Mission Kenya Day 3

Today was our first day on the ground with the children. We split into two groups to visit two different projects. Each project is a child development center. These centers are partnered with a local church to provide food, education, and medical care to the children of a community. The church facilitiates selecting the children and families of greatest need than mission of mercy works to find sponsors, help with infastructure, as well as direction and organization. Both the projects we visited were in desparate need of buildings. The project I (Jamin) visited had 3 standing buildings a mulitpurpse building, a kitchen, and an outhouse. Only the first had a roof. The Building we would be working on was a new administrative buiding for the center. The three room building was 15 feet wide and twentyfive feet long, framed entirely of tied bamboo. The step we were there to help with? Mud. They stuff the bamboo frame with a local clay found in abundance. Not the greatest building material by our standards but its incredibly reslilent as long as it doesn't get wet. So we set to the task of mixing mud balls. As we worked to place the mud the local people out did us by their generosity, leaving their tasks to help us build. And build they often puting our building skills with mud to shame. And yet I have never experienced a greater sense of community. these people want to help change their communites for the better, and they're willing to get dirty, quite litteraly to see it. 300 children recieve food and education at the center I was at today. 300 children that will have the best opportunities set before them in the simple task of getting an education. Though Kenya has public education, fees are charged to the family to enrole. For many families that means choosing between food or school. The resuling choice is obvious, but it is also what keeps them imprisoned in poverty. With no education they make only enough for food, sometimes less, and another generation faces the same fate. Here that cycle is being broken. That is worth celebrating.

Blessings

Jamin