reactkenya.com Blog

The Deaf Hear!

You may be wondering what you are looking at in the above picture but this is one of six solar powered hearing aids that Dave and I took to Kenya in January. In our attempts to help the deaf children that we are sponsoring, I wondered last year if it were possible to integrate deaf children into their local communities instead of isolating them in boarding schools. If this were possible, then children could live at home with their families and begin to function in their home environments instead of living isolated from them. This coming year is an experiment to see if we can invest in a practical hearing aid and possibly eliminate the need for specialized schools. Don’t get me wrong, the school in Webuye, Kenya is doing wonderful things for these children. Hearing aids will not be the answer for all the deaf children of Kenya since many of those with severe hearing loss would not benefit. But for the cost of school fees for one year, a hearing aid could be purchased and these children can learn to function in the safety and comfort of their homes.

I have seen with my own eyes that hearing aids can be problematic even here in Canada. My father has used them for years. Even in the West, they are sensitive and must be treated with care in order for them to function efficiently. Imagine the escalated problems that arise in bringing them to a Majority World country. There is the issue of weather conditions and dust that these units will be exposed to. They will be used by children who are not necessarily as conscious of caring for delicate units like these. In addition to that, there is the problem of having steady power available for these units in a place where hearing aid batteries are rare if not too expensive for the average person. The unit that you see above is a re-chargeable, solar powered with 2 sets of batteries. In rural areas in particular where power is scarce if not non-existent, powering up rechargeable batteries is almost impossible. We hope that making use of the sun will change that.

Our one year experiment will determine several things. First, what is the life span of the hearing aids themselves? What is the life span of these batteries? How well do they re-charge during the rainy season? How does the weather and dust affect the performance of these units? There are many questions that we hope to have a better understanding of over the coming 12 months.

While we were there two months ago, we met with Agrai, a government official that performs hearing assessments not only for the school we are involved with but for a large part of Kenya. He makes assessments on the children prior to registering them at the school and so I had his contact information before we arrived. I had made a meeting date with him and on that date, we met Agrai to assess the hearing aids as well as several children that are being sponsored by ReACT. It was wonderful to see some of these children really hear for the first time in their lives! Many gave groans of delight to hear a voice for the first time! Upon assessing several of the children, Agrai decided on 6 of the children who showed the most potential for their use who will use these hearing aids over the coming months. (The pic below show some of the children being assessed.) A teacher has also been assigned to monitor these children as well as do speech therapy with them.

So this has become a branch of one of the trees we’ve planted in Webuye and we are excited to see if this branch grafts with the rest of the tree. Thanks for all your interest and prayers for this project. Thanks too for those who sowed seed directly into this project. We are excited to see what this year brings!

Enough Project

Its sobering to me that “Lazarus” is put at the gate of the “Rich Man” in a fresh way on a regular basis as of late. Remember the Rich Man and Lazarus? Lazarus was put at the gate of the Rich Man and the Rich Man was condemned, not because he was rich, but becasue he has the means to help but he did nothing…

The Man Who Stayed Behind

Another story of someone speaking up for the voiceless in Sudan…

Kony 2012

A well produced and timely film. Truly, justice is needed for the marginalized and the West needs to be better informed on the voices that screams at us from the Third World. There are countless issues like this that need the attention, funding and passion of the West. Remember the Rich Man and Lazarus? Lazarus is at my gate every single day while I carry on, all too often indifferent and far too busy to care enough to act.

Kids like Eric

In 2005 and 2006, my wife and I were spending an extended time in Kenya. During the Christmas season, we had the privilege of having my in-laws with us for Christmas during which, we made the long travel to the Masai Mara to see the famous safari as a break. On our travels, we stayed in an area called the Kakamega Forest, one of the last stands of jungle in this part of the world, and literally stayed in a tree house for the night (no joke!). We slept well but occasionally wondered what would crawl through the wall in the dark.

Its a simple thing to support a child in such a setting. Networking with the local people to care for their own is the most culturally relevant and cost-effective way we know of of seeing lives changed. Most of the children do not recognize us when we arrive since we are there so little. Our Kenyan friends Martin, Ruth and Mark are the links for these children and they are the ones who have developed relationships with these children. We have thought in the past about starting our own school for these children but our heart is to keep things as simple as they can be. Starting schools is just not cost-effective and too often not culturally relevant when the locals do it so well for so little. Our friend Steve is known for saying “Complicated things break down. Simple things multiply.” We are delighted to keep it simple, be an unknown face visiting the school and yet witness other transformed lives like Eric’s! Thanks for partnering with us to Reach African Children Together!

Kenya Trip 2012

After a short visit to the projects in Kenya that ReACT is a part of, I can honestly say that I have never been as excited and filled with a sense of God’s partnership as I am now. Partnering with our friends in Kenya as well as our friends here in the West is an enormous privilege that reminds me that we are a bridge between these two “similarly different” worlds.

