Jambo everyone!
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the change of seasons! Here in Kenya, the rains are starting to let up a bit, although the ridiculous amount of mud is yet to disappear!
September was a good month here at the home for the most part. The kids are back in school and working hard to finish strong, as we wind up our school year! Please pray for our five class eight “candidates” who will be taking their KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) exam in a few weeks. This test is extremely important because their test scores will determine which high schools they will be eligible to attend! (You may not know, high school in Kenya is not free! If you, your church, your small group, etc. would consider sponsoring one of these five kids’ tuition costs it would be GREATLY appreciated! Just contact Rehema For Kids at rehemaforkids.org or on their Facebook page!)
The educational system here in Kenya is extremely competitive! Sometimes it seems like test scores are all that matter! I personally disagree with a lot of aspects of the system and welcome the new curriculum, which was implemented by the government this year, to be used with third grade and below. This new curriculum has a lot more practical lessons, which is great for the less academic kids, and will not require the KCPE exam at the end of eighth grade! Kids will be graded on more of an accumulated grade point average approach. I believe this will give a more accurate picture of their abilities than ONE exam, after eight years of school!
Speaking of school, we have started a campaign to recruit community kids to join In Step Academy (ISA). I’m excited and nervous, all at the same time! This year, we had fifteen students who are not In Step kids, all of whom are children of our employees. It has gone well and we feel it’s time to take the next step by welcoming kids from our surrounding area. There are a number of reasons for this; the two primary ones being funding and future class size.
Kids from the community, if we can entice them to come, will pay school fees, which will help offset the cost of running the school. We have a lot to offer, with a library, computer lab, playground, etc., so have high hopes that parents will see the value in sending their kids to ISA for an excellent primary school education!
The thing about future class size is the fact that over the past four years, fewer kids have been placed in our home, compared to previous years. Next year, for instance, there will only be five kids from the children’s home starting preschool! We need to fill the remaining spaces or, eventually, our school will just fizzle out. If our intake of new kids into the home continues to be lower than before (which is a good thing, by the way), In Step Academy will evolve into a school serving the community, with a few kids from the home attending. We sure didn’t see that coming! LOL!
The month of September brought us two new babies! The first is named Devian Joshua, we call him D.J., and the second is baby Joanie! All of the aunties and kids, and of course Mama and Baba, are so happy to have tiny babies around again!
D.J. was born to a high school girl, who had been molested by a relative, meaning that D.J. is a product of incest. The girl wanted to keep the baby, but after five weeks, her father forced her to give him up because of the situation surrounding his birth and the shame that situation brings to the family. (I’ll never understand that way of thinking…. Like if you get rid of the evidence, the shameful act never took place?) Anyway, he seems to be a very healthy baby boy, who has become VERY spoiled, VERY quickly!
Baby Joanie is a preemie, born at seven months. An older woman, claiming to be a well-wisher with no knowledge of where this tiny (less than three pound) baby came from, dropped her off at the hospital. Joanie stayed in an incubator for five weeks, then was placed with us. She weighed 2.6 lbs when we picked her up and now, two weeks later, weighs just under 3.5 lbs!
That’s some major weight gain! Can you imagine increasing your weight by a third in two weeks?
I will take care of Joanie until I leave for the states the first of November. I’m hoping she will be ready by then to join the “general population!” If not, we will assign a personal caretaker for her.
This month also brought a sad time for us. We lost our faithful dog, Mandazi. I could go on and on about the amazing dog he has been over the past fourteen years (I will go on a little actually, LOL).
Mandazi was an absolute nightmare of a puppy! Being a Rhodesian Ridgeback, he loved to run! I would try to take him for a walk on a leash… yea right! He would want to take off running and I couldn’t hold him! (And I was younger and stronger back then!) Jeff would have to ride his bike, with Mandazi running alongside him, to try to get his puppy energy out!
You see, the problem was, we tried to make Mandazi a pet, which just wasn’t his nature! He never wanted to be in the house. He never wanted to be petted, or touched at all for that matter. To try to confine him was a joke! He regularly escaped, usually around supper time, and ran around the neighborhood stealing ugali (staple food made from corn flour) right off of people’s jikos (small, low to the ground cooker, usually used outside)! Did I mention that he was an impossible puppy?!
But when kids started coming, we could finally see what kind of dog he really was!
