We have launched Walk For Water 2012 — One Day.  One Walk.  One Village.

200 Walkers to raise $150,000 in one day to fund a 3-year Community Safe Water Program for the village of Kager.

Learn more at:  www.walk-for-water.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Friends,

Greetings to you in Jesus Name.  I am glad that we have all come into the month of May 2012 with a much more renewed strength and energy to serve our Lord through the ministry of  JVP.  I am personally grateful to each of you for such a great support in prayer and words of encouragment during the month of April which was like hell to me with the withheld medical container at the port of Mombasa, Kenya.

As much as we went through this all, the Lord prepared a word for me at the end of the Month which I also feel to share with you as an encouragement on the work we have here in Kager.  Last Sunday on the 29th, April, 2012, we had a guest minister at KVC Church.  The subject of his sermon was ” How to Eradicate Poverty”. He took us through his survey of Kager as  a village to affirm his subject as to what makes a village considered to be on development and not poor, or is on track to eradicate poverty.

He counted the following things 1) Church. 2) Electricity. 3) Hospital. 4) School. 5) Road. 6) Food.  In his survey, he found out that Kager is not poor and is on track to eradicate poverty, since all the said are in Kager and on full use.  Sharing from the book of Proverbs 11: 24-26. ” One Man gives freely, yet gains even more: another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.  A generous man will prosper: he who refreshes others will be refreshed.  People curse the man who hoards grain, but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell.”   These words truly sank down into my heart while sitting down at the service.  The Lord began to open my eyes to see how He looks at the village, while we may feel we have not done things rightly and begin to murmur and complain at issues, yet great work, which is visible is there.

The ministry that Sunday reminded me of Habakkuk 2:2 which is one of my favorites:  ” Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.”  The preacher encouraged the church by saying Yes We Can.  This is the vision we have written on tablets that an herald will run with and make plain our vision.  He did this without knowing we have this enshrined in God’s word and at the same time based on the MDGs, when he quoted on the qualifications for an developing community, he was not aware of the MDGs but shared this based on God’s word with regard to giving and supporting God’s work on development matters.

Again on reading Isaiah 60:10-11 ” Foreigners will rebuild your walls and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession.”  The preacher encouraged the Church to serve and give cheerfully and willingly since as we give our wealth, the Lord will command others to bring to us and fill up what we need.  This was so inspiring, reflecting on the sacrifice made with Medical container shipment and with other programs JVP has done to Kager village, I can’t wait to hear from anyone from team Indiana on how the Lord is blessing you and using you to have gates open for resources to begin flowing from accross the world, to bring restoration, hope and sustainable development to the Kager and other communities. 

Friends I can’t imagine how this has refeshed my  soul and given me a  renewed hope for the work we have with JVP in Kager.  Everyone who has seen the medical equipment and the other goodies that came with it, is marvelled and one comment I had yesterday from a member of the village is about a debate he has with God why he was born in Kager, since he is comparing what life is in Kager with other villages and gives glory to God.

This is where the heart of the people are.  Giving God glory and honor for the good work going on despite the roaring of the devil as a lion whom he is NOT, since we ONLY have Jesus the ” LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH”. 

May you be encouraged this day and lift up your eyes to see the many open places the Lord has given you opportunity to get to.  Let us know that everywhere we step into, the Lord has given it to us.

Daily inspiration from God’s word, prayers and supplication and walking in obedience and honesty with God and each other will be a great weapon to fight any discouragement and divison amongst us.  I pray that may the Lord shower you with his peace and love, that no weapon formed against you shall prosper in Jesus Name.

Shalom,

David Kayando
Lead Village Champion

One of the first community programs started by the Jubilee Village Project was the Model Farms program in February 2009. Now, three years later, the program has expanded from 4 farmers with 4 acres and one crop (maize) to 22 farmers with 27 acres and four crops (maize, sorghum, beans and groundnuts).

Now having finished the sixth growing season (short rains 2011, August to December), the program has evolved from a direct subsidy model to a seasonal farm loan model. Through a generous grant from the annual World Hunger Offering at East 91st Street Christian Church, seasonal loans totaling $2,973 allowed for the 22 participating farmers to have access to improved seeds and fertilizers.

From the beginning, the goals of the program were to improve both seasonal food security and family income. This is consistent with Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce the number of people suffering from hunger by 50% by 2015.

