Maybe you’d think it would be quiet when 650 students and 30 teachers close school for the end of the year; and for a few days it was! But then people began beavering away, preparing for the coming year before we all took a well earned break over Christmas and the New Year.There was tile grinding, painting, varnishing, door fixing, ceiling repairs, sewing, final accounting, building a huge wooden frame for a shade for Christmas Day…
We’d like to say a BIG thank you to Tumaini staff for working together to make this place shine and thanks to our wonderful supporters who have helped us with funding to do all this work.
We also had a special blessing ready for the New Year! We took delivery of a brand new Hyundai HD65 Truck for delivering water to the school.
Thanks again for all your support in 2015 and we look forward to an exciting year ahead.
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Balloons, bunting & rain!
November 20th, 2015 | 
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Balloons, bunting and a bit of rain! That was the start to Saturday morning for the youth committee. The 6 of us are in charge of all youth activities: our big events, youth services and fundraisers! Recently our minds have been turning to Christmas – it’s our job to plan everything Christmassy for church this year!
We have a few ideas up our sleeves but knew that we would have to have a bit of money to make some of them work – namely the church Christmas meal! (pilau, a meal of rice, meat and spices just in case any of you were picturing a roasted Turkey with cranberry sauce!)
So before our Christmas activities can take place, we needed to raise some cash! In the last 2 weeks we’ve had 2 fundraising events which have been lots of fun!
The first was our Form 4 leavers bash. The Kenyan school year runs from January to December so our students have just finished their end of secondary exams and we provided a party to help them celebrate! Loud music, sodas, sweets and lots of dancing! It was great fun and kept the young people from the other bars which may not have been so safe for them.
But Saturday was by far the best! – We had a family fun day, about 80 kids attended and quite a few parents, we had face painting, nail painting, a dance competition, a tuck shop, other games and best of all, the trampoline! Most of the children attending had never been on a trampoline before so watching them was both hilarious and heart-warming!
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A group of mums from Molly’s special needs support groups came along with their children which was lovely and really added to the day, the kids were able to have some time on the trampoline too and the mums joined in with the parent’s dance competition!
We had a great group of helpers who turned out to be a dab hand at dismantling and reassembling the trampoline as well as climbing rickety ladders to give our wedding bunting it’s second airing and much fun was had blowing up over a hundred balloons (and popping quite a few too!).
Overall, it was a wonderful day and we are very happy to say that we reached our goal for our contribution towards the meal! – Well done team and thank you for everyone who came and for those who prayed for the rain to clear!
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The narrow, winding path…
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Fresh air filled our lungs as we climbed the hills to Mgambonyi; the car windows open to equalize the air pressure. During the day it was hot and extremely dry, grass and water are scarce from a long dry season so keeping hungry cows fed and watered is giving farmers a huge challenge. Farmers have small stores of dry grass remaining and others buy bundles carried by motorbike from the lowlands.
On the first night, the stars shone brightly, the sky was clear, the air crisp. Sleep was sweet and well needed in preparation for a busy day ahead. We set off walking to one of the farms where we’d agreed to meet with all Zaidi’s partnering farmers. During the meeting we discussed the importance and benefits of full participation and ownership of the project by farmers. All farmers aired their ideas, views and concerns, which led to many constructive conversations of how to move forward to improve their supplies of food and water for cattle, improve their levels of support for each other, stretch the assistance to welcome more farmers and develop their farms, one by one.
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The early hours of the next morning brought welcome rain. It felt chilly in the wind and rain on the tops of the hills. Setting off wearing four layers (including a raincoat) we walked to visit one of Zaidi’s new farmers. We set off through familiar areas but then branched off down a hillside we’d never been down before. The views were absolutely breathtaking, with low clouds passing through the valley so close; you could reach to take hold of them. We walked along a path that not even a small motorbike could pass, down and then up small, winding pathways, almost impassable; it seemed almost it’s own community.
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Stella, the new farmer has two children and she cares for her aged and sick mum who, when we arrived at their house, was completely wrapped in blankets on a mattress in the sitting room. The previous day, Stella had come to our meeting, it was the first time she had really been out for three years. It was great to see the benefit that Stacey (Stella’s new cow) would bring to that whole family. We were welcomed to Stella’s brother’s home (her nearest neighbour) for a cup of tea. Leaving their home, we visited families on the way back up the hill; it made us smile. We began, just Glyn, Pastor Ronald and I but as we continued our journey we kept adding people. At one point there was a line of ten people hiking up the hill together chatting stories and shouting greetings to others digging on the hillside in their farms! It’s a privilege to receive visitors and one way of appreciating their visit is to escort them on their way. We met many new and lovely people that day!
