In Step Children's Home
Posted by Admin2 on July 28 2006 15:01
July 24, 2006
God has decided it?s time to start the children?s home!
But we thought it would be after we built a complex and got all set up and ready. WRONG! God?s ways are not our ways and once again, He?s made it clear what He wants us to do.
Below is a chronological list (left to right) of all the children who have come through our home. Siblings are grouped together.
| Brian (Bafo) & Davin | Rehema | Jessica & James | Grace, Peter, Sharlyn & Brian |
| Mark Steven | Robert | Dennis | Manny |
| Thomas | Hope Elizabeth | Moses | Elvis |
| Jeremiah | Kelvin | Cynthia Faith | Amos |
| Daniel | Teresa | Isaac | Margaret |
| Samuel | Peris | Naomi | Eliza |
| Sarah | Mercy | Joy | Eunice |
| Teddy | Joshua | Paul | Moses Abednego |
| Meshac | Winnie | Shadrach | Abraham |
| Brenda | Susan | Levis | Philip |
| Ruth | Betty | Ronnie | Churchill & Mode |
| Joseph | Joyce | Fred | Jacqueline |
| Jenny | Jackson & Rebecca "Honey" | Michelle | Richard |
| Sylvia | Melissa | Zacchaeus | George |
| Job | Edith | David Maziwa | Musa |
| Francis | Isaiah | Melisa Mdogo & Benson | Jonathon |
| Pat & Van | Ann | Micah | Veronica & Violet |
| Greg | Jimmie & Nick | Evans | Abigail |
| Emmanuel | Anthony | Andrew | Nigel & Michelle |
| Wanjiku | Angel | Meridith Laini | Gloria Neema |
| Darin | Sean | Izabella | Mike |
| Pendo | Mark Mjasiri |
Legal Issues?
What's next?
How Many More Kids Can We Take?
Adoption?
To learn more, click here.
Extended News
The Kids
To read about a particular child, check out "The Children" panel to the left.
Legal Issues?
And just in case you?re worrying about the legalities, don?t worry. We?ve done everything through our lawyer and the children?s office. We are officially considered foster parents.
What's next?
September 2006
Now that we have eight kids, we?re that much more motivated to move forward with relocating. We?re not really set up for it here, but we can manage for a while. Jeff said his priority is now going to be focusing on finding a piece of land. I know just the right one is out there?..we just have to find it. We?re still trying to find out about a certain piece we?ve had our eye on.
March 12, 2007
It happened! We closed on the land! In Step Foundation now owns ten beautiful acres of land! It is so very exciting. We?ll get started on development immediately. In fact, the fencing will start tomorrow. Next, we?ll build a storage shed to keep building materials and stuff like that in. It?ll also double as a shelter for a night watchman. Then, we?ll start building our house, trusting that God will continue to provide as construction goes on. One cool thing about the way they build here, is that if we have to put things on hold for some reason (like we run out of money), you just leave the brick walls at whatever stage they?re at and come back to it when you can and continue from where you left off.
June 4, 2008
The new facility is wonderful! We still have some work to do (tiles, septic system, etc.) but we will just do it little by little while already occupying the place. I was right! The veranda is awesome! It?s bigger than our whole house at the old place! When it starts raining, everyone just moves into the veranda; the kids play at one end, the adults visit at the other end and the babies are laid out on the ?baby table? and mattresses on the floor. There?s plenty of room for everyone!
The actual moving process was interesting! We took the seats out of the van and used that for carrying everything I didn?t want put in the ?lorry?, which is much like a potato truck. When it was time to move the kids, we put a mattress in the back of the van and just laid the babies on it side by side with a worker on each end. The first trip was the mobile ones, since they were the most in the way as people were trying to load the truck. Next came the small babies (I think we had 13 that trip) and last was the big kids.
When we unloaded the first group of kids, I just had to laugh watching them run (you know the way toddlers run) up and down the veranda. It was like it was beyond their imagination that there existed a place with that much open space at their disposal. James especially! He just went as fast as he could, gimping along with one leg in a cast, back and forth, over and over!
