Kenya Statistics
Population: 29 million
Unemployment: 40%
Muslim: 10%
HIV/AIDS infected: 2.6 mill.
Pop. under 15 years: 43%
Life expectancy: 48 years
Below poverty line: 50%
Orphans: 2.5 million
Kibera, Kenya Site Overview
Kibera, Kenya is the largest slum in Kenya and is home to an estimate 1.2 million people. It is an illegal settlement with no government services including electricity, water, sewage and garbage pickup. Unfortunately for many it is the only housing they can afford. The houses in Kibera are either comprised of scrap tin and cardboard or sticks and slapped up mud walls. The desperate struggle to survive often drives people to do things they would never do otherwise. When it rains all the garbage, sewage and dirt wash down the hills into this trench. The people live in these desperate circumstances due to 40% unemployment and immeasurable poverty.
But despite the desperate situation there are amazing believers who are daily living out their faith in a difficult place with joy and peace. This is fertile soil of people longing for hope and to know there is more — hearts ready to hear the gospel. And that is why we are here to minister to their greatest need – the need of a hope and a Savior.
When people look out on Kibera all they see is garbage, rusted shacks and hopelessness but when we look at Kibera through the eyes of Jesus we see people in need of Him, people He love and people He died to save. We are excited to see all that God is doing through our ministries, explore our site and find out how to join us on this exciting journey.
C²ARES Ministry Begins
We are beginning a new designation of Ministry at the Kenya Base. This designation will join together our Orphan Home and New Adventure School as partners in reaching out to the children of Kibera. As part of that I want to introduce someone significant to you all. Her name is Denise Roberts. She is new at AIM and in Kenya. Her role will be to come alongside the C2ARE ministries that we have in Kenya to help improve them and to help us work toward our desires to honor Christ in the lives of these students and their families. Most of the reports that you will be receiving from this point on will be coming from her. I, as Base Director, will still be heavily involved but since this is her main role she will have a very hands on role in the school and the orphanage and in relating what is going on to you. We want to make sure that you know how your resources are being spent and to keep you informed so that you can better pray for and be involved in these ministries going forward. -Scott Nelson, Kenya Base Director
Christ’s Children are….
·Accepted… Accepted just how they are. We strive to create an environment where each child is loved and accepted in the condition that they are in.
· Redeemed…Redeemed from their old situation into a new, better life. Redeemed by the blood of Christ into the family of God. Though we accept each child exactly how they are we long to see each child give his or her life whole heartedly to the God through receiving Christ as their savior and summitting themselves to God.
·Excelling…Excelling in all aspects of life. It is our dream to invest in the lives of these students to the point that they excel spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, economically. That means that we are more than a place where kids live (the orphanage) or a place that they learn (the new adventure school) but that we are family guiding them through each step of life
“Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. “{Remember} the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when the LORD said to me, ‘Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’ Deuteronomy 4:9-10
New Adventure School History and Vision
New Adventure School came into being before we knew about it. In 1999 a lady sent a one time gift to sponsor children for school. The pastors got together and decided that they would be able to help more children by using that money to begin a school and then trusting God to continue to provide once the original gift ran out. Around 2003 Adventures in Missions found out about the school and began sending teams there to volunteer with the children. After seeing the school and what was being done we felt God calling us to do more so we began to support the school by paying their $40/month in rent for the church that they were using.
The students that the school are from Kibera and other surrounding slums and from families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to send their children to school. Our school charges 50 Kenyan Shillings per month ($.66) per student and families are able, we never reject a student for failure to pay. Education is the best solution to poverty but poverty is the biggest obstacle to education. We look to stand in as an answer to that problem and to educate these children to the best of our ability.
The “superintendent” of the school is a man named George who, himself, was a street kid rescued by Pastor Timothy. His passion to make this school the best education that these kids can get has stretched the small finances to do great things. This included making the switch in 2004 to having all of our teachers be certified which has greatly improved the quality of education. He has petitioned the government to recognize the school as a legal informal school, enabling the students to take tests at neighboring school to enter secondary schooling, which is increasingly necessary as the children get older. George has also been able to secure Kenyan government funding for a feeding program for the children which is an incomparable help to their families and we are looking to increase this to two meals and a breakfast snack in the near future.
We are excited to see where God is taking us. Our student body has now grown to 350 students. Despite the limited space that they are in they are eager to learn, they listen well to their teachers, and are testing very well. Next year we hope to add 8th grade and our primary school will be complete. Beyond the feeding program, all of the funding is now provided by AIM and the small stipend that the students pay per month. AIM pays for the teacher’s salaries as well as the rent and George stretches the children’s stipends to cover everything else and what it doesn’t cover they creatively do without. The church that they are currently in is much to small, there are few desks, very limited teaching supplies, limited lighting, no tables or chairs for the teachers, and no money for books and other supplies. We are trusting that as God brings us more children that He will also provide for the needs that those children create.
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27
AIM Orphan Home (soon to be named!!)
In 2002 we rented a house for the Real-life team on Karanja Road in Kibera. The team needed the house for a month but the lease was for six months. So with the five months remaining on the lease of a fully furnished 3 bedroom house the response was obvious – move in orphans. We contacted our partner churches and asked them to help us identify the most desperately needy orphans. A couple stepped forward saying they would be willing to care for the children and our home began. Now we have moved them into a larger 5 bedroom house and our little family has grown to 14.
As our partner churches become aware of desperate orphans we continue to seek to assist in finding help for them – either through taking them in ourselves or through finding other situations for them. We see the need to move into a larger facility again in the future as well as finding other Kenyans who can pour into and disciple the children. As we seek the long term education and training of these children our financial and staffing needs increase. We want to send these children out with marketable skills and an education to help them begin successful lives and break the cycle of poverty, disease and abandonment that have plagued their parents and grandparents generations. We are excited to see what God will do and eager for these precious children to become the men and women that God has made them to be and to be the voices of Jesus in their generation in Kenya and to the world.