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Kiriwa at Bob’s Place is a community nursery school whose teachers, Catherine and Margaret are doing a wonderful job teaching many young children from the area. Now they have their own building they are able to operate until 3pm, giving children lunch, as well as a mid morning break for porridge. Forty-three children attend the school, with three year groups being taught together. One group of children is preparing to join Mgambonyi Primary School in January, but more are waiting to come to join this fast growing school. Parents, teachers and locals are pulling together to build two extra classrooms and parents are being encouraged to make sunbaked mud bricks for the building. It’s a great community initiative! The children’s smiles are infectious, especially wrapped in their little, bright red balaclavas. Everyone enjoys play-time, “Make a circle, a big, big circle…” the children shout and then they breathe deeply in and out, taking in lots of refreshing air and continue with lots of songs, dances and games.
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Zaidi (a Swahili word meaning, ‘more’) is an Education for Life project providing farmers with dairy cows, repaid by the farmers from the sale of their milk, generating income to provide a cow for another farmer. As the project develops, we’re also able to assist farmers to buy water tanks, which enables them to keep a constant supply of water for thirsty cows. This project is in it’s third year and it’s growing, our first calves are now pregnant, placed with new farmers and expecting young ones themselves! There are twelve cows within Zaidi at the moment, but watch this space, we’re growing ;0) With a high demand for milk in Kenya, the dairy will buy as much as the farmers can produce.
Thank you for your support and prayers, Zaidi is growing; there’s even ‘more’ to come!
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Passing the batton…
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It’s exciting to see people passing on skills and developing responsibility!
Earlier in the year we were able to give kits containing washable sanitary pads, donated to us by ‘Days for Girls’ www.daysforgirls.org to a few of our primary school girls, but yesterday we were able to give even more, totaling 69 distributed kits. There are still more to come when we can get them here from England and even more excited young ladies eagerly waiting to receive their very own kit.
Maybe you’re wondering ‘OK, why the link with relay races?’
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The first time we got the girls together to talk about ‘periods’ and adolescence, the session was led by three of us and we discussed many things, prompted by so many questions. Then, after receiving some kits from Days for Girls we got a group of fifteen girls from upper primary together, who we knew would greatly benefit from receiving the kits. There were a lot of happy smiles and words of thanks to the wonderful people who had made these kits for them. It was great!
But yesterday was really amazing! Our Deputy, Madam Florence began the session to a classroom of more than 100 primary school girls and then she handed over to four young ladies who received their kits last time. Two girls took one kit and demonstrated the uses of everything in the kit, another young girl talked about hygiene, how to keep the pads, how to soak and how to wash them and yet another girl was able to explain to her peers the importance of personal hygiene; how you can take care of yourself and the dangers you could face if you fail to look after yourself properly. It was amazing to see these young ladies sharing with their peers and each was celebrated with cheers and an enthusiastic round of applause. I was so proud of them!
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Thank you ‘Days for Girls’, to all who give, to all who sew and pay for postage and to Madam Florence and our amazing team of teachers; your dedication is changing the future for so many young ladies. We know so many women who struggle with infection due to lack of proper care; as well as keeping girls in school, you’re raising a generation of healthy, happy, educated young women, ready to face their world!
God bless you and thank you!
Xx Janey
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The Big Event!
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Sunday was quite a day! If you want to know how busy it was, you can ask all my muscles! But if you want to know how great it was, you can ask a lot of smiling faces!
The day started with Sunday school, using an egg to teach about the trinity, which then led to a tasty treat for some of the kids! We also taught them a song to present in church later, they very much enjoyed making the sound effects that go along with “who’s the king of the jungle?” and we had lots of fun playing games and doing colouring too!
Sunday school over and the day had still only just started! It was time for the youth to take over the running of the church service! We have a big group of youths in our church, each with different talents and we have the opportunity to develop and use those talents each month in our youth service.
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This month we decided to do something different, incorporating dramas and object lessons to bring across the message that the most important thing is to have Jesus in our hearts. We gave our leaders cakes, one of which was an iced kitchen sponge showing that it doesn’t matter what we look like on the outside, it is the inside that counts! Our drama went down a treat with lots of laughs and the children sang very well!
We were so proud of some of our younger youths, taking the roles of leader and translator for the first time! They did excellently! – Well done Mary and Ruth! And to all the other young people involved, thank you!
After the service ended it was all hands on deck to get ready for our second ‘Big Event’. As a youth group we have started doing monthly outreach events open to all youth. We had a time of dancing, tea and LOTS of mahambri (fried dough with sweet spices) followed by 4 teams competing against each other in an array of games, challenges, quizzes and team building activities mixed in with some teaching on having peace, joy and hope in our lives. We had lots of fun and definitely burned off the mahambri!
Well done Team Mwamburi, the overall winners. Together they built the strongest chair, waddled their way through the relay race, tried their hand at canoeing on the Wii, got very wet in our water game, directed their blindfolded leader around our playground and much more!
We had a wonderful day, we hope you enjoy the pictures!
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