There is no better way to understand the impact the Model Farms program is having on the families of Kager than hearing the stories of two mothers who are farmers in the village. These stories are told by David Kayando, Lead Village Champion:

“This morning it is hot and dry in Kager, but to some members of the Farmers Self Help Group in Kager, it is a great opportunity to celebrate the Lord’s provision through a bumper harvest.  I stand outside my door post and I see Mary Ogutu with her daughters, Achieng’ and Mummy. They pass through my compound with a load of two complete sacks of maize, carried in small pieces. As I follow her to the Self Help Group storage house, she fills up all her sacks and they become two complete sacks with 50 tins each (200 kilograms).
 
I begin discussing with her about her harvest and she says, it is has been good in the past Short Rains Season 11. She was able to harvest a total of 9 sacks compared to 3 sacks she did get in Long Rains Seasons 11. She says an increased production of this magnitude turns her heart back to farming and she attributes this to the continuous support from JVP in both the loans extended and the training and education being provided. Mary has a family of seven children, but her two older sons no longer stays with her at home as they are casual laborers in the city. She belongs to a her polygamous family where she is the young wife. Her husband retired from work several years back and also stays with her at home.
 
Mary is the key bread winner of her family and pays for her daughter’s school fee at God Kado Secondary School and she can do this with her increased farm harvest. She is a hardworking woman both in the field and with small businesses.

 

We then walk together to her compound where she joins in a jovial conversation with her co-wife, Kerina Ogutu, who is also a Model Farmer. Kerina shares with me that she was able to harvest 10 sacks of maize in Short Rains Season 11, a 25% improvement from the earlier season. She walks with me to her home and takes me to three different rooms where she has kept her produce. She shared that because of the support from JVP, she sees many farmers working even harder to see better productions in future and she cautions lazy people to go way, if they cannot be faithful with what God has given Kager.
 
Both of these women are full of a new spirit of hard work with good results is a motivation to the community. They now share a confidence of being able to feed their families during famine and support their children with their school supplies through their involvement in the Model Farms program.”

As part of Village Visit 8, Keith O’Dell introduced the idea of “aquaponics” (integrated gardening and fish raising) to two young men of the village, John Ongondo and Samwel Orenda, as one of the Innovation Projects.  These two men have fully seized vision for this innovation and have taken full ownership to move it from and idea to a pilot project.  Following are a testimony received by Keith from John as well as pictures of the first steps they have taken with the Aquaponics Innovation Project:

Hello  Brother
Receive much greetings in the Name of our lord Jesus. It has taken long before I comunicate. I have to apologize for this. How are you fairing on,With me iam doing well in the lord regurdles of the situation that may face me. I know that you realy wanted to know the far we have gone with our reserch on round up chemical.I would like to inform you that,we have not done much with this chemical because we wanted open field which  not planted with any crop.Another thing is about Tilapia tank,I would like to share with you that we have already brought the fingerlings and the programm is on.other wise we realy appreciate for your concept.May God Greatly and Abundantly Bless you.
Much Love,
John

And this is a testimony received by Keith from David Kayando too on the Aquaponics Innovation Project:

Hello Brother Keith,
Greetings to you in Jesus Name. I hope this finds you well and you are settling back home after being in Kager one month ago. God is good to us and we rejoice in seeing his word being fulfilled in the lives of the people in Kager. The innovation projects you introduced in Kager are being implemented and I pray they will brighten the future of the lives of the families here.
I want to note with great interest, the introduction of Aquaponics Tilapia tank for raising fish. This is a new idea with very positive results. It meets the need of the implementor economically, provide food and also improve health as fish is full of proteins. Samwel and John have taken great interest in this. JVP has supported them to obtain the tank, which they have installed, and please see the picture attached, they have filled it with water. God has also brought on their way someone from the neighbouring community who has gone through  a training on how to raise fish in the tanks, and this has been a blessing as they have received much knowlege in doing this which will help them do this better.
They will be going for the fingerlings on Friday this week and I Know from there the journey will begin. Hopefully the next village Visit Team should be able to taste the fish raised from the tank.
Blessings to you brother and I pray you are well. Regards to you family. I will be pleased to know how we can be praying for you.
David.

You always hear the word “life-changing” bandied about when talking about a trip to Africa. Well, that’s because it is!

