Planning the Future for Street Ministry

I may have mentioned before that I am on Medicare and Social Security now!  A real transition point in life, and I get 10% off at buffets and would get in cheaper at movies if I went.  So we are now in the process of setting up advanced health care directives and wills and powers of attorney.   It will make it easier for other people when we all of a sudden can't make the decisions we need to make.  

   In the past three years we have had five families make special gifts to Made in the Streets when a loved one died.  In each case they were people who already had an interest in street ministry and in MITS.  That has caused us to make a decision to do something similar.  

   We have talked with our heirs about using part of what is left in our estate for Made in the Streets.  We are thinking that somewhere around 25% would be great -- that still leaves something for the family but provides a future for the street ministry.  

    And doing it this way will not place constrictions on our heirs.  They can give whatever amount they want to for a few years in order to get the best tax benefits possible until the whole amount is given.  

   We are hopeful that some of you will do the same thing.  Decide an amount or a percentage you'd like to go to Made in the Streets. Talk to your kids, executor, whoever, and express your desire, then let them follow through when the time is right.  

   The 5 gifts have done great things for MITS -- we set up a visitors' quarters, we built a skills training building, we are preparing to build a new boys' dorm, we bought a piece of land that has been invaluable, and we were able to do a  refurbishing of our Eastleigh Center, which gets a lot of wear.  

   So...please give it some thought.  We want to provide the infrastructure and funding for Made in the Streets, since we have wonderful Kenyan Team members who can run this ministry themselves and who plan to stay long-term and serve street kids. 

Happy Birthday

One of the most loving acts we do at Made in the streets is to give birthday parties to the street kids who are in our boarding program.  When we meet the kids, many of them do not know when or where they were born, and none have ever had a birthday party.  If we have no documents on them, then we take them to a dentist for their molars to be examined, and the dentist will say, "He's 13, give or take a year."  What the dentist writes is a legal document.  So we then ask the student, "what month and day do you want for your birthday in 1996?"  Ali quickly answered, "February 5."  Others decide to take the month we are in, since they will be included in the birthday party for that month!  Still others think they know the month, so they choose it.  The picture is of Mercy Kisya getting her age assessment. 

Our birthday parties are great events.  We gather in a circle at the Learning Center courtyard.  We share good things about each birthday person by passing a ball around while we are singing, then whoever has it when we stop gets to say a good word about any or all of the honorees.  We will have a devo also, and we will serve cake (baked and decorated by our own!) and maybe popcorn and punch.  

May you have a happy birthday.  And please remember to pray for kids who do not know when they were born, or why!

The Pursuit of Happiness

In the USA, we believe firmly in certain rights for every citizen.  One of those is the freedom to pursue happiness.  Of course, happiness has different dimensions and definitions.  Since it is a pursuit, it hinges on certain realities, and that is where being happy differs for people.  For some, the foundation of happiness is having the economy strong, and that means having enough money to do the things I want to do.  For others, the foundation is family - having everyone together and safe and unified.  For still others, happiness comes from having the career or job or activities that one wants to do.  

If those things are not there, then happiness is lost, and depression or sadness or frustration sets in.  We hear this now and then from those who have lost jobs and whose happiness depends on money.  We hear it when a family member is in a dangerous place or separated from family.  We hear it when a person gets too old or is too weak to do the things he wants to do.  

It's easier for those who are not suffering loss to stand aside and regard people as weak or wrong-headed who are frustrated or unhappy.  

But there is another answer for life, one that enables us to find happiness regardless of human situations or losses.  God has an economy, God has a family, God has a purpose.  To accept God's economy, to enter into God's family, to take on God's purposes in our own lives is to find a way to happiness that does not depend on having money, or a safe family, or doing what we want to do.  

God's Spirit has his own ways to produce happiness in our inner lives, and our outer lives as well.  As we tell the street kids, "you are not bound by your past."  Now are we bound by present realities.  We also tell the kids "money is not the answer."  And we tell them, "we are also your family."  

