The following post starts with a letter from Linda Wilson, founder and director of Caring for Kids of Kenya, a non-profit that supports the education of orphaned children at the Shelter Children Rehabilitation Center in the Rift Valley, close to Nairobi. I met Linda through a mutual friend, and she arranged for me to spend a day at the orphanage during my visit to Kenya last November. The Shelter director, Mary Muiruri, and her staff are doing the grace-filled work of offering hope to poor and neglected children. The following letter to me from Linda tells a bit about how she got involved, and the essay from Justin tells his story.

Letter from Linda

HI Bill,

This is the story of Justin the boy I told you about.  He wrote the following essay to get into college here in America.  We are hoping to send him to Towson University in Towson Md. near Baltimore so he can be close to his sponsor and myself.

Let me tell you how I met Justin.  It was my first visit ever to an orphanage.  My traveling companion and I noticed him right away because he spoke well and showed signs of strong leadership.

I started working with the home and got to know the kids well, including Justin.  As time went on I could see this home was not a good place for the children. The owners did not want to send the children to boarding school, which is essential in Kenya if they are going to get a decent education.  I was told that they were “just orphans and no school would want them”.

After the visit I called Justin, but he spoke in a whisper and told me that the children were not allowed out of the ½ acre property. He pleaded with me to get him out, then got off the phone when a staff member entered the room. I felt a sense of urgency, something had to be done to rescue these children.

This experience prompted me to begin Caring for Kids in Kenya, a U.S. non-profit corporation, and I began a search for sponsors.  The friend who had accompanied me to Kenya and met Justin agreed to sponsor him if I could get him out of that home.

Over the next four months, with careful planning and with help from the administrator of another orphanage, we were able to rescue 10 children.  Thanks to some of the children’s family members and other Kenyans, including Mary from the Shelter, the 10 children were taken in by the Shelter Children Rehabilitation Center and are now in boarding school. They live at the Shelter on their breaks. I am now looking for people willing to help sponsor Justin so that we can afford his tuition at Towson University. Thank you, Linda Wilson (www.caringforkidsofKenya.org)

Note from Bill

Justin tells his own story in the essay below (and remember as you read it that English is not his first language). To learn about my visit to the Shelter and about Mary, the amazing woman who directs the work there, click on “Travel Archives” in the green banner atop the front page, then on “Second Postcard from Kenya”. My pictures of the children at the Shelter can be seen at www.gallery.me.com/jamiesonwilliam/100054 . I was so taken by the work at there that I became a sponsor, and am returning with my wife and granddaughter in December. For more information, or if you wish to help sponsor Justin’s college, or assist children at the Shelter,  contact Linda at Lwilson-crf@earthlink.net

Justin’s Story

I became an orphan when I was 7 days old. My parents bore me out of wedlock. My father was unknown and my mother abandoned me, never to be seen again. I was brought up in a humble family of five in Kavaruka village, three hours south of Nairobi Kenya with my grandmother and her three children.

Our house was a 16ft by 14ft, muddy, grass-thatched shelter which retained water when it rained. Sleeping conditions were a big challenge as we were congested sleeping side-by-side on the mud floor.

By God’s grace, I found a way to school when I was four years old. It happened that in Kithimu Primary school, a maximum of three kids could acquire education under the same fee charges.  One of our neighbors had only one child in school. She was a loving single parent and kindly decided to enroll me in school too.

When I reached class 4 in 2002, another tragedy befell my family. My grandmother’s brothers decided to sell the piece of land where we lived out of greed for money. However, my grandmother being the eldest maintained the words of her late parents and could not give in to the idea of her brothers.

Fiercely and violently, however, they ignored my poor grandmother and burned down to ashes, our house and everything inside. I will never forget that day. On my arrival home from school, I saw the ashes of my house and heard the loud bitter cries of my grandmother. I too broke into tears knowing that my life had taken a turn for the worse. I lost the following school year-term scholarship as we were forced to move to a rented house.

However God’s grace continued in my life the following year. The Kenyan government commenced offering free primary education in 2004. I counted myself lucky and blessed indeed because I was able to continue my learning.

It was then that I vowed to prioritize crucial things in my life and to set goals and targets. My first goal was turning valuable time into opportunities. I decided to utilize every spare moment I had to study and research my academic subjects.I performed well in school. I ranked as high as 412 out of 500 marks in my class.

I became close friends of my teachers and colleagues who fostered my academic achievements and helped me to discover my strengths and to overcome my weaknesses. I plan to continue this effort at Towson University. I intend to fully devote myself to take advantage of the academic opportunity offered. It will be my continued goal to use my time available at Albright/Towson to the fullest.

In addition to time consciousness, it is my desire to improve my interpersonal skills in Towson University.  Achieving this goal will be very important for my success as Towson is a very different environment from my past. I am certain I will be able to achieve this goal. I am outgoing, social and motivated. In primary school life, gaining a living and paying rent was a big challenge for our family. I was forced to interact with all kinds of people as a way of obtaining favor.

I got employed to work in the evening hours after school for a small amount of money, 600 Kenyan shillings a month. I worked continuously until my final exam year. Thanks to God I was able to support my family with rent and food and still passed my exams with a mean grade of B.

At Towson University it will be my focus to improve my interpersonal skills in order to be able to integrate fully and to learn from people of different races and cultures. The achievement of these two aforementioned goals will enable me to acquire my main objective; education. Higher education has been my vision since childhood.

By God’s grace again in 2008, I met a woman from the United States named Linda Wilson who rescued me and sent me to an orphanage which offered education. With the support of the Shelter Rehabilitation Centre in Ngong, Kenya and a U.S. financial sponsor, I managed to enroll in a boarding high school. This year I graduated with a mean grade of B.

It would be my joy forever to attend Towson University to enhance my education further and to become a dedicated professor or medical doctor. I intend to use my education to benefit others, specifically the ones who face challenges and lack opportunities as I did.