It is with great joy that we are able to report that the playground at Pehucci is almost complete! The project was a bit delayed due to the complexities involved in the design and construction of the playground although it looks terrific and is due to be complete in a weeks time. Carol and David did a fantastic job with the contractors and working through the details and soon there will be lots of smiling faces enjoying the playground. There is one more climbing gym to be constructed and then we are ready!

The official opening will be in a couple of weeks (1st week of May) and we will surely have some video and pictures ready to enjoy the moment. In the meantime, check out the "Pehucci Playground" pictures in the Gallery section of the website.

As you can imagine from the title, we are launching a Christmas project! Over our 7 years in Kenya, you have been partnering with us in making a difference in peoples lives. Together, we have built a girls dorm, provided seeds for farmers, filled a library with books, given food relief, provided beds and mattresses, built a cafeteria, and responded to the practical needs of many people – especially kids. We are so grateful and feel privileged to see your generous support in action.

This year, we want you to consider joining us in putting smiles on kid’s faces. We have worked with the Pehucci Children’s Home/School for many years and we feel now is the time to build an organized playground for the children. There are 700+ kids who attend the school, several hundred who board there during school terms and 90 kids who are orphaned and live their entire lives there. Currently, there is no playground or equipment for the kids to actively play. We have a vision of kids playing on new swings, climbing gym, a truck tire climbing wall, seesaws, etc. Can you imagine the smiles that this will create? We can!

We have received estimates and, with Carols help, have written a formal proposal. Although the cost varies a lot depending how big we make the playground, we will do our best to stretch every dollar. If you feel like you would like to partner with us in this initiative, you can send you donation to our home church in Canada. Address below:

Central Community Church (formerly Central Gospel)
c/o Mike Hicks
240 Scott Street
St. Catharines, Ontario
L2M 7W7

As always, we promise to put progress reports on our web site until we see the job done!

What big bright smiles children can have!

In early 2009, we along with the company of students from Rosslyn Academy, Nairobi, paid a visit to Olloroito Child Development Center with the view to interact with the less fortunate in the community and to share God’s love with them.

Olloroito is a rural location approximately 300km from Nairobi and 70km north of Narok town. Members of this community are mainly of Maasai descent with some kikuyu. They are mainly farmers and livestock keepers. 70% of the community live below the poverty line surviving on less than a dollar a day. There are also a number of orphans in the community occasioned by the HIV scourge.

The Child Development Center is a project of Compassion International, which seeks to reach out to orphans and highly vulnerable children by meeting their physical, spiritual, social and economic needs.

The visit with the Rosslyn kids was a high point of the experience of these children. Their donation of writing books and pencils for each child at the center amounting to roughly Ksh 4000 gave all the children something to smile about.

Children are our future; supporting a child is giving hope to the next generation.

It is said that the journey to success is not often a smooth one, but for a few like Michelle and Kofi (age 12 and 11) ; it is getting smoother with time!

Michelle and Kofi were left destitute several years ago as their parents succumbed to the affects of HIV/AIDS. Our friends took them in, Carol and Daniel, who have struggle to have the resources to properly care for them. Before the support of our Journey of Hope family and friends, they were under performing in the public school system that was introduced in Kenya decades ago. Public schooling is government funded and is better known as “free education”. However, this means that such schools are over-crowded, understaffed, lack books, teaching aids and exposure to extra-curriculum activities.

The result being that children in such schools are less equipped to compete with their counterparts in private schools. A private school education means the exact opposite: a variety of books, small manageable classes and study groups, good teacher: student ratios and extra curriculum activities.

Thanks to the sponsorship given to Michelle and Kofi they have been able to access private school education. They are now enrolled at Highway View Academy in Narok town, 250km south of Nairobi.

This is important especially in a third world country like Kenya where future opportunities are extremely competitive. Good grades and talents are imperative if one is to earn a position in one of the national universities. Apart from this, it is also impossible to break the poverty cycle without quality education.

We are thrilled to announce that Michelle and Kofi are at the top of their classes as of last term’s results where Michelle scored 412 points out of the possible 500 and Kofi scored 402.
At this rate, Narok District may for the first time produce Kenya’s top candidate in the near future!