We are free to pursue happiness.  Let us keep our ears open to hear the enduring words, "Happy are those who...." (see Matthew 5)

Raise Your Own

MITS HONORS ITS OWN

It really pays to invest in people.  Land and buildings and cash and clothes and furniture are all very nice, but people pay off in the long run.  In our short careers (have I mentioned that I am on social security now?), Darlene and I have always worked with young people, whether campus ministry in university, teenagers or nursery school kids.  We directed youth and children's camps for 20 years.  Our objective was to "grow our own," using high school youth who had been in our children's camps as counselors in children's camps when they were 15 and older.  And we used our college students as counselors in youth camps.  

   The first picture is a group of street kids taken early (1996) in the Made in the Streets ministry.  Laurent Mogambi is the one in the front with the baseball cap turned sideways.  At the time he did not know his real name, but he called himself "John Mwangi Isaac," with the Isaac emphasized because his little brother, Isaac, had been picked up by the police and Laurent thought Isaac was dead.  He wanted to honor his memory.  

  

The next picture shows Laurent at 15 years old just before he entered the initial live-in program at the Eastleigh Center in 1999.  He was a good student -- we were teaching Bible, English and Math.  Darlene's Mom came to Kenya 6 months each year (she was 72 the first year she came) and taught reading to evangelists and street kids.  She taught Laurent to read, giving him lots of encouragement and guidance.  He absorbed everything and wanted more.  When our team enrolled him in middle 

school (he was accepted into the 7th grade even though he had never been to school because he learned English and Bible and math at Made in the Streets), they also found out his name and other info a

bout him.  

  

   The next picture shows Laurent at his final meal preparation at the cooking school the Team 

enrolled him in, which he cooked for Darlene and me.  By God's grace he got an internship at the University of Nairobi cafeteria, and he has cooked there for five years.  He has cooked at meals attended by the President of Kenya, and this year he helped cook a meal for the contenders for President (Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga) held during the negotiations for the new coalition government.  All along Made in the Streets has stayed in touch with Laurent, and his wedding to Eliza (another of our former students) was held at the Kamulu Center in December.  

  

Now our investment in people really starts to pay off.  Laurent becomes the fourth of our former students to begin working on the MITS Team. 

  Last week Francis and Mauryn Mbuvi moved into their new house, moving out of the house at the girls' center.  The next day Laurent and Eliza moved into the house vacated by the Mbuvi's.  Laurent will begin part-time teaching at the new cooking skills area in the Connor Brown Memorial Skills Training Center.  As soon as he finished his responsibilities to the University, he will be full-time with MITS.  He will train students to cook, and he will direct their work in operating the small cafe we have on the highway at our Shops Center.  Eliza both sews and has good ability as a hairdresser, so she will likely work in some capacity in relationship to MITS.  

  There is nothing like "raising your own" when it comes to good management of resources and investment in the future.  The church can always do this by giving young people lots of responsibility and opportunity to stretch their abilities and faith.  

Have a good time in your investments in 2009

    

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

Tolstoy Tells it True

Had a great night last night.  The granddaughters spent the night with us for the first time.  An evening of delights for grandparents!  We had popcorn, colored Littlest Pet Shop, made a snowman craft, sat in front of the fire, blew up the air bed for the girls, ate turkey and dressing dinner, and read Leo Tolstoy's The Three Questions.  All while the parents were out of town having dinner and a night on their own.  Makes me really glad God let me live this long.

The book we read is a children's adaptation of Tolstoy's original story.  In the story Nikolai gets his 3 questions answered:  1) when is the best thing to do something? 2) who is the most important one? and 3) what is the right thing to do?  The girls appreciated the story and remembered the 3 answers -- good lessons for them, and for all of us.  I recommend the story to you, in either version.  

More good news -- social security is giving me an increase for 2009 -- such a deal!  It's great to grow old in this time.

When you pray, please remember these

  1.  Our good friend Virda Stevens needs God's healing hand,

  2.  Another friend, Hugh Fraser, needs continued improvement,

  3.  Land issue at Made in the Streets isn't settled yet - should get final court ruling Thursday

  4.  One MITS student, Joseph Kamau, left us to go and help his aunt on her farm after his uncle died.

  5.  15 young people from the streets have taken government skills exams in November and December -- in auto mechanics, 8th grade exit exams, and sewing -- and 3 others finished training programs outside of MITS (hairdressing and cooking) -- pray for their success in finding work and living on their own.  Anastasia will go to a 'bridging' program for her journalism studies at Universal College.  