We had Mandazi before the children’s home started so In Step has never been without his loyal protection. Not one kid in our home has ever known life here without Mandazi. It’s just so hard to imagine In Step without him!
This dog had one purpose in life; to protect any and every person who was welcomed onto our property! He had absolutely no training. It was just what he was born to do!
In his younger days, he loved to go for walks (or runs) with visitors and on more than one occasion helped them find their way back home when they got lost! (There are no street signs here and the landscape can sometimes all blend together.) He would literally stand at a fork or junction in the road, staring in the direction of home, until the visitors figured out what he was trying to tell them! He always got them safely back to the home!
Some years ago, there was a young lady who served here for about six months. Almost every morning, she, Mandazi and I would go for a walk. At a certain place on our route, there was a house where six or seven vicious dogs lived. There were a number of times when the gate to that house was open and when we passed, the dogs would bolt out to the street! Mandazi would set his stance, raise the hair on his ridgeback and growl… literally holding off the pack until we were a safe distance away! He would then just trot on up and join us again, like nothing had ever happened!
He was the same way when he would accompany the kids on a walk. And by the way, you never had to call him to go for a walk. If someone went out the gate on foot, he automatically went with them and brought them safely home. When the kids were on walks with aunties and there was anything (a car, motorcycle, bicycle, cow, drunkard, anything) coming toward them, Mandazi would stand right in the middle of the road, facing the oncoming intruder, and force them to stop while aunties got all the kids safely to the edge of the road! When he was satisfied that the kids were safe, he would also move to the side of the road and allow the troublemaker to pass!
All these years, he would walk with the guard to make his rounds of the property perimeter, every night and every morning. It was not uncommon for us to go out in the morning and find a dead cat, porcupine, possum, etc. along the fence line. With Mandazi’s lightning speed and vigilant patrolling, there was no way an intruder could enter our campus at night.
He never missed a day of walking the kids to school. He would accompany them to school, then rest under a shade tree until lunch break, then walk them home for lunch and back to school. You always knew where to find Mandazi; he was wherever the kids were!
But more than being a loyal protector, Mandazi was one of those dogs that you would swear had a soul! He loved and loved deeply! Not a selfish love. As I mentioned before, he never wanted any attention for himself! He was on this earth for the benefit of others! I can’t tell you how many times I saw kids wanting to pet him. He would put up with it for a few minutes, then casually just move away.
I remember one time when we lost a child whom I was particularly close with. Mandazi never left my side for three days! When I went in the house, he would wait at the door. During the funeral, he stayed with me continuously. Again, never wanting my attention, just making sure I was okay.
There was another time when we lost a dog. This dog was not particularly good with the kids, or people in general. But she was Mandazi’s security partner. When she died, Mandazi laid on her grave for two days. When his grieving time had passed, he got up and went back to work.
I know that most of us have had a pet who was family. A pet whom we missed greatly when he/she was gone. I have had my share but Mandazi was different. Mandazi was part of In Step from the beginning. Mandazi protected us from the time our first baby joined the family until his last day; protecting 194 kids, 67 staff and whatever other visitors happened to be on the campus.
His last few years, he was stiff and slow. He would make his way into my kitchen and I would fry him a couple of eggs and serve them over bread, soaked in chicken broth. Gone were the days when he could live on hunting rabbits at night, which is how he fed himself for many years. He was not interested in kitchen scraps. He took care of himself.
The last year of his life, he couldn’t make the trip back and forth to the school several times per day. So he would go to school with the kids in the morning, but not come home with them at lunch time, then he would walk them home at the end of the day.
His teeth had become nubs, making it impossible to enjoy a bone, which at one time had been his favorite treat. Instead, I would cut the meat off of the bone for him.
His last few days on earth, before we made the decision to put him down, a handful of sixth and seventh grade boys diligently cared for him! They poured milk down his throat. They carried him to the sunlight for a few hours every day. They cleaned the kennel where we had made him a bed, hoping he would recover. We included these boys in the process of making our final decision and I was very proud of their bravery and understanding.
So, a new era begins; In Step without Mandazi.
Thanks for listening to me ramble and blubber.
We sure appreciate all of you for taking the time to read this long update and all the other ways you stand with us! Please feel free to share this letter with friends you know who might be interested in what God is doing here in Kenya!
GIGATT (God is Good All the Time)!
Mama Carla