Everything Changes.

It's funny how in the western world, you can assume there will be a lot of change in a place over 2 years, but I naively assumed because of the slow pace of African life, things would stay generally the same here. Not so, as we've discovered in only a few days back in Kitale. It feels like every project we worked in or alongside has now relocated, gotten new leadership, re-structured itself, or ended altogether.

The biggest change has taken place in my favourite project -- a large, rural home with 2 outstanding house parents and around 30 kids, whom we spent every Saturday and many overnights with in 2008. TI began working with the home the year before, shortly after it started up. Money was invested in animals, a well, farming, and construction. Amazing relationships were established. Over the last year, we'd been hearing about a lot of corruption in some of the home's outside leadership. Food was being taken, a cow was stolen, the well was dry, the kids weren't getting the care they needed, and all the wrong people were being blamed. Most bizarrely, it was discovered that nearly half of the kids in the home actually have well-off family members in the area who were willing to care for them! After much discussion and prayer, TI decided to cut ties with the corrupt people involved, return the kids with families to their homes (while continuing their school sponsorhips and monthly visits), and start a smaller home nearby for the remaining children.

This home is called the Veronica House, after a young girl from the original home who died of AIDS last year. 3 of the remaining kids are HIV+, so there will be a special focus on getting them the right nutrition, medication, and routine to thrive. Ina and I went to the home on Saturday when the house parents and kids moved in. It was both joyful to watch them explore their new bedrooms and backyard, and sad, feeling the enormous absence of so many kids we'd gotten so attached to, particularly the beautiful and quiet Veronica. The house Mum was thrilled to see us again but emotionally spent from so many goodbyes and the past year of accusations, mixed messages, lies, sickness, death, and who knows what else.

And so it goes in Africa. New beginnings are awesome, but mourning the loss of things lost is never easy.

On a lighter note, we also visited the Nema House for ex-street girls last week. 3 of the original 6 girls are still there (a reasonably good percentage, all things considered), and the 3 newer additions seem to be doing really well. Below are the lovely Lillian and Sharon. I took the picture mainly because Sharon is wearing a scrubs top that says "Animal Emergency Clinic, Tacoma, WA."