Dear All,
Greetings from Nakuru!
We arrived in Nairobi early on September 27th and next day took a taxi to Eldoret in the west of Kenya. There we stayed at Neema Children’s Homes with Joshua & Miriam Mbithi who some of you will have met. Neema looks after unwanted, AIDS-affected and infected children as young as a few days old. We then moved to Testimony Faith Homes to stay with John & Esther Green, again known to some of you. Testimony was started in 1969 by John who is now “retired”!
On October 6th we came to Nakuru by taxi (driven by Stephen Kosgei – one of Kenya’s international marathon runners).
As Julius is still very poorly, we are staying at a nearby hotel, and going up to Riziki as much as possible. We have visited Julius twice, briefly. He is very weak and tires easily. We were expecting to take Julius for his dialysis this afternoon but he may need a different chauffeur. Unfortunately, our car is playing up – the starter motor refuses to work but a mechanic is onto the job. We bought the car in 2006 (we think) as a six-year-old import from Singapore. We believe it has done about 400 000 kilometres!
Later the same day. The car has been repaired! It is amazing how quickly you can get a mechanic to come to wherever you are and mend what was broken. On this occasion it was the carbon brushes in the starter motor that needed to be replaced. We were then able to go and collect Julius from the hospital. After treatment he is very weak but he should revive somewhat by tomorrow.
I mentioned Grace in the last newsletter. She has been diagnosed with chronic gluteal sinus. Her MRI scan shows a sinus tract extending into the greater trochanteric region of her right leg. (That means nothing to me but may do to some of you!) She needs surgery soon to sort this out – costing about £1000! However, although in pain, she remains very cheerful. Ann, another of our older girls, has completed secondary school and can no longer live at Riziki as she is over eighteen but we hope to continue to fund her education. She is a delightful young lady who wants to do a hair-dressing course which should lead to employment.
The secondary young people are all away at present but we have met the new arrivals. Many of them do not yet speak English so communication is simple. However, we brought colouring books with us and they soon learned how to use them with variation in their skills! Some older children love word searches and simple sudoku. Our youngest child, another Grace, aged 4, is a superb dancer and loves to perform with great skill and perfect timing. The younger children are at home so here are their pictures.
Liz is Liz is doing a wonderful job with the farm and is experimenting with different crops. She has a small plot of soya beans and another of wheat. Both seem to be doing very well and the intention is to keep the seeds and grow bigger crops next planting time. She has also started an arrowroot plot and a sugar cane plot, both of which will expand naturally. Our flock of chickens is growing and we hope this will continue.
Our staff at Riziki are Hellen, our social worker/house parent, known to the children (and her son Max) as ‘Auntie’. Emmanuel and Evans work in the ‘shamba’. Irene cleans the house, irons the clothes etc. Elizabeth is our cook. All our staff have worked diligently through Covid and continue to do so while Julius has been so ill. We really appreciate their efforts.
The drought severely affecting northern Kenya has again reached Riziki and once again we are forced to buy water at £100 per tanker, which lasts ten days. Our rain-water tanks are empty but we still have dirty water for irrigation, collected in our dam from the adjacent road when it does rain. It is interesting to note that three of our neighbours at Riziki are also now diverting water to their shambas! When it rains water simply pours down the road! We are pleased our methods are being copied! Twenty-nine out of forty-seven counties are in a state of alert or alarm over the lack of rain. 4.35 million people are food-insecure. Another recurring headache is school shoes. Children’s feet grow and the shoes have to cope with tough conditions. Rather a lot need replacing at the same time!
We now have the internet at Riziki! On Sunday we went to the local church for a two-hour service (normal length) and got back to Riziki just in time to attend a zoom service from Huddersfield.
We have now left Riziki and returned to Nairobi where we have just been to visit a feeding program at Gikomba Market in the Eastlands area of Nairobi. Matt Norton, who attends our church, was led to start this work after seeing people living on the streets of the capital in the Central Business District close to the Parliament Building.
The area we went to was utter squalor – the ‘river’ running by is no more than an open sewer. We were looked after by a volunteer – Edward, and Josphat, who has turned his life round and now considers himself chairman of the street children in that area.
We arrived as the young people, approximately eighty in any one day, were being provided with hot tea and two mandazi (a type of bread). The aim of the project is to give these young people hope and a better future and to aid those on drugs to be freed. Many of the boys had a dark, hollow look in their eyes and some asked us nicely for help. The first step is to help these young people to get an I.D. card and then help them into simple employment or training, moving towards independency rather than dependency. Some want to learn to drive a motor bike so that they can be hired as a taxi driver. Others can do a simple catering or tailoring course or possibly be provided with a hand cart and a container and a knife to start their own fruit and veg business.
A week later! We have enjoyed a four-night safari to the Maasai Mara National Park with our son, John. We saw large herds of plains animals and at least twenty lions, four cheetahs and one leopard with a kill in a tree. Highly recommended!
Now, at Diani Beach, south of Mombasa, we relax on the sand and watch the world go by, with gentle walks in the early morning and late afternoon. Next week we should be back in the UK.
Prayer concerns
We continue to pray for Julius who is on dialysis twice a week for the foreseeable future. We also pray for his family, Esther, Liz and Eutychus.
We thank God for peace throughout Kenya during and after the recent elections.
We remember Ann, mentioned above, as she starts a new stage of her life.
We pray for Grace as she faces her surgery.
We give thanks for the provision of the internet which is of real benefit to education. We give thanks to all our supporters for continued financial donations, without whom Riziki could not continue.
Current needs and plans
We still hope to build a new chicken house. The orignal one was built from assorted waste materials and has survived for over ten years but has now been demolished. The new one will be bigger and provide the opportunity to have more hens and therefore more eggs for the children to eat and for sale.
We would also like to increase our water storage facilities by digging a second dam. Weather patterns have changed drastically since Riziki started. We originally thought our initial underground water tank would store all the rain water we would need but our greatly increased storage is still not large enough to cope with the much longer periods of dry weather.
Many blessings, Ian & Diana.