Sponsorship & Widows...

It’s been a little awhile since I wrote up a blog/email. It’s been quite the crazy few weeks.

It’s August, which means update month for all of our children in our sponsorship program. Every three months, we go to all of our projects and take updated photos and information on our children. I then compile them into little update pages and send them to the sponsors in North America. Last Saturday, alone, I did this for 45 children.

It’s a lot of work but I thoroughly enjoy it. I get to watch the expressions on the children’s faces as they answer the questions or tell their stories. I love it when we tell the kids to smile for the camera and some are either too shy to smile or some just burst out laughing with sheer excitement.

Last week, Anne, Hoglah and I went out to a village that the whole TI team went out to a month ago, where we did assessments of over 20 families: grandmothers with orphan grandchildren or widows with children. The last time we went to the village, we met these families at a central location; this time around, Anne, Hoglah and I went to their individual homes. That day we walked over 15 kilometers and visited many homes.

The first home we went to, we had to walk down a deep, beautiful ravine and back up again. We arrived at the home of Sophia and her children. Her husband had died a few years ago, leaving them with about 3 acres of land but no money. We walked into their smoke-filled home of mud walls and grass roof. There was a small jeico (gee-koo – a small coal like BBQ) in the corner cooking some rice in the corner. The smoke from the coals was filling up the home; my eyes were stinging. I looked around the house to find a half a bag of something (either rice or corn), the jeico and a bench under the roof. That’s it. That’s all that they had in their home. I asked Anne why this was all they had. Anne asked Sophia and she said that her husband was the only son in the family and when he died, his family came and took everything. He, being the only boy, would be the one to care for his parents in their old age but since he was gone now, they “felt” they had the right to his things. Those things would take care of them, perhaps?

And since Sophia was simply an in-law, she had no right to them, even if she was the mother to their son’s children. Thankfully, the one thing she had was the land. But because of no money, planting in the farm was pointless so she rented it out to a nearby community member. It gave her some money, for a little while, to provide food for her children. Food being far more important to her, than a couch or bed for her and the children to sleep on.

Sophia is beautiful. When we arrived, she welcomed us with the biggest smile. I remembered her smile from when we first met her a few weeks before that. She had such a young and beautiful face and she hugged, big, heartfelt hugs. My heart ached for her….for all the homes that we visited that day. They, for the most part were all very similar…in their conditions and situations.

It’s overwhelming; it’s heartbreaking. This is just a small village outside our town, in the deep interior. We didn’t reach every home, every widow, and every heart breaking story in this village alone. There are still so many people in our area we haven’t visited, children we haven’t heard about. And with the decrease of food happening, the increase of prices….this will bring along the increase of extreme poverty. It’s frustrating.

We can only imagine the more difficult times here to come in the next year.

I was in Nairobi last week to pick up Sean. Yes, Sean is finally here! For those of you who haven’t heard, he did make it safely. I’m sure you NACers will hear from him soon. The poor guy hit the ground running here. We spent all of Thursday on a bus back to Kitale. On Friday, he had to endure the wonderful, crammed matatu rides, a corrupt police check (or 4!) and walking up a steep hill…to get to one of our projects. But I think it was worth it when he got to hug on a few beautiful Kenyan children. And just wait until he tells you about our children’s home and his bonding with some of the kids on the Saturday. Yeah, he’ll do great here. J

As this next week begins and more craziness, I’ll keep you posted…as always.

Oh yeah, we have kids on our website that need to be sponsored. Go to www.transformedinternational.org to check them out.