Last Thursday (April 30th) was the day that we officially opening the new girls dorm. We called it "Hope House - Home for Girls" and judging by the reaction of the girls who live there, it will live up to its new name. The girls who now live there were so excited and filled with such enthusiasm that it was contagious! Although the dorm was largely finished about 2 months ago, we decided to wait until a team from our church arrived to officially open it - and I am glad we did wait. The day was fantastic!

There were singers, dancers, actors and even some budding rappers took a turn at the microphone! By 1, there was 500+ people there with the crowd growing each few minutes. What certainly made the day entertaining was that we were joined by 30 students from Pan African Christian University who brought some HUGE speakers, a DJ, lots of great/loud music. People for kilometers around knew there was something going on that afternoon! We had the official ribbon cutting, ate a huge lunch and celebrated in style all the God has done.

Be sure to check out the scrapbook entry for the days festivities, they are located in "Gallery" section and entitled "Pehucci - Grand Opening". Enjoy!

After months of construction, the new girls dorm at Pehucci Children’s Home is done! It was a fitting day in which to make a visit to the construction site. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and inside the new dorm, the suns rays were both warm and bright. I was moved as I reflected on the fresh start that this dorm would give many of the girls. Can you imagine never using a flush toilet, or having a shower/bath or even having a mirror in which to groom yourself? This will now be reality for the 40+ girls who will call this dorm “home”.

Even though the needs in Kenya are great, I really believe that it is small steps like this bring change and hope to the country. We have already begun thinking and praying about a new dorm for the boys and also some small business opportunities for the kids to begin to earn some money. Please join us in this!

Be sure to check out the scrapbook entry for the project, they are located in "Gallery" section and entitled "Pehucci - Done".

We are almost there! After 5 months of construction we can see that the new dorm is almost complete. With all the major construction now behind us we are focusing on the finishing tasks including the painting, flooring, electrical and plumbing. We are planning that by the middle of September the dorm should be nearing completion. Awesome!

Scrapbook entries have been made outlining the progress of the job. Check them out, they all begin with "Pehucci - Week" and are located in the "gallery" section of the website.

These are exciting times for us and for the kids of Pehucci Childrens Home! With the assistance of a significant donation from a couple in Canada, we are in the process of constructing a new girls dormitory at Pehucci. The initial project calls for the establishment of new water, sanitation and electrical infrastructure and two 20x40 foot dorms, these dorms can easily be extended in future. Although the work has been contracted to a missionary builder in Nairobi, David and Lucy of Pehucci and our home church in St. Catharines are very involved with us in ensuring the project is well managed.

A scrapbook entry entitled "Pehucci Building" on the website will give a good idea of the scope of the project. Also, there is weekly progress scrapbooks (via pictures) that show how the work is progressing. Be sure to check them out! They are located in a "Gallery" section of the website.

Following a very close presidential election and days of uncertainty awaiting the outcome, Kenyans frustration boiled over and resulted in massive unrest and violence. Throughout much of the western provinces, Nairobi and mombasa, people responded to their lack of faith in the Kenyan democratic system by attacking those from differing ethnic groups or tribes. With lives lost and 200,000 people now displaced, many are asking "where do we go from here"? As the country regroups and comes to grips with the magnitude of the post election unrest, I have been so proud of how "the church" has responded to this crisis. There are countless stories of how churches, pastors and Christians put aside their ethnic affiliations to help those in need. You can find some of these stories as you read through our journal entries.

As a small part of the journey back, we were able to assist in purchasing and distributing food to some displated people from the Muthare slum. Check out some pictures of our "Convoy of Hope". This picture is one taken at a makeshift refugee camp in the entranceway to the Moi Air Force base in Nairobi. Thankfully, we were able to deliver a little food to these people who had literally run from their homes before seeing it burned.

What an awesome day it was. On December 20th, 2007 we were able to rent a small bus and fill it with kids from Pehucci Childrens Home and drive them to the Nairobi Game Park and Safari Walk.

What was funny was that we were expecting 30 children yet when the morning came there was 50 kids in the bus! You could sense the excitement among the kids. For all of them it was their first time in the park and, for many, their first time outside of the childrens home. It was so cool to see them run, laugh and experience new things. After a full lunch we went around again!

Check out the video entitled "Bless The Children" and some pictures of the day and their Safari Walk. It was such a privilege to be apart of seeing these kids imaginations and horizons expanded.