June Update

Hi guys,

I've almost been back in Kenya for a month now after spending the month of May in the Uk Fundraising.

Here is a few bits of news fresh of the press!

Do you remember John? One of the newly enrolled boys in my program The Noah Initiative? Well after being enrolled in the program for just one month his position went from tenth out of thirty two, to second out of thirty two. That is just what having a sense of security can do for you!

Since being back i have been able to purchase his text books for him, so i really do have high hopes for him in the future!

Due to the child sponsorship that was raised during my visit to the Uk, i have enrolled one more boy and will be enrolling another two boys into the program in the coming weeks.

The first to be enrolled is Sylvester, he is a great guy! He has been struggling to put himself through school for a long time, as he has no Father and his Mother is too sick to work! He wishes to a Mechanical Engineer, he also has a very cheeky grin!

Some of the boys need additional nutritional support, as an experiment i have now purchased chickens to see if in the long run it can work out cheaper to rear the chickens myself rather than buy eggs each week! We'll wait and see! Also i like having chickens around and it makes me feel very African!

I teach several classes in a school in The  Kambi Teso slum. Mostly on 'Life Skills'. I would like to tell you about one of my 'jokers'.

Day 1 - Anxiety.

Me - Can anyone give me an example of when they have felt anxious.
Vince - Yes, when i got my girlfriend pregnant!
Me - You got your girlfriend pregnant?
Vince - No, i dont have a girlfriend!
Me- So how is she pregnant?
Vince - She's not, but if i had a girlfriend and she was pregnant, i would be pretty anxious!

Day 2 - Beliefs

Me - I would like everyone to right down a core belief that they have bout themselves or their enviroment. Make it personal, something you really believe!
 (Several minutes later)
Me - Ok what have you written?
Jane - I believe that education is key to development.
Michael - I believe i can succeed if i stay close to God!
VINCE - (singing) I believe i can fly, i believe i can touch the sky!

(He carried on for at least two minutes much to the mine and the classes amusement! Names have been altered!)

He is  a cheeky one but at least he is participating!

Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers it means so much, and i look forward to updating you more over the next coming months!

Ell

Talk for Lakes Youth

Read – Judges 16. V4 – 20.

Drunk In Love

Have you ever been drunk? I hope not to many people are saying yes, but we are all human, and unfortunately I have! And when you are drunk for most people it is not one drink and you are gone, it takes time, it’s the first drink, the second, the third, the forth, and then you start to loose count of which drink it is, and you are just doing it, it is impulse. And before you know it you are wasted. And you don’t make any sense anymore. I remember one time I had gone out and was completely pertrified that I couldn’t feel my eyebrows! To the hilarity of everyone else! But in my drunken state it was very normal and made sense that I was worried about my eyebrows!

But you see being drunk and drinking, is the same kind of thing that happens to you when you are ‘Drunk in Love’. And I’m not going to go into saying whether in pro Beyonce songs or whatever but she has a point in that song, that song says  (in very different language) ‘We were here and all of a sudden we were here!’

I think Samson was a bit drunk in Love, Why? Because he was down right stupid, Delilah tricked him three times, each time the Philistines tried to get him and he would fall for it again and again! And each time it was Delilah getting annoyed, ‘Why don’t you trust me, if you really loved me? And I’m thinking, you keep trying to kill him! Why would he trust you! But he was drunk, drunk in Love! And when it is Samson we can say, pfft what a fool, but I know when its been me, I’ve just been like ‘yeah ok’. And I know if we are being really, really honest, some others here could say, yeah me too!

And when we reach that point of being drunk in love, the devil really uses it.  We are there saying woohoo this great meanwhile as you are thinking this is great, the devil is working in your weakness, like Samson, as he was thinking it was all great with Delilah, the enemy was figuring out how to destroy him!

In Kenya I decided to buy some love birds, I had them in a cage in my living room, but it was really weird , what they would do when I wasn’t watching. When ever I wasn’t watching, they would start going round and testing all of the bars to see, if there was a weak one. And they did after time of testing they figure out how to get out, and that’s just what the devil does when we are drunk, when we are not looking, slowly but surely prowls around looking for the weak link!