We have three main projects that we are involved with in the Kitale area of Kenya.

First is our partnership with two schools in which presently there are seventy seven registered children that the friends of ReACT sponsor. One of the schools is for deaf children and the other is for children with various handicaps both mental and physical. We first started sponsoring children in these schools in 2005 and I can honestly say that I have never seen these children look as healthy and bright as I did on this trip. There is something that can be said for making small investments over a long period of time which many of you have been doing. Investments made this way (whether its time with your kids or finances for retirement) are, in my opinion, the most profitable in the long run and the fruit of this kind of investing is increasingly evident as each year and trip passes by. Like a growing child, we can also see where we need to make changes though this too is an exciting prospect.

ReACT has partnered with two other Kenyan families to care for OVC’s (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) since 2005. Between these two families, there are almost 60 children that are cared for in what we call Organic Homes. The purpose of these Organic Homes is to provide a cost-effective, family friendly and culturally relevant means of caring for OVC’s. While many in Kenya focus on “Orphanage” style of care, we have felt that Organic Homes provide a more multipliable model for orphan care at a more reasonable cost.

Our second partner is Daniel and Anastasia Juma. In 2005, ReACT began partnering with this home by helping start a small business using “bicycle taxis” or boda-boda’s as they are known in Kenya. Over the years since 2005, Juma has saved and purchased his own motorcycles for use in his delivery business, started raising chickens for sale to local hotels and restaurants, started a popcorn business as well as other small ventures. This has not only increased his ability to provide for his family, but has also been a living example to his children and the 20 extra OVC’s in his home. In the past months this family was able to move to a new property with 5 acres that will further move them towards being self-sufficient in the next year or two. We are now moving into the final stages of this process, that is, mentoring and reproducing this model with someone else. Complex things break down…simple things multiply. A simple model like this home is cost-effective, culturally relevant and simple enough to be reproduced.

Or third partner is Martin and Ruth Shikuku. They too have recently moved to new property as many of you know. They currently care for almost 40 children at their new location and are making changes that move them into new directions. We are both excited and challenged by the needs that this home brings with it. During this time in Kenya, a team has come around Martin and Ruth to assist them with the enormous task that they have in front of them. Everyone that I spoke with that knows this couple spoke highly of their hearts and desire to help those around them and we are also excited to see where God is taking this home and its children. It is our prayer that the team working with them there will be able to assist them with the decisions and direction that is in front of them.

As always, I have both enjoyed and appreciated the team at Transformed International in Kitale who have not only become our partners over the years but more so our friends. Daniel and Ashlie Lipparelli and the team of Eric, Anne, Mark and Derick are indispensable to our work there as well as our latest friend, Adam Pollock. There is always much room for laughter and friendship amidst the work to be done! Relationships are central to ReACT; its the “Together” in “Reaching African Children Together”.

There is much more to say in regards to this trip and the work at hand that I cannot expand on now without writing a novel. For those of you who are the praying types, please continue to ask the Divine to lead us in these things…we desperately need His partnership as well as yours! The coming months will unpack these three projects in this blog and hopefully bring you, our partners, an increased sense of the bridge we are all building together between these two worlds.

Nehemiah Construction

I am always encouraged by Dave and the work of his team in northern Kenya. Paste the address below and watch a short presentation of well driling in one of the most arid places on earth. You tube also has a 3 part documentary on Dave’s work if you look up “Too Dry for Tears” on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSrhuFj65TI&feature=related

December 2011 Update

We are fast approaching the end of the year. Like a birthday, we look back with thankful hearts but we also look ahead with the anticipation of new things in the year to come.

The past year has seen 78 handicapped children put through another year of school. For some, it was their first year in school while others were there for their 5th year.

The Juma Home underwent wonderful transformations as they moved out of the town of Kitale and into the countryside onto 3 acres of land. This is another step towards independance as they move towards being able to produce enough food on their new land to feed the 20 extra children they have in their family. The family businesses are going well and constantly growing. The bicycle business is going well. There have been motorcycles added to the delivery fleet. The children are involved in various small businesses such as raising chickens, selling cows milk and selling popcorn in town. I am constantly impressed with the leadership of Daniel Juma!

Martin and Ruth Shikuku are busy with the many aspects of their home. In 2010, their home was radically transformed as friends from the U.S. both raised the funds and provided the manpower to build several buildings on a new lot of land. This family and their twenty-something extra children (the number varies with the school season) moved from an area called Soy to a new home about 50kms away just south of Kitale. This year has been a year of settling and bridge-building with the community.

Last winter, Daniel Lipparelli, our partner from Transformed International came to Canada to spend some time together discussing the work of ReACT. He and his new wife, Ashlie, have been a God-send to us as they continue to manage and oversee the work of ReACT in our absence. In January of 2012, I, Michael, am planning to travel once again to Kitale to spend a couple of weeks both with Daniel and Ashlie as well as the various aspects of the work there. Please pray that God would continue to give us wisdom as I see again with my eyes the work and children we have a heart for.

