Good Mission
Praise the Lord! Our bags arrived at Brackhurst this morning at 7:00 am. We are very thankful for the detailed and late work from the Africa Exchange staff for this to happen. Sharon, Betsy, and I all breathed a sigh of relief when we picked them up. Thanks for your prayers.
Today, we drove about 5 hours to get to a small village named Ulungu to see a thriving Integrated Child Development Center. The center is 19 years old. It is one of the first 8 centers that Africa Exchange began. The secret sauce to this development model of preschool education is the Community Committees who run the school. Rather than owning and running these schools, Africa Exchange partners with communities in the development and management. The committees are made up of a clergy person from the community, a teacher from the primary school the students will go to after preschool, and other engaged people. The committee coordinates all of the details of the school, from the small costs to the parents, to the planting of trees.
Upon our arrival, the Community Committee had a printed program detailing our visit. First, we planted trees together. Then, they gave us a tour of the various development projects at the school, including the vegetable garden, the borehole well that serves the students and is also sold to the community, and the tree nursery. After the tour, we had a homemade Kenyan lunch (I’m still learning the names of the food we are eating). Finally, after lunch came the program: introductions, a sermon on Matthew 25, songs by the children, songs by the church choir, and finally a report from the vice-chair of the committee on the strengths and challenges of their center.
I found our engagement with the school and community very moving. This is what good mission work looks like. It’s Christ-focused. It’s community-based. It’s development-oriented. It has a clear mission: educating preschool students in the rural arid/semi-arid places in Kenya to change the trajectory of individual lives and communities.
The most exciting news we heard today is the names of former children from this ICDC who are now in secondary school and at the university. Africa Exchange provides scholarships to former students who make it to this level of education.
Tomorrow will be a long travel day to Isiolo, in the northern part of Kenya. We will rest in the afternoon and then go on a game drive in the Shamura National Reserve (samburureserve.com). We expect to see our first elephants. I’ll let you know.
Until Tomorrow,
Eric