When you are drunk in love just like when you are drunk literally it takes you to a place of confusion, where you can no longer cope. When you are Drunk in Love it takes you to places that you are not ready to be in, pregnancy, hurt feelings, damaged emotions! And the real fact is that Love, leads to marriage, marriage leads to sex and sex leads to kids, but when we get drunk in love all of those steps get mixed up and you find yourself at a step that you are not ready to take! In age, in maturity in circumstance! So be mindful of that guys! Don’t pursue a heart that your not prepared to keep. Don’t flatter a person you are not ready to carry! You might be ready for a no strings boy or girl friend, but that is not a Godly relationship a relationship is about love, it is communion with God, its about responsibility!

It’s a Heart thing

Just for a moment I want us to look at the physical side of Samson and Delilah’s relationship, are you guys prepared, it might get a bit awkward! I mean this is a guy who lost his eyes, Gods calling in his life because of a relationship. It must have been pretty bad.

Read Judges 16 . v19

In black and white, that is the extent of their physical relationship! Ok, I am open to the fact that maybe it was left implied that their relationship went further physically but that would be speculation. If we only go off what was written then how did that small amount of physical intimacy get him in that much trouble. The answer is that it’s a heart thing! All relationships start in the heart and what happens when we are unequally yoked something has to shift. So Samson telling Delilah his secret, knowing that in the past she had tried to trick him, was allowing her to take a higher place in his heart than that of His calling and his God.  He chose to live or die with her; he would prefer to loose the Lord than loose Delilah. He needed Delilah because he had forgotten who HE was!

And that leads us onto a question, why are we dating? Why do you want to date? Why were Samson and Delilah dating, why did Samson need Delilah? She was filling a gap, he needed and wanted to be loved and she appeared to fill that need. And in the form of marriage that is a good thing, to find somebody that matches you that can compliment your skills, help you in your weakness. But in order to know what kind of person you need, you need to know who you are. And the most common reason people go astray is because they don’t know who they are as a person, and in Christ.  Just like Samson he forgot who he was! And went astray and look where it got him!

Living with Delilah

So this is a personal talk, we are talking about stuff that is personal. And it would be very easy to say, that was thousands of years ago, and that was Samson, and I’m not dating Delilah I’m dating, Debbie, or Derick!

But lets look at what Delilah was. What was she? Or what can Delilah be in our lives, Delilah is something that comes along and diverts our attention or life in direction that is not what Jesus Christ designed for you! In any large or small way! And that can be a real person, or that can be the idea of someone. You could want a relationship so much that you start compromising whom you are to get one.  Living with Delilah is when you put anything in front of the destiny that God has for you! God is there to protect you, and guide you if you allow him.

Where I work in the slum, there is a big field where we feed the kids. And one day there were loads of chickens there, maybe around 50-60 and I was just watching them. But all of a sudden all of them scattered. I was confused, I could see anything there? No reason to run, but then I looked up and a huge eagle was swooping down! All of the chickens had made it to the bushes, apart from one, she was having to go slow because of her chicks. She got to about two metres from the fence when she realised she could make it but her chicks couldn’t. So she stopped, she stared that eagle in the eys and just as it swooped to grap one of her babies, she jumped up and bounced the eagle back.

This picture says two things number one, that sometimes we can be looking around and everything is ok, and all of a sudden something comes along to try and destroy us, the second is that Jesus just like the Mama hen would never leave his kids behind and He is ready to bounce the enemy off!

What am I not saying!

I am not saying you can’t date, but ask yourselves why? What would God have me do, am I prepared to carry this through! You don’t want to date, you want to be loved, appreciated, and you want affirmation.

Just because you have lived with Delilah doesn’t mean she cant move out! Reverse time!

Just because you think about Delilah doesn’t mean she lives here.

For the guys – The world expects you to act a certain way. If you don’t act in the conventional way you are not accepted, you are not attractive to the opposite sex. The truth of the matter is that you can be weak, you can struggle, you can be unique, you can be sensitive, because how ever you are is the way that God made you.

For the girls – Girls, life for you is hard, you have pressure form every direction telling you to be a certain way. You have to be a certain size, a certain hair colour, skin shade, cup size. If you don’t fit into that small spectrum then you are not ‘beautiful’. But here is the truth, the creator of the world made you the way you are so if the world doesn’t think you are beautiful, then they need to adjust their criteria. The male population puts pressure on you to act a certain way, if you put out you’re a slut, if you don’t your frigid. But again this is a world view. And you are not of this world, no boy is worth giving ‘it’ up for. You’re the daughter of a king and he doesn’t deserve it!

Wow! What an epic three months with, settling back into Kenya, moving house, and starting up work both old and new!

