KISII REPORT- SCHOOL DAYS

In several ways, the caring for the orphans has grown beyond the Log Church of Kenya and has become a community effort. Regular readers of this blog may recall that in the previous school term, the children of the orphanage had been sent home because we could not meet the fee requirements.

Meeting these costs have been a constant challenge for us. The total school fees for all of the children run about $1000 for each of the 9 months that the school is in session (about $23/month/student). The schools themselves run on a very tight budget, so it is also difficult for them to accommodate non-paying students.

Thankfully however, after the pastors again went to meet with the staff at the various schools, each school has agreed to allow the children to return for this present 3 month term. The pastors showed each school administrator the history of texts that Joel and I have exchanged over the past months, where we were discussing the challenges of feeding the kids. Those texts showed that we often turned our eyes only to the Lord to provide for them a healthy place to sleep, clothing them and all of the other necessities, besides having money to send them to school.

This impressed upon the administrators the truth that it is a struggle for us, so they were gracious enough to allow the children to return to school for this term with the condition that we make the payments during the 3 month term. We have been able to so far pay $500 of the $3000 school fees.

But remember also that food costs run about $1000 per week, so every day is a test of faith.

With the work that God has given me over the years, I have been involved with several works of faith in several countries of the world. I must say that this one has driven me to prayer more than any other. The costs are so incomprehensible to me, that I know it must be the Lord who will provide.

Primarily so far, God has done this mainly through people like you, readers of this blog, whom the Lord has moved to send some money to help out. For this we all thank you very much. As difficult as things are, the lives of the children are so much better than they were one year ago. Thank you so much!

But even with this, we have not kept up. I am presently praying that God would open the windows of heaven to send his blessings on these, his orphaned children. The needs are so much beyond what we can do.

After all, they are not orphans to God. He is their Father.

“You, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand… You are the helper of the fatherless.”

We are thankful that the kids are now back in school, but the situation has renewed our thoughts about beginning a new school at the orphanage. The orphanage staff held a formal meeting to discuss the possibility of this.

I was surprised how difficult it is if it is to be done in accordance with the Ministry of Education of Kenya. We do not realize how blessed we are in the US to be able to begin a home school for our own children, with even the additional aid of organizations to help us along.

I will write about that planning meeting where the opening of the school was discussed in the next post.

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(Want to help but don’t know how? Write to me at donaldrhody@gmail.com

Every nickel given is used for the needs of the orphans. Nothing is used for any other purpose.)