Thanks -- peace and joy, charles

Learning New Things

Each day I seem to learn something new.  Today it is about RICE.  I'm trying to figure out how our kids can eat at the wedding of Laurent and Eliza Saturday.  Most weddings in Kenya cost $4,000 or more, and we're trying to do this one on only a little more than $1,000.  So...I told the kids this morning, that after the wedding ceremony, they would need to go to their dorms and prepare their lunch there instead of eating at the Learning Center, since it would be for the wedding.  Of course they were disappointed.  

I found out that Laurent (who is a chef himself, so he has planned the menu for the wedding) plans to have rice and beef stew and some other things.  So I sat down with Milly and asked her what they had planned to eat on Saturday, and she said, "rice and beans."  That sounded good, so I asked if we could use the rice she had, then I could add some meat and something else and we could ask Laurent if the kids could join us.  And Milly said, "I don't know; they may not work.  We are using Pakistani rice."  I looked kind of blank, so she explained that when people pilau, they usually use Pishori rice, since the Pakistani gets kind of sticky and the Pishori gets fluffier and is a larger volume.  Wow!  There are so many things I don't know anything about.

Laurent and Eliza came later in the day to plan the wedding, and I asked about the rice.  Laurent said they had Pishori rice (of course!).  When I mentioned the kids, he said, "We couldn't leave them out.  We have 25 kilo of rice, so we have enough for everyone."  I could have just stayed out of the picture and said nothing to the kids, but of course then I would not have learned anything about rice.  Anyway, now the kids are happy.  

Darlene came home from the ladies' Bible study while I was talking to Laurent and Eliza, and then 6 of the girls stopped by because they want to help with the wedding cakes, which Darlene is preparing.  The best price Laurent could find for a wedding cake was about $400 -- a small one.  So Darlene has borrowed and bought circular pans.  The girls were thrilled to look at the dress and to know they would eat at the wedding. 

Laurent and Eliza left because they have to catch public transport back to their apartment, and they need to get home before dark.  I walked out with them and we met John Wambu, who was supervising men who are digging out the black cotton (Louisiana gumbo type) soil for our driveway, and a group of women had come over to look at the house Francis and Maureen are building nearby (I have given house plots to team members who intend to stay with Made in the Streets for a long time), so we saw lots of people on the way.  

The girls stayed and swept and mopped our floor, while some of them mixed cakes with Darlene.  They had a good time.  It's great to have a house where the teenagers can come and spend time with us.  

And it's good to know about rice!

Christmas is Coming - Happy Thanksgiving

We are only thinking about Thanksgiving because we are thinking about people who will read the blog.  If you mention Thanksgiving in Kenya, you get a blank look.  But I can tell that Christmas is coming.  For one thing, Darlene has her mind on it.  There is a stocking hanging close to my desk, and a small Christmas tree set up in the living room.  And I can tell out on the highway too, that it is near the end of the month and that Christmas is coming.  In the newspaper today is a short article noting that passengers in public transport are unhappy that there are 8 police checks in a 10 kilometer stretch on the Mombasa highway.  And driving into town this week we went through 3 checks in about 3 miles.  

If you have a little extra money as you go out to buy Christmas presents, you could send it to Made in the Streets, 409 Franklin Road, Brentwood, TN, 37027, so we can give a very merry Christmas to our street kids at Eastleigh and Kamulu.  Thanks!  

We are very busy at Made in the Streets -- building the new "First Steps" building for nursery school kids, finishing renovation at the girls' center, getting ready to open the cooking school in our skills training (the Connor Brown building at the 20 acres), preparing school uniforms in our tailoring and opening the new shop to sell uniforms, planning for the December time with our students at Kamulu, getting end of year taxes and land rates paid, searching for new street kids to admit to the Kamulu program, helping several students exit from MITS into jobs and housing in Nairobi, and the daily life of English, Bible and Math classes, building up the farm and learning how to relate to one another and prepare for a successful life.  