Regarding the deaf children we are working with, we have been investigating a technology that has the potential to radically transform many lives. In speaking with the government professionals that assess the deaf children prior to their admission into school, there is one comment that we have not been able to forget. Many of the children supported in the schools would not have to be there if they were able to use a simple hearing aid. The problem with hearing aids relates to the practicality of these simple devices in a land where most do not have daily access to electricity let alone the batteries required for them. A local friend brought to our attention a wonderful and potentially life-transforming answer to this problem with a hearing aid that is recharged with a small solar panel. I plan on bringing several of these to Kenya this winter so that we can monitor over the next year the viability of using these. Should they prove to be viable and effective, the work of ReACT as it relates to the hearing impaired may change dramatically. Please pray that God “connects the dots” for us in this experiment!

From the start, we have always recognised that the strength of ReACT has also been our weakness. Each dollar donated is sent to the purpose for which it was intended with nothing skimmed for administration. All of those involved with ReACT do so as volunteers. Our weakness in this has been keeping you, our partners, properly updated and informed. We hope that in 2012, this will change as we have been talking with a friend about keeping you effectively informed. We look forward to keeping you posted on this new chapter as the New Year begins.

For anyone still hoping to make a donation for 2011, we remind you that we need to receive your donation by Christmas in order to process it before the end of this year.

In short, we want to thank all of you, our friends, for believing and entrusting your hard earned funds to ReACT. We are honoured to serve as a part of the bridge between you and these children and pray that we can continue in 2012 in the many directions that God is taking us. The children of Kenya join us in saying “Asante!”.

Crumbs

What do you do with $150 million and an overpowering desire to save the earth? You sell out your comfy life and buy your own Yosemite.

As a teenager in the early 60’s, Douglas Tompkins moved to California and worked there as a mountain guide. He borrowed $5,000 to start a clothing company called The North Face, one of the first companies to capitalize on the outdoor sports boom, then sold it a few years later for $50,000 and started Esprit clothing. By the mid-eighties, Esprit’s sales worldwide had topped $1 billion. During this time, Tompkins spent much time in Chile with his climbing partner and fellow fashion designer Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia.

Douglas Tompkins, the now 66 year old millionaire sold out a successful career to devote himself to saving the earth. Starting in 1991, after he walked away from Esprit and moved to South America to devote his life to conservation, Tompkins has made dozens of separate land deals in Chile’s Region X where the southern wilderness begins. His aim has been to create with world’s biggest private nature reserve, which he calls Pumalin Park. Land was cheap in this part of the country. His first 24,700 acres-purchased, as were many of his holdings, from absentee foreign owners-cost him just $600,000, with a herd of cows thrown in. “Less than a condo in San Francisco”, he says. Since his first purchase, he has added to his collection of land another 700,000 acres all in the name of conserving the rainforest and ecosystem from possible exploitation. The park includes active volcanoes, calving glaciers, 4,000 year old trees and a wildlife list that reads like a who’s who of protected species.

Tompkins recalls, “When we were part of the fashion business, we were part of the problem,” he says. Now, he argues, he is at least less of a part of it. “There’s a phenomenon I call eco-lite. This is when you are worried about the environment and you try to write another message on top of the advertising budget. We did it at Esprit to an extent. Bennetton does it. But I say that if Luciano Bennetton sold his company tomorrow and put all his assets into a foundation that was dedicated 100 percent to what is supposed to be his viewpoint, he’d make more of an impact, one heck of an impact. The same thing with the Patagonia company. I keep telling Yvon Choinard that if they want to put a real dent in things they should just sell up and take all the proceeds and work 100 percent on what they believe in. Instead, they have to spend 90 percent of their effort just to keep the wheels going. When I was at Esprit,” he concludes, “I spent 20 hours a day on the business and only a few hours thinking about bigger issues. Now I have 24 hours a day to concentrate on what really matters.”

Some days I feel like that. I feel like I am spending 90 percent of my effort just keeping the wheels going instead of working 100 percent in what I believe in and I am positive that I am not alone. How is it that we overwrite our lives with appearances and “marketing strategies” to replace risky adventure with a safe and comfortable life. I am encouraged by reading about people that sell out on the easy life and pursue their passions in the face of uncertainty and obstacles. “A ship is safest in the harbour, but thats not what ships are built for.”

We are always asking ourselves whether we are compromising the vision God has given us for the safe harbour. We are asking God if we need to sell out to invest more of ourselves into the things that he has called us to. What has the Voice spoken to you about in regards to your place “in the wall” you are working on?

Small is Big…

I was encouraged by the article pasted below this week. Its easy for me to think that a small ministry like ours is somehow not as significant as larger, more prominent ministries. Have a read and be encouraged by the “small” things you are doing!

http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/06/outreach-magazine-column-small.html