Christmas in Kenya

Now that we have a president in the USA with a slight connection to Kenya, we also have more news correspondents in Kenya, and they need to find something to do.  So one of them has done a good service with an interesting and true-to-life article on Christmas in Kenya.  It's Edmund Sanders in the Dec 23 issue of the Los Angeles Times.  You can find it at www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kenya-xmas23-2008dec23,0,2397369.story

Kenyans who live in Nairobi spend a lot of money going home for Christmas -- higher bus fares and other costs, but especially relatives in the country who expect their "rich" Nairobi relatives to bring gifts and cash home for Christmas.  This happens partly because those who go to Nairobi to seek a living don't report back home that they only got a security guard job at $60 a month and one-third to half of it goes for rent.  They continue to make it sound wonderful to live in Nairobi!  The truth is that about half the people of Nairobi live in the slum areas of Kibera, Mathare, Soweto, Korogocho and the many scattered but smaller slums around the city.  And more than half of the people don't get enough food every day.  And most of those who come to the city to seek riches can't get skilled labor jobs but must work at the lower income jobs.  

We are happy that Made in the Streets can give the street kids who live with us a better Christmas than many get -- each one has a bed, and enough food to eat, and an opportunity to visit some relatives at least once during the holidays, and Team members who truly love them, and literacy education and skills training and a shopping trip and other activities that normal families take together.  

Thanks to all those who help us do this, and Merry Christmas