This October . . .

Usually as we head into October, I’m watching the Saints play football and settling into the kids’ school routine and starting to plan for Christmas (yep, I’m one of “those” people!).   This October will be different.  Instead of the usual, on October 10th I will be heading to the airport at a most unreasonable hour of 5:30am to take off for Nairobi, Kenya.  Once there, I’ll travel by van into rural southwest Kenya to work with The Kilgoris Project.  After volunteering with TKP locally for three years, I couldn’t be more excited to finally see the Project at work in Kenya. 

Now, if you know me at all, you have heard me talk about The Kilgoris Project (TKP), whether to invite you to the Marketplace each November or fill you in Jason’s trip with TKP back in January or about how – ONE DAY – I would go to Kenya.  But you might not understand WHY I talk about it so much.  Officially, TKP operates schools, provides daily food and clean water, and fosters economic development in a Maasai village in southwest Kenya.  While accurate, this description doesn’t really explain how TKP captured my heart though.  As a mom, it’s the kids: 

* I imagine having to send Colby off to school as a preschooler, walking miles to school by himself, knowing he will have to walk all the way home before he can eat again. 

* I imagine wanting Elaine to go to school, realizing that there is no school in our community or she is too sick to attend. 

* I imagine being a mother who wants to send her children to school but being without the means to afford to send them to the not-so-free state sponsored schools. 

TKP is addressing these concerns day in and day out in Kenya.  TKP is education – we have opened 4 preschools and two primary schools which offer award-winning education in communities with few or no other schools.  TKP is health – every child at the school receives a nutritious meal every day and regular health screenings and medication to increase the number of days they are healthy enough to attend school.  TKP is opportunity – we operate a tea farm which helps fund the schools and also a women’s cooperative to help women in our students’ families develop local businesses and create goods to be sold in the US. 

Education + health + opportunity = HOPE. 

This why I have volunteered with TKP locally for years and why I am so excited that God is leading me to Kenya in October of 2013.  I cannot wait to work with the students in our schools and the women in the coop and generally just put my skills and experience to use in whatever way God allows. 

If you are reading this, I would love your support.  Prayer support most importantly!  Please pray for strength and clarity and purpose as I prepare for and go on this trip.  But if you are so inclined, financial support would be most appreciated too.  Tax-deductible donations can be made online via PayPal or by checks made payable to Journey Church and mailed to me at 20431 Willow Pond Rd, Cornelius, NC 28031.  PayPal donations can be made here.  Thank you for taking the time to read this and for being my friend!

Yours in service,
Laura