It is always amazing how you can be sitting one day asking God "What do you want me to do?" and then the next day be doing it, his clear plan! That being said I would like to introduce you to my new program, entitled, 'The Noah Initiative'. It is a project I have started in the Kambi Teso slum, underneath my work with Amstevehussey Institution and it is based on the biblical story of Noah, (not the recent Hollywood version).

Aim - To provide young men with skills and knowledge through Christ to build their own boat of safe keeping to battle life's storms.

How?

The Noah Initiative is not a paternal program, meaning it is not about handouts, the program partners with local schools and the children's guardians to get them through education. The three parties all provide financial, social and emotional support for child who is enrolled. Why? It is important that all parties feel committed to the child. Not like somebody is taking responsibility for them. The Noah Initiative is about empowerment!

Who?

There are currently four boys enrolled in the program. We work on a referee basis meaning that, I do my own, social, psychological and educational assessment, but also get a reference for the child from another organisation. The Open Arms Feeding Program referred three of the boys into The Noah Initiative and Amstevehussey Educational Institution (where I do a lot of my work) referred one of the boys.

Why?

World wide there is an epidemic, an epidemic of Fatherless homes and communities. If I look at my case notes for my four enrolled boys, they are very different, with one similarity, no Father. A lot of organizations decide to focus on women and children for very valid reasons, what I have spotted is a gap. Worldwide women are being empowered and children are being cared for but, who are their Fathers, who are their Husbands. The Noah Initiative aims to make sure that the young men enrolled in its Program grow up to be the Leaders of Kenya, Leaders of their community but most importantly leaders in their home.

All the four boys are now attending school, in school uniform, with textbooks and sitting at desks, due to this program and the coordination of schools and guardians. Whilst also being held personally accountable through mentorship by myself.

Here is Joshua (Left) and Edwin (Right) in their school uniforms that we had just bought! 

After we went to town to buy their uniforms Joshua held his underneath his seatbelt, I said to him, 'Hi ni kama toto wako?' meaning, this is like your baby? He simply nodded, that is how much this opportunity means to them. The opportunity to be the men they were destined to be! 

All of the Boys live in Slum Areas, This is John at his home.

I will be looking for sponsorship as I already have a waiting list to enrol in the program. Sponsorship will set at £20 per month for full sponsorship, which covers education, medical and nutritional supplement. I will be sharing stories of all of the boys individually very soon, in the mean time please consider becoming a part of these young mens lives. They are world changers they just need help to get there!

If you would like to sponsor, get involved or simply ask a few more questions do not hesitate to simply ask! 

Ell

February 2014, Sorry its late!

Hey Guys,

So im back in Kenya!

Many of you are wondering where i am living! I have rented the Guest House of a Canadian couple, they are really nice and good neighbours.

This is my place...

They are great neighbours, the compound has three dogs, two cats, 6 chickens, a tortoise and a pool, so any one who knows me knows this is a pretty perfect house for me!


Meet Herman....

He always sleeps in my part of the yard so i get to say Hi to him every morning!

My first month back has been great, but not without struggle! It was great to be in the U.K for so long but it has made me miss you all so much more than usual! However in this month The Blackman family (and guests) were visiting and also, family friend and elder of my church Jonathan Bowyer came to facilitate the OAI Board retreat, so it was a real blessing to have some familiar faces around!

I also helped my friend Dave put up a playground,

(From Left to Right, Pastor Solomon, Dave and Me!)

Most of my work will be in the Kambi Teso Slum area, i will need prayers but i am so excited to take on this next step in ministry!

Until next time!

Ell

Double News

Hey Guys,

Firstly a huge thanks to all who were in anyway involved in the 'Ell is Staying in Africa' Fundraising event in October. It was such a blessing to see all of you there, Thank you so much!

Secondly after much evaluation, thought and prayer, i along with Open Arms have decided to make a few changes within my work schedule. I would like to be more involved in the children's (especially big boys) counselling program. Needing to be involved in this part of their lives, means that i need to take a step back from 'Neema House'. It sounds strange but in order to really help the boys i need to take a step back and a step into the counselling relm. I will probably now be more involved in their growing lives, however in a different role.

All though it is a change, there are seasons in life and we are moving into the next season, a season of growth, a season of development and a season for the better! It has been an amazing year in the house, with lessons and memories that will never be forgotten.

