It is hard to sum up the last five years, but a couple of thoughts come to mind.

1. If you are like me, once you went digital, you hadn’t printed out many pictures lately. I recently went through three years of pictures, and printed out the highlights. When we looked through the pictures, the kids that you are helping to feed LOOKED better. Years of good nutrition began to have an effect; they look younger and more alive. Being hungry ages you prematurely; eating regular nutritious meals helps a kid look like a kid should look.
2. Of the 34 schools we work with, EVERY school is ranked academically first or second in their zone. When we started, every school was ranked last, except for one school which was second to last. Good nutrition is essential to academic achievement.
3. There are dozens of students who have received good jobs because of their computer skills, but more than anything, they have given the students an excitement about learning and the hope that they might have a chance to escape from the poverty that surrounds them.
4. All that being said, when you have been somewhere for 11 years, you get used to things. A fellow college counselor and friend of mine, Ryan Riggs, was here for a visit and he wrote something that was a good reminder for me:
   “My thrill and humor from the matatu quickly disappeared when I visited one of the elementary schools, the Kiriko Primary School. While the children were happy and appeared to love being at school, the condition of their school was simply horrendous. It had no electricity or running water. It had a few window panes in the windows, but those were few and far between. I had a difficult time getting my mind around how such an impoverished school could exist in such a glorious setting.  The juxtaposition between the run-down school and the beautiful scenery in the background was unsettling. I visited 10 different elementary schools in the region that week, and it was the same every time: Happy kids, but terrible learning conditions. And these were the schools that had both the feeding program and the computer labs up and running.  We have all seen the TV ads beseeching us to send money to starving African children. The image is always the same: a sad faced child holding an empty bowl with flies buzzing around his or her face. Let me tell you that the reality is much worse than that. The vast majority of the students I saw had only one set of clothes, their school uniform. About half had shoes, obvious hand me downs or American thrift store rejects. Many of the classrooms had dirt floors, and the “blackboard” was simply an area on the wall where the cinderblock had been sanded down and painted black. The textbooks, if there were any, were at least 20 years old. Remember that I visited some of the best elementary schools in the region.
   “The feeding program is remarkable – both simple and effective. Each student gets a full bowl of steaming hot githeri every day. Githeri is one of the staple dishes in Kenya, and provides both protein and carbohydrates. Steve ensures that each of the 34 schools receives a steady supply of dried beans and corn. Collecting firewood, water, and cooking supplies is up to the individual schools. Each morning, several adults in the local community cook lunch for the students in that school. After several hours of classroom learning, recess, and more learning, the students line up for lunch outside of the school’s kitchen. I say “kitchen,” but once again, what passes for a kitchen at many of these schools is but a pale resemblance for what we think of as a school kitchen. In fact, most of the elementary schools in Kenya are so poor that they cannot afford to build a chimney for the kitchen. The cooks have an open fire pit in the middle of the floor, and use the bottom third of cleaned out, cutoff oil drums for large pots.”
5. We are grateful for the progress but want to be realistic about how tough it really is.
6. So much has happened, but we never forget that I came to Africa a broken man. When you bury one of your children, a part of you dies. I would not have invested in someone like me, but you all supported us and allowed us to be a part of something that has been life changing. We are so grateful for all you have done for us, and although we don’t say it enough, we think it all the time.
7. Our hope is to raise additional support for more computer centers and more children getting good food. If you would be open to your church, your Sunday school, your small group, your place of work or just having some friends oven for coffee who might be interested, we would be so grateful.
8. We are all about Jesus. He is our beginning, our middle and our end.
9. Both Ben and Katie asked Jesus into their hearts in the last month. We are so grateful to Him.

Matthew graduated on July 17 from RVA, a school he has attended since second grade. He has had a great experience there, and a really great senior year. One of our traditions is that we played racquetball every Sunday. We started when he was in second grade, and the long term goal was that he would beat me in the final month of his senior year. He started beating me when he was a sophomore so he was a little ahead of schedule, but it has been a good way of connecting with my seriously over-scheduled son.

When we went down to play our final game, at the end of the game, I am sure I embarrassed him when I burst into tears and said, “I never wanted it to end.”

But games end and children grow and move on, and that is part of life that is hard, especially when you are on the mission field and you see your children once a year if you are lucky. I can’t quite make peace with this part of our life, but we are excited for Matthew as he starts at University of Richmond, and we are grateful we will be back in the states for his first year. We will also get to see our oldest graduate and get married, so it will be an exciting year.

On our anniversary, Nancy and I went to town for the night to celebrate. On our way back to RVA, we stopped to shop and eat lunch. I walked past an Indian family, and they asked me if I was Stephen. Since I had just been to the ATM, I was a little unsettled, but I said the only person who had ever called me Stephen was my mother, and that was when she was angry at me. They had seen me on CNN, and wondered if I might join them for lunch. I went and helped Nancy finish shopping, and then we joined them. They are a part of a influential family in Kenya, and had already made a contribution. After lunch, Sachit said that they would like to give 100,000 shillings (about $1300 in US dollars) a month to our work.  At the time, I didn’t know how we would manage to pay our teachers and complete our last three centers. His contribution is about half of our teachers’ salaries per month.

Jesus made a way. He has always made a way. Every screw-up in this work is from me; every good thing is from Him.

Your pal,
Steve

P.S. Thank you for what you have done. Our mailing address in the US is PO Box 210743, Bedford, TX 76095.

P.S.S. I’m having eye surgery on July 31. Please say a prayer if you can.