youth and sang songs with them and prayed together. Several of the youth are preparing for their enormous national exams that are coming up. We prayed for their exams and they prayed for wisdom for us for our projects.


These women make beautiful baskets. We are trying to help
them find a cost effective way of making them.



We met with Francis and Daniel after that and were surprised with a business proposal from them, neatly typed and prepared. We had been planning on asking them to start writing a business proposal  for review next week. It was awesome to see that they had already taken the initiative to prepare. Today we will be reviewing the proposal with the aide of some of our Kenyan friends here to see if we can trim down the size of the proposed peanut farm. We are learning that it is far bbeter to start small and let the people build their own projects then to invest a ton of money and see money go to waste. I think we are learning a great deal about efficiency. Please pray that we would have wisdom about this Peanut farm and that we would know how much is too much to invest into this project. There are also several other small businesses that have asked us for help. We need you prayers as we meet and discuss and plan. We will let you know what happens soon. Thanks--Henry

Big Changes



Nathan with Daniel and the village chairman



We have been met with several major changes since we arrived in Kijabe and have visited the IDP camps. The first thing we noticed last week was that the majority of IDPs are now living in cinderblock houses built by the Habitat for Humanity. That was very exciting. The second thing we noticed is that the IDPs have planted maize everywhere possible on the 20 something acres of land that the 1700 people acquired in the last 2 years. However, the land is incredibly dry even during this rainy season so most of the crops have already died or are well on their way. We were blessed this week to walk 2 hours down the side of the Great Rift Valley to the IDP camps wher we found a nice acacia tree to sit under outside the Eldoret camp. As we waited we prayed that God would bring along the right man or woman to lead us into the camps to meet and pray with individuals. God answered our prayers and we were lead in by a man named Daniel who brought us to the camp's chairman who welcomed us warmly. Some of the things that we have learned from him and some of the other IDPs we have met is that water is, by far, the greatest need for the people. This is something that we are beginning to pray specifically to pray about. Water would provide the needed irrigation  for the dry ground and would open many other doors for businesses. However, we havent yet felt called to focus on the water issue. Instead we have been listening to the locals ideas about businesses they would like to start. As we went house to house on Tuesday we were able to sit and pray with 4 different families about their situations. Noah, with his strong grasp on Swahili, has been a lifesaver for us in our dealings with the IDPs. We are meeting today with a missionary to discuss some of the things we have learned and hope to do. Praise God for the ways He is providing for the IDPs here.

Alright..now I've gotta get some photos uploaded for you. Thank you for your prayers.

Henry and Noah with some fundis (handymen) rebuilding a house for an older woman.

In Kenya

It feels so good to say we are back in Nairobi, Kenya. What a blessing! We ate at the Dukas (market) for lunch today and had some Yoma Choma (Goat meat with veggies). We are buying up just a few supplies before we head out tomorrow morning for Kijabe where we will be staying until we have found a spot in the camps to live.
We will post some photos ASAP!

We leave tomorrow

Hey Guys,
 We leave tomorrow morning and fly intto Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon. Cant Wait! Please continue to pray and I will keep you updated with photos and posts. Thanks