By Christmas 2010, our second set of letters had been mailed. Once again we were left waiting impatiently for a return set.  In the meantime, Linn Asbury’s (JVP Education Partner) wheels had been turning.  In an off-handed way in one of her emails, she asked if I would be interested in going to Kenya sometime.  I nearly screamed out loud, and immediately let a co-teacher know of this opportunity.  By the end of that week, I had to email Linn and ask her the MAXIMUM number of teachers she could take with her on the visit, so many were interested in going.  By March the wheels were in full motion, and we were fund-raising to get the money to go.

Normally, I am a private person.  I rarely let people see inside my thoughts and feelings.  In one of our pre-trip meetings, I shared this as my biggest worry about the trip.  My goal was to make myself vulnerable to people.  Wow!  What a difference that made! It is amazing how quickly life-long friends are made when you open your heart to them.  Instead of taking pictures of “my trip,” I was taking pictures of my new mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, sons, and daughters.

I need to thank my new family for helping change my life:

• Thank you, Linn for making this trip happen. Let’s make sure it happens again for another lucky group.
• Thank you, Gladys for letting us throw you an impromptu birthday party to celebrate the birthday for which you don’t know the actual date. Your humble spirit is inspiring.
• Thank you, Hammre for teasing back and forth like a little brother always does. I never did get that lesson on how to collect water like a Kenyan woman.
• Thank you, Caroline for making me that chipati. It was AMAZING! Keep your secondary education your priority even through the struggles of your young life.
• Thank you, George for raising the American flag alongside the Kenyan flag at your school. How unforgettable to be saying our national pledge in Kenya on July 4.
• Thank you, David for checking on Kim and me when we nearly didn’t make it back from the pond by dusk. I have never felt more safe than when I was walking along that rocky path talking to the local people.
• Thank you, Andrew for sharing valuable teaching time with your students. I hope we made a lasting impact. Keep up your amazing attitude and strong desire to teach those precious souls.
• Thank you, Mr. Jasper for teaching me the proper inflections for Kenyan English, and then not laughing (too much) when I actually tried it on the kids. The sacrifices you are making as a teacher are influencing your students greatly.
• Thank you, Carolyne for giving me your recipe for sukumawiki. (My husband actually liked it.) You are one awesome woman! What a strong role model you make for those teenage girls.
• Thank you, Cornel for reminding me of home by acting like one of my U.S. students and making me laugh. I hope your mother doesn’t mind sharing her son with me for a while. You hold a special place in my heart.
• Thank you, Bishop for opening your home and your heart to us mzungus. I especially enjoyed your accordian concert before bed. It reminded me of holidays with my family singing hymns and praising God around the piano.

The list of thank yous could go on forever. And it does on the nights I can’t get to sleep. I lie awake recalling all the wonderful memories of the days in your village. While time might eventually steal your names from my mind, it will never steal the love from my heart. Thank you for being my friends. Thank you for changing my life.

Mrs. Karon Cheek
Navigators team
Language Arts
Room K119

With four trips to Africa in his passport and having gone on two photo safaris before, Ned Campbell, Lead Global Partner, was looking for something different to do this fall when he will visit Kenya as part of Village Visit #8.

“Africa is such an amazing continent with such a diversity of people and sights, I figure if I am going to travel half way around the world, I might as well start seeing more of Africa than just another safari. On my flight home last year, I met a team of people that had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.  I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and love to hike, so something sparked in my heart.  But after thinking about it for awhile, I thought it might be wiser to ease into mountain climbing and start with the second highest peak in Africa, Mt. Kenya.

I started doing some research, made contact with a Kenyan guide, and decided that it was time to put my 49-year old body to a new test.  At the same time, we started the planning for the expansion of the Medical Clinic in Kager and it seemed that these two paths were meant to come together.

During Village Visit 6 in October 2010, Housing & Shelter Global Partner, John McKenzie, noticed that much of the new construction being done in Kager was using fire-cured bricks.  Team Indiana Leader, Ned Campbell, had also started doing research on an emerging brick technology being promoted by Makiga Engineering (Nariobi) called Interlocking Soil Stabilized Bricks or “ISSB”. 