And it is all good -- what a blessing to have these young people in our lives and to encourage them to grow and become strong and beautiful and confident in the Lord. 

Who are these kids? Everybody in Nairobi thinks they know what street kids look like, and they believe the kids cannot change, but are menaces, thieves, liars, trouble...it is amazing how well they clean up. We spent the day today with a group who came off the streets, some as late as this year. We went to the movie at Village Market, an upscale shopping center near the American Embassy and the United Nations complex.

In the past few weeks, Darlene and Philip Kariuki have read the Chronicles of Narnia to all the kids, and some of our Team members have read them. We told them that everyone who read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian in the past two months would be treated to the movie. Seven of the Team members read them, and five went to the movie. Ben Mwami had to go and pick up 100 baby chicks today, so he couldn't go (we'll get him there later). And Joel will go next week with the moms and the Team members at Eastleigh. 52 of us went today.

The theater gives away a soda, a hot dog and popcorn on Mondays with regular admission price, and the kids loved that. Since Mercy doesn't eat oil, they gave her a Mars bar instead of a hot dog, and she gave her popcorn away. Darlene told Philip she thought he has been doing a great job as a teacher and leader, so she gave him all her food. I told Scholastica that I appreciate her diligence as a student and gave her my hot dog, then I gave Jackton my soda and congratulated him on good work in the sewing plant, and I gave my popcorn to Ken Wabungu, who has been a great young person at Kamulu.

And during the movie they were so quiet, truly enjoying "seeing" the book they have read. They laughed at Reepicheep, and they reacted to the first roar of Aslan. And their behavior was exemplary; they even carried their trash out of the theater to the bins outside. I can't believe how great it is to be out somewhere with a 45-member youth group like this!!! Absolutely amazing and marvelous! My heart's desire is to know these kids all their lives, just like I want to be in the granddaughter's lives for always.

Thanks, Jesus, for the kindness you show me.

How Quickly We Forget

Those of us involved in street ministry are doing this work, not because of the pay, but because we care about children and teenagers who have no choice but to sleep in alleyways and under kiosks. We have walked the streets of Eastleigh and the warren of one-room shacks in Mathare Valley, and we have talked with the kids whose stories break our hearts. There is Caro, who was beaten unmercifully by her mother's boyfriend, and so she fled to the streets. There is Ken, whose Dad had died, who watched his uncle cut up his grandfather in a disputer over the farm -- he was unable to concentrate in school and there was no food, so he left and went to the streets. There is Titus, who at 11 was always in a stupor from huffing glue, but who always wanted to please.

But how quickly we forget. Many of us now stay at the Kamulu Centre, where we house the street kids who have come off the streets to us, ones whom we believe God has called to himself. They are clean and dressed, and we feed them and each one has a bed of his/her own, and they love the English and Bible and Math classes, and some of them are training for the Primary Education 8th Grade Exam in December, and our life together is great. And so we forget what it is like on the streets.

So Francis Mbuvi, our administrator, decided that the Team should return to the streets. Every other Friday almost all the Team will spend the day in Eastleigh, going to Bases and visiting with the kids and youth. Last Friday they went, while Darlene and Francis taught the kids at Kamulu. Ben Mwami reported, "I haven't been back to the streets since our training two years ago. It was so good to be reminded. And as we crossed a street, we say a baby that had been left out and run over by a car. That baby didn't have a chance, but our kids here at Kamulu have a chance." Abraham, who is usually quiet in our meetings, spoke up twice as they talked about the experience. Robin reported that when he goes into Eastleigh to visit his parents, he usually avoids going by the bases because it is so uncomfortable for him. But he was glad that Friday he went, and many of the kids at the bases said, "Why haven't you come back? Are you avoiding us?"

How quickly we forget the needs that surround us, because we can go and get our lattes and have outings with our kids and enjoy the good life that prosperity brings. Is today a day to remember, and to embrace the uncomfortable?

Keep remembering...and peace to you...charles