Jambo everyone!
I hope your 2020 has started well! Here at In Step Children’s Home, January has been a very busy month!
The Kenyan school year is the same as the calendar year. School “opens” in January and “closes” at the end of October. So this month, there was lots going on, getting all the kids ready for school!
In Step Academy is now a complete primary school with grades starting from preschool and going all the way through eighth grade! I remember when we first started our school with seven students and one teacher, all crowded into a 10’ x 10’ room… wow, we have come so far!
We now have 204 students, 11 class teachers, 1 librarian/office assistant, a main wing consisting of an office, teachers’ lounge, library, computer lab and 7 class rooms. We are also blessed with an Early Childhood Development wing (complete with indoor, flushing toilets!) for the preschool through first grade! Sometimes when I take the time to stop and reminisce about how far God has brought us, I can hardly believe it!
Over the years we have had many supporters who have made In Step Academy what it is today! I would like to give a special shout-out for two of them. One is a certain couple from Tri-Cities Washington (I don’t have permission to mention their names, so I won’t) who have gotten our last six school years off the ground by providing textbooks, school uniforms and also funds for building classrooms! The second supporter is an amazing business in Newmarket and Aurora, Canada, called The Piano Studio. For many years now, they have donated the proceeds of their annual gala to In Step Academy! This amazing support has made the ISA campus a wonderful place of learning!
That’s what I love about the team that God has built for our kids! Some of our supporters have a particular heart for education, some for special needs, some for building our campus, some for child sponsorship, etc. Everyone’s hearts and efforts put together, keep this big ship afloat!
Another exciting thing happening at ISA is that we are now welcoming kids from the community to join our school! We have enrolled 42 kids from our neighborhood! These kids pay a small fee to attend our school, which helps offsets the cost of operations. But the biggest benefit of having community kids attend school at In Step Academy is the impact it has on our In Step kids. I love watching them make new friends and learn about “normal” life in Kenya! I also think it’s good for the community kids and their parents to get past the long-ingrained stigma of orphans and to see that orphans are kids, just like their own! I loved it last weekend when one of the community kids came over to our “house” to play, just like friends from all over the world do!
Still on the subject of education… This is the first year we have sent high school kids off to boarding school! I know I mentioned this in a previous Jambo! letter, but I just wanted to touch on it again.
All five of our Form One (grade nine) kids have been admitted to their respective schools and are settling in well. The way it works is that you just sort of drop them off at school, then after a few weeks, the school may or may not host a visiting day. In our case, three out of the five schools have done so. (I’m not sure if it’s coincidence that it happens to be the three girls’ schools.) The social workers who visited on the designated days, all reported that the girls are doing great and are happy to be away at school.
While Churchill’s school did not host a visiting day, his teacher did allow him to use the phone to call me. This is normally not allowed, but CJ can usually charm his way into bending the rules. LOL! He said he was doing great, making friends, etc. but the main reason he was calling was to ask us to send some money, for a very good cause of course! (I am right now imagining the looks on the faces of those of you who are experienced in sending kids away to school. Hahaha!)
But in this case, it WAS a good cause! His class was planning to visit a children’s home over the weekend and he wanted to take the kids biscuits (cookies) and sweeties (hard candies). He was excited to encourage the kids by telling them that he is also from a children’s home and that if they studied hard, they might someday also be chosen to attend a good school like he was. He wanted them to know that being raised in a children’s home can be a very good thing! It can, many times, bring them opportunities that their biological families might never have been able to give them! I was so proud of him! We were blessed to be able to send some money.
The Mainwarings are here! That always makes me happy! Tim and Sandy are such a blessing to us and our kids! Besides all the help they are, a really cool thing happened last Sunday. Let me back up about four years…
Early in 2016, Tim and Sandy were here when a baby boy joined In Step Children’s Home. As we often do when a baby comes while a visitor is here, we named the baby after Tim. Baby Timothy was a very happy and healthy little guy, so it really wasn’t surprising when, after several months with us, he had the opportunity to be fostered and eventually adopted.
Two years ago, one of our aunties who had stayed in touch with the adoptive parents, took the Mainwarings to visit baby Timothy, who is now called Zach. They enjoyed the visit and felt like Zach had a great family.
Somehow (I expect through the same auntie who had taken the Mainwarings to visit), Zach’s mom heard that the Mainwarings were here. She and Zach showed up on Sunday morning and the most amazing thing happened! Zach, who at the age of four could not possibly have understood the entire scenario, clung to Tim like he was his real grandfather! He insisted on sitting with Tim at church and then after church, he cried when it was time to leave! Zach’s mom sat next to me at church and told me that Zach had informed her that he wanted to stay with Babu Tim and she could come pick him up later! It was the absolute strangest thing! It makes me wonder if some piece of him remembered Tim or In Step. I guess we’ll never know.
All the older kids who remembered baby Timothy, were obviously thrilled to see that he is doing so well! None of them, at least outwardly, showed any signs of jealousy that he got to have a “real” family. I always feel awkward in those types of situations, not knowing how the other kids feel. I tried to talk to a few of them about it and they all said they were happy for Zachary Timothy.
Well normally in January, I would be writing about how hot and dry it is. Not this year! This is our eighteenth January in Kenya and I have never seen anything like it! Rain! Rain! Rain! Floods! Bridges and roads washed out! No way for help to get to the flood and landslide victims! Animals drowning at the Mara! It’s craziness!
Another crazy thing is that billions of locusts have swarmed East Africa, destroying, in minutes, acres and acres of farmland! This hasn’t reached our side of the country and I pray it won’t! Today my Uber driver (I’m in Nairobi on immigration business) speculated that if the rains continue, the locusts will avoid our area. I don’t really know much about locust swarms, so I’m not sure if that’s true, but I hope so.
Between all of these recent disasters; unseasonable rain, floods, landslides and locusts, there is sure to be food insecurity. As far as I can see, there’s not much talk about it yet. Maybe nobody really knows how it’s all going to effect the economy and the food supply, but I can’t see how it could possibly not have some sort of an affect. Time will tell.
Once again, thanks for listening to my babbling! You all mean so much to us and we know, without a doubt, that we could not do any of this without your willingness to come along side! Thank you and God bless!
GIGATT (God is Good All the Time)!
Mama Carla