These bricks can be made with a soil and cement mix and requre no firing, thereby making them very eco-friendly.  In addition, they have an interlocking design which means they can use far less expensive mortar and be built with great precision.  As with many new ideas researched by the members of Team Indiana and introduced to the villagers, there was a lot of explanation followed up with a lot of excitement as John and Ned met with Joseph N’yangi, Housing & Shelter Champion, and two young men from village.

From that meeting, it was agreed the planning for a new microenterprise to produce and sell these bricks was a venture they wanted to pursue.  So to make this happen, the following things occurred:

• John worked with Joseph to develop a business plan and structure a loan of $1,500 from JVP to the new venture
• The new business was formed and called EcoTech Building Products, recognizing the ecologically-friendly nature of the bricks
• A brick press was purchased from Makiga Engineering and personnel from this company came to Kager and trained Joseph and the three other EcoTech employees
• John and others from Team Indiana helped Joseph a cost model to run the business and a pricing strategy to sell the bricks

The enterprise is now up and running and making about 350 bricks a day.  Joseph had this to share about the impact this is having on the village:

“The Eco Tech Brickmaking enterprise is keeping every eye glued to their product. With every new product in the market, people questions its durability and efficiency. So it is with the ISSB blocks. Doubting Thomases have already given their approval to these new brikcs  as they see how the first home home ibeing built with it is progressing, and some have began asking any opportunity in the same.

EcoTech is making the ISSB blocks right at the building site of the home. This is one advantage which we have now tapped on with this new technology. To avoid block damages on transit, he soil is transported with the Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) to the site and the EcoTech team moves the press to the building site.  They are now producing the blocks right on site as the masons build.

JVP is creating opportunities in Kager which is a wonderful thing as the Kenya government, like other governments, is struggling to cope up with the increase on unemployment.  These men are optimistic that things will improve for them and their families as this business picks up.”

At the recommendation of John McKenzie, I read Ron Hall and Denver Moore’s NYT Bestseller the other day: Same Kind of Different As Me.  And all I can say is it should be required reading for anyone that is involved in cross-cultural work of any type.  It was one of those books that 1) spoke directly to my heart and 2) I couldn’t put down until I was done.   There aren’t many times I am thankful for an airport layover, but I really was thankful for the time I had in the Phoenix terminal that allowed me to finish the book in one day.

It’s the type of book that makes you laugh and cry while you’re reading it, so I know the gal next to me on the plane thought I had some real issues.  But besides it being both humorous and deeply heart-touching, there are some quotes and ideas that are really so relevant to the work of JVP and to my own personal journey as a husband, dad, friend and brother in Christ.

In my mind, the most important theme of the book isnt developed until about 1/2way through the book in which the two authors meet (materially rich white guy, materially poor black guy), get to know each other, and then decide if they are going to become friends.  The dialogue goes like this:

“I heard that white folks go fishin they do somethin called ‘catch and release.’”

Catch and release?  I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and curious at the same time.

“That really bothers me,” Denver went on.  “I just can’t figure it out.  ‘Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that’ll look.  Then we eat what we catch…in other words, we use it to sustain us.  So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all that trouble to catch a fish, then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water.”

He paused again, and the silence between us stretched a full minute.  Then:  “Did you hear what I said?”  I nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to offend.

Denver looked away, searching the blue autumn sky, then looked deep into me again with that drill-bit stare, “So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me:  If you fishin’ for a friend you just gon’ catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend.”

The world seemed to halt in midstride and fall silent around us like one of those freeze-frame scenes on TV.  I could hear my heart pounding and imagined Denver could see it popping my breast pocket up and down.  I returned Denver’s gaze with what I hoped was a receptive expression and hung on.

Suddenly his eyes gentled and he spoke more softly than before:  “But if you is lookin’ for a real friend, then I’ll be one.  Forever.”

And while this book tells the story of a relationship between a white man and a black man in America, it is so relevant to the work of JVP in Africa.  Wow — there in a short paragraph was a great description of what we don’t want the Jubilee Village Project to be: a CATCH AND RELEASE MINISTRY.

We talk often in our Team Indiana meetings that JVP is not about us going on mission trips, doing some good work, feeling good about ourselves, never returning and never doing anything that is really sustaining.  It is about building relationships, investing deeply in a village and the people of the village for a long time, and for bringing about change that sustains the people of Kager.

