Hello. We have been scrambling around for the last two or three weeks trying to get further along in all of our projects. So much activity, yet we have neglected to write you all about what is going on. Please accept our apologies.

We will just write short excerpts about the results of these activities in each project over the next days, as well as what we are challenged with at the moment. 

 

by Rev. Wasike

The CBSM board members and some of our community members organized and collected food donations and contributions. Thankfully, the children will now receive lunch and porridge during their school day.

The donations were in form of maize, millet, sorghum, beans and firewood. So, as of tomorrow, our children start receiving meals at school.

We had to discontinue this service during the times we had problem with landlord in the beginning of this term while we were building our new temporary facilities. The food donations will hopefully allow us to provide lunches for the next month and a half. God is great.

Many children were suffering having to go without lunch or travelling long distances for lunch and when they came back, they were too tired to learn any more.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and efforts for the project.

 

by Rev. Wasike

We have been blessed with news of some generous gifts and donations in the last few days from CBSM community members and people from far away. In this post I would like to give thanks to Jennifer, who has made a PayPal donation through the “Your Help” page of our website.

Jennifer’s donation will give Fadhili a real football. I cannot wait to see the smile on his face when he finds out about this gift. Jennifer also is buying Aminah's family a goat. Aminah lives with her siblings and her mother, who is raising her children on her own. A goat will raise the income of their family, enrich the children’s nutritional diet, and even help fertilise their garden. Jennifer’s third gift, will buy seeds for Kundu family’s one-acre garden. Kundu lives with his siblings and his widowed father. The garden nourishes his family and will be used for sale in the local market. The seed packages will include seeds for onions, tomatoes, kales and cabbages.

 

By Lia

Rev. Wasike sent my the following photos of the various phases of school year opening celebrations, the shock of coming to the school the next day and finding a half demolished building, and the building of the new temporary facilities. I put the photos into an animated slide show.

The children and teachers got back to school in half-finished classrooms. There was a roof over their heads, but the mud walls still had to be built. Problems arose because the builders wanted to get their work done and the teachers and students wanted to do their work and so after a few days of confusion and noise, the builders agreed to complete their work after school was over in the afternoon. That meant that building the walls took longer than planned, but now the work is done. Hallelujah!

Rev. Wasike wants to thank everyone involved, from the children to the oldest community member who have been so helpful, resourceful, and patient these last six weeks.

 

This last month has been a very trailing month. We had to suddenly relocate and build temporary school facilities for our 250 children. Nevertheless, we are still highly involved in our VPS project. Our group, or VPS women’s co-op includes the following women:

1. Mrs. Margaret B. - head teacher of the CBSM academy
2. Mrs. Margaret N. - retired co-operative officer
3. Mrs Janerose W. - farmer
4. Mrs Teresia N. –businesswoman

We are presently studying at all of Jinkfuin VPS market results and seeing how they can help us to do our market research.

 

I was talking to the operations manager at the Palm Security Service company yesterday. They have offered to uniforms for all the CBSM children.

They are in the process of changing their company’s khaki uniforms to navy blue. Instead of selling off the access rolls of khaki material they still have in stock, they have generously offered to donate the material to our children. Initially, they were just thinking of donating the material, but after I told them that we did not have any sewing machines or tailors in Kimilili, they agreed to make the uniforms for kids if we provide measurements. What a happy day this is for us!