I am just back to the U.S. from 3 exciting action-filled months in Kenya! My days included masses of children! Here is Bethany Joy School gathered for Monday Morning Assembly on our newly completed campus!

Our schools in Nairobi run from Baby Class (2-3 year olds) until Grade 9.  The final 3 years of schooling are traditionally boarding school, where students are sent to high schools all around the entire country in Kenya.  The ninth grade national exam determines their placement.

It is a spectacularly beautiful building, a much needed addition to the Bethany Joy campus.

Our Bethany Joy School phase 2 is almost done!  Some of you have been journeying with us through this process for about 3 years now!

These are the streets of the slum called Huruma, in Nairobi.  We traveled there recently to meet two special women running a very special school.

This is Michelle, recently orphaned when both parents died from AIDS.  Her only living relative is a young single mom who is her aunt.  This aunt earns money going to others’ homes and washing their clothes.  Michelle goes home to an empty, foodless iron sheet dwelling because her Aunty is out working.  This is an extremely dangerous situation for a small first grader.

We have opened a brand new playground for our students!  This was a generous birthday gift donation from a wonderful friend in Washington.  It has been 18 months in the planning!

I want to introduce you to a very special person in my life, Mrs. Allyn Bromley.  She is an artist, a teacher, and has been an inspirational loving woman in my life since I was a baby!  She was one of the first donors to Watumull Children’s, and encouraged me and believed in our mission.

Watumull Children’s Fund visited India this month to meet some of the precious Indian children we are helping!

Today our Jambo Blast comes to you from Chao and Nicole Odera, our new WFCF volunteers who have come alongside Chitra to help administer the fund and supervise our many volunteers.

This is so exciting for us to share with you!  We have been able to start extra programs in three of our schools- art, football, cooking, and music - all thanks to you our wonderful donors!

We are so pleased to announce that Bethany Joy School phase Two is on schedule to be opened this November! Our crew from Buffalo Construction have been working daily, and you ,our donors, have been giving faithfully!

Watumull Children partners with Helping Hands International to bring a hot healthy lunch to children in two sprawling slum areas of Nairobi. Hundreds of children depend on this Saturday meal as the sole meal of the weekend.  They wait patiently at the stations, bringing plastic containers from home to receive their portion.

Today let me introduce you to “mandazis”, a triangle shaped fried bread very popular for breakfast and snacks in Kenya.  A small charity startup in Nairobi called TenX, has found a way to produce a heavily fortified version of this treat, providing extra nutrients and protein for children just like ours suffering from food insufficiency. They are aptly named Power Mandazi

There has been much activity in Bethany Joy School’s backyard, as we add much needed classrooms to our campus! These new classrooms will enable us to move our remaining 250 students from temporary steel sheet structures to join their schoolmates at Bethany Education Center.

“What an amazing event the TLC was!”, Holly writes. “We left early in the morning to get out to Destiny school to see the teachers and staff setting up and preparing lunch for 200+ children who would be attending the event.

Happy New Year to all of you!  Today I share a very necessary facet of educating our students…..Feeding them!!!!

Let me introduce you to 26 very special children in Nairobi, Kenya. They are the beautiful kids who live at Voice of Hope Children’s Centre.  There are 26 children who are orphans being cared for here. Their home is a cramped 4 room space in the slums, but these children all work together, cooking, cleaning, and taking care of each other.  

From Keith and Trish Krumm

As I take a moment to reflect on the past 4 years, I am so amazed and grateful for everyone's support in our endeavor to honor Sasha's memory. As I have often said, he would love this project of supporting education. This fund now supports 53 high school students throughout Western Kenya.

Here is a glimpse of our most recent Teen Leadership Challenge ( TLC) that we held at Amati Initiative in Kakamega in rural Kenya. We chose 100 girls representing 4 poor schools in this area.  We taught them all about puberty and their changing bodies.  Culturally, Kenyans don’t talk to their girls about these subjects, so it’s a scary and very confusing time in these girls’ lives, and because of lack of money, pads are not readily available.