There are too many vacant buildings and empty hearts left behind in Africa from well-intentioned 1/3 World Christians starting a good work, but not having the vision or perseverance to complete it.

Lord, it’s our prayer for the Jubilee Village Project that you will bring more people into the River that get it…that understand the “pronouncement on friendship more moving or profound than what I’d just heard from the mouth of a vagabond”:

“But if you is lookin for a REAL FRIEND, then I’ll be one.  FOREVER.”

First, there’s an incredibly high level of excitement on both sides of the ocean.  The teachers of these children have all embraced the program wholeheartedly, and
 have also begun teacher-to-teacher cross-cultural communication. This alone would have been worth doing the pen pal program — the FMS teachers are great encouragers who simply cannot help but lift the teachers in Kager who face a difficult lack of resources. Simply knowing that a peer in another country cares about them is a huge benefit for Kager’s teaching staff.

But the kids — for whom we began the pen pal program in the first place — have become a magnificent blessing to us as their life experiences expand.

We know from our Education Champion in Kager, Andrew Aduda, the students in Kager were awestruck at receiving such personal greetings (complete with hand-drawn and colored artwork) from friends in America.  They are enlarging their view of the world while learning from the FMS kids that they have more in common than they would have guessed.

The kids are learning, the students are learning, but Linn Asbury, Education Global Partner, is probably learning the most.  In early December, Linn had an opportunity to address the assembly of FMS pen pal students – all of them! They saw photos of Kager’s schools, the classrooms without roofs, the modest desks shared by three or four kids…and their new friends. They had the opportunity to ask  Linn lots and lots of questions.

Linn shares, “I’ll admit, I was a little concerned they would be too shy to open up; I couldn’t have been more wrong. Questions like, “Do the people use money?”
 ”How far away is the nearest McDonalds and WalMart?”   “Why do the people all have short hair?”  Answering these was easy.  But there were many questions that
 weren’t quite that simple:  ”What is JVP doing to help these people?”   “Do they ever get immunizations?”  ”Why can’t they have good drinking water?”  ”Why do so
 few kids finish school?  Go to college?”  ”Do the people there have malaria? AIDS?”  Questions we adults are asking, yet already being posed by ‘kids’ in middle school.

 These youngsters want desperately to make a difference in the world, and I’m betting they will find ways to do it.  The pen pal program is getting them on the right
track by opening communication; now we ‘adults’ need to make sure we give them the tools to help them stay on it.”

We hope to facilitate the second round of pen pal letter exchanges in the next few weeks…but 8,000 miles poses some challenges of its own in getting 500 letters
back and forth across one ocean and two continents.

My first reflection is how much the villagers appreciated the fact that I can back a second time.  I never realized how much that would mean to them until I had 3 different interactions with Villagers. 

• I was out on an early morning walk the last day in the village when 3 young school boys passed me on the trail and said “Hi John”. 
• I was walking back from village home visits with a Champion and he looked at me and said “John the villagers really like you and your attitude towards us”. 
• The Head of a school told Brian Burgess and I when we were talking with some workers at the school that “It means a lot to the villagers that we freely walk around the village without escorts because that tells us you consider our village a safe place and that we are family and friends to you”.  He said that they considered us “family and we were always welcome in Kager”. 

These were totally humbling experiences because I knew it was God flowing through me that they saw, not me.  I thank God for blessing me more than I could imagine through those kind words and experiences!

My second reflection was my visit with my friend Plista who I met last year.  We had a wonderful time of sharing what had gone on the last year and how our families were doing.  My wife and daughters had given me gifts to give her.  The picture I sent her in the mail was proudly displayed on the wall of her home.  Plista is a widow who takes care of 8 grandchildren with only the help of one daughter-in-law.  Five of her sons have passed away.  She works in the fields to make money for her family.  She asked me to pray for a grandson who was “sickly” and she was concerned for him.  I asked a Champion if they knew Plista and they said, “Oh yes.  She is a very hard worker and such a sweet lady”.  Plista wanted to show me one thing before I left.  One of kitchen walls had completely collapsed during a storm so she was forced to cook with rain blowing in, etc.  I let her know that JVP would help her to get this re-built.  It reminded me that as Christians, we are charged  to show the love of Jesus to widows and orphans through taking care of them.  I couldn’t have painted a better picture of this opportunity than the one I saw with Plista.