All this being said it has become apparent that it is a good time for a break. I have now spent two years at the OAI village, counselling, parenting and in outreach. All though it is great and to be honest i am not very good at resting, i have realised i need to take some time out. I am planning to be in the U.K until the beginning of January. Spending some time with my U.K family and friends.

I look forward to catching up with a lot of you whilst i prepare to go back to Kenya in the new season.

Thank you so so much for your continued support!

May Update!

Wow quick month, and i have a feeling next month will be quicker!

This month we have had journeys...

We've has new arrivals...

Smiley (Ishmael) is about seven years old and has been on our feeding program since it began, due to a change of circumstance Smiley is now happily housed out our village...

A picture when he first arrived...

Here is a picture of me and Smiley, three years ago at the feeding program...

There have also been strange sightings...

This month i decided to start sponsoring a child in another home 'Tumaini Children's Home'.
Here is his brief story which Phyllis, Director of Tumaini Children's home wrote about him,

'Brighton was abandoned at the hospital after a unsuccessful treatment for meningitis, it left him paralyzed with symptoms of Cerebral Palsy.  When we first met Brighton he had been in the hospital for over six months and was not quite 2.  His symptoms were very sever and he did not move anything but his head from side to side and his arms would lift a bit, he had no speech just low throat sounds.  He has a wonderful smile and that came with him.  Brighton came to live as part of our family here at Tumaini just a few weeks after we met him.  He has been part of our family for almost 3 years now.  God has been so good and we have seen miracles happen in his life.  Brighton now not only walks but loves to kick the ball around with his brothers and sisters, feeds himself, stands himself up from a siting position and many other things.  Brighton does fall and trip quite a bit so he wears a helmet to protect his head and his speech is coming but still does not talk much.

Brighton is a amazing little boy with the love of Jesus in his eyes!' 

The OAI Village seems to have gone fitness crazy with most of the volunteers and all of the House Parents doing there own regime's. The Dad's group does a three-five km run followed by weights and ab's. Here we are after our run...

Time flies by! And i have now started to organise my second fundraising dinner! It will be whilst i am next in the U.K. The dinner will be on Friday the 4th of October. It will be based at the Low Wood Bay Hotel again, i can promise you that it will be bigger and better than last time! I cannot tell you how much your support has been over the last year and cannot emphasise enough how much your sponsorship is needed now and in the coming year! Please get in contact to book your tables and or tickets now! The preparation for the event has all ready started on on both sides of the world...but just a sneak peak...

These are a few of the centre pieces, they are 'Masai Gourd' candle holders, they stand at about 1 foot to two feet high and i have had them custom made for the evening, and luckily for you they will be available for you to buy on the night! 

Something amazing that has happened this month, and this week in fact! Is that my PERMANENT VISA has been approved!!!! All though it is great, that it has been approved it is also a huge financial burden, which will have to be budgeted into my finances for next year! 

In other news, Boss loves to watch 101 Dalmatians...

Thanks so much for reading and please email asap regarding your tables and tickets for the fund raising event! 

Ell!

March and April Update!

The past two months have been months of growth...as you can see here from my oldest Victor (17) and Boss, the once puppy, he is only 4 moths old...

If you don't watch boss he really thinks he is one of the boys...

We have also had Samson, (Dave and Linda Munsie's Dog) staying for a few weeks! They are great friends but there are 3, 4/5 month old German Shepherd puppies running around the village!

The children have been involved in many chores while they have been off school during April. One of the many things they have been doing is helping at the Dairy/Poultry Farm. You might wanna scroll quickly if  you are squeamish..

Here is Abu (My youngest) with a before shot...

Here is Abigail with a 'during' shot, we laughed as Abigail was the only girl to slaughter and her biological brothers, Caleb and Victor, in my house refused to kill any, but i have made a 'if i do, you will' deal with Victor so next time i'll be adding chicken slaughterer to my resume!

...and Mercy with an after shot...judging by her face i don't think she has a future in the farming business!

I was complaining a while ago that i didn't have any where to put my flower nursery where the dogs could not get to them.. 2 minutes later...

 Very happy plants and even happier parent!!!

As well as growing flowers we have also started to grow plants in our own home shamba (vegetable patch!), so far we have carrots, viazi (potatoes), Dania (Coriander), Pilli Pilli (Chilli) as well as some others!

The boys have also had a few football matches while they have been off, i'm not gloating but they have won ALL of their matches!!!!

My dream team!

I pray that this has given you a slight taste of my kenyan family, love and life!

Ell!!!