It was so exciting to hear the gasps of the big kids when we pulled up to the place. They hadn?t been there before (a few had been there for Steve?s funeral, but that was when we had just barely started construction). They were so excited! I never heard so much jabbering!
We have designated a grassy area with a shade tree for the play area and there is plenty of room for a soccer game, bug hunting and relaxing under the tree to all be going on at the same time. Kids who used to get restless and whiney are now very content.
The pair of Great Crested Cranes which made our property their home last year has decided to stay. I thought they might get scared away when we invaded their place but it actually seems like the opposite has happened! They come remarkably close to people. If you start moving toward them, they become cautious but don?t fly away. We have had a great time watching them. Each evening, they ?dance?. It?s very entertaining to watch. One stands and watches the other as he (or she, I?m not sure which is which) spreads out his wings to the full six or eight foot span and hops around. Eventually the other one joins in and they circle around each other for several minutes. The two year olds like to look for the birds periodically throughout the day and they are usually quite easy to spot.
Mandazi (Jeff?s dog) also really loves the place! He has plenty of room to run and is already very protective, barking any time a stranger steps foot on the property. One day he took off after the cranes. They flew about fifty feet then landed and turned back and looked at him. He did it again, with the same response. Then he just turned around and went back to where Jeff was standing. The next day he took after them and they didn?t even move. Now he just ignores them. (I wish he would ignore the chickens, which are now roaming free instead of being kept in a pen.)
The only downfall of the area is that the local school has too many students and not enough teachers. Someone told me their fourth grader was in a class of 120 students! We decided to not even mess with it since we know it won?t work well for our kids who have learning or behavior problems. It won?t even work well for Sharlyn who is always first position in her class. We have hired a certified teacher who finished school two years ago but was yet to be appointed to a government school. (This is very common. The country is crawling with out of work teachers.) The kids like her and she seems very excited to be part of ?such a cutting edge idea of providing individual education to each child according to his or her needs?. (To me, it?s just glorified home schooling!) She still wants them to wear uniforms and sit in a classroom type of setting, but each child is given his own assignment. It seems to be going well so far.
How Many More Kids Can We Take?
07-23-2010
While I was home, several people asked me what our limit is on the number of children we can take. Well, first our limit was 35. Then we bumped it up to 50. At number 51, we realized that we just could not turn away a little baby who has no place else to go. If an abandoned baby is not placed in a home, he or she will just be left in the hospital with nobody to take care of him/her. From what we have seen in the past, this usually results in the baby just lying naked, never held or comforted, and dependent upon the good will of mamas who are in the hospital with their own children, for a little bit of food here and there.
Since there are very few homes in our area who will take babies because they require more funding and staff than older children, they end up being placed with us. We simply believe that if God sends them to us, we should take them in. I know that flies in the face of common sense or practicality, but it is the stand we have taken. We trust the God who sent them to also provide for them. We trust Him to grow the ministry as the children grow. It’s overwhelming to think of all that they will need to become well adjusted, Godly, capable, independent, responsible adults! But nothing overwhelms God and we know that He has it all figured out!
ADOPTION?
07-23-210
Another thing that came up a lot in conversation while I was home was the subject of adoption. The bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter what we feel on the subject because the Kenyan government has made it pretty much impossible for foreigners to adopt out of Kenya. Our goal with these kids is to raise confident, honest, Kenyan citizens (along with all the adjectives I used in the previous paragraph), who will change their own country! This country is overrun with corruption at every level! It’s not just the government that operates in corruption… it’s not just the police and public service officials… it’s a problem that is steeped deeply into the society as a whole. Sometimes we joke (but are not really joking) about it being too late to change this generation so we are focusing on the next generation, in hopes of them changing their country! We believe that some of those who will make those changes are in our care as we speak! Again… a little overwhelming, but very exciting to think about!
To see the pictures of the land click here.
To see bios for each of the children click here
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