With the goal of developing a sustainable and profitable business on the Nyakach plateau to support Bethlehem Home, we would like to set up the production and sale of ceramic water filters.  The organization “Potters for Peace” has created the model for this business, which has been established in developing countries all over the world.  Please visit the page for our Water Project to learn more about the Bethlehem Home community’s water project. We have the opportunity RIGHT NOW to buy a piece of land (approximately one acre) in an ideal location, but our window of opportunity is very small for this particular property.  The incredibly low cost of this land is $4650 (USD). Additional funds are needed for the construction of the building and purchasing of the materials. If you would like to make a donation, see our donation page.

DEATH OF AN ELDER

Philida Nyangwara Obondi, a Bethlehem Home elder who had been with the group from the beginning in 2001, died on October 25, 2012.  Philida had esophageal cancer which was not diagnosed until the week before she died from uncontrolled bleeding.  She was born in 1946, married in 1959, and was preceded in death by her husband and all eight of her children.  The S2B team remembers Philida with love, and her Bethlehem Home community has sustained a great loss.  Philida was one of the original elders to care for a milk goat when they were first donated by S2B a few years ago.  One of the BH orphans, Brian, helped Philida to feed and milk the goat, and he grew strong from the addition of this nutrient to his meager diet.  Pastor Habil’s idea of arranging the elders and orphans into small, permanent groups to care for the goats was successful, and the groups quickly blossomed into vital, caring relationships that provided the stability of a family for the adults and children alike.  Brian has experienced breathtaking losses in his early life, and only the support of the wider community in which he lives could carry him through this new grief.  At the funeral, Pastor Habil had Brian stand and be recognized by the congregation while receiving the pledge of their support.  With this reassurance, Brian joined Mary, another long-time BH elder, in taking care of the goat, and another loving relationship was forged.

At this link, you can read the message from Dr. Baker that was read at the funeral.

COMMUNITY GARDEN EXPANDED

The community garden planted in May 2012 has been fruitful indeed.  Food has been harvested multiple times already, lunch for the BH Kouko Academy students has been enriched, and the children are learning to grow their own food, thanks to Charles Tei and the teachers at the academy.

The garden has been so successful that Charles encouraged us to find a bigger, additional plot to expand the planting.  The land is nearby, and S2B raised the $150 needed for the year’s lease of the plot.  Charles will oversee this garden as well, and he will hire some helpers as funds permit.

Dr. Baker saw the garden when she visited Kenya in November, 2012.  Charles was no less proud than a father showing off his newborn child.  The fence was in place, a stone wall had been built by the road, the rows of plants were neat and bountiful, and the variety was stunning.

OUR FUTURE CLINIC

S2B has recently received a very generous donation from Bob and Pam Dimski for the clinic building that we hope to begin building the clinic soon.  With this significant start, we have the momentum that we need to move seriously toward our goal.

Our plan is to begin with pharmacy services right away and then expand to a full medical clinic as soon as Don Ogola has completed medical school at the University of Nairobi in 2014 and his internship in 2015 (probably in Kisumu).

We are currently searching for a piece of land with an existing building that can be modified to serve as a pharmacy and later expanded for the clinic.  When we find the right place, we will need to move very quickly.  In Kenya, when someone asks for a commitment for a specific price for a piece of property, it is assumed that the buyer can buy immediately.  Once a price is determined, other buyers often rush in to grab the sale.  Thus, the urgency for all the land we want to purchase.

Eric Owaka has now graduated from pharmacy school and is completing three levels of internship to learn the business side of running things.  He will be ready to practice pharmacy within the year.  Eric is committed to coming back to the plateau to begin our permanent medical presence there.  Dr. Bob Dimski (family physician from Oklahoma who has seen patients in our temporary clinic during the 2011 and 2012 trips) will be the medical director and S2B liaison to the pharmacy, in addition to the required Kenyan authorities.

Below is the message from Dr. Lisa Baker that was read to the community at the funeral.

My dear sisters and brothers,

When I see you each year, it is always a joyful occasion.   As shown so beautifully in the colorful Kenyan fabric that you wear, however, it is both the dark threads and the light ones that give character to the fabric of our lives.  I am so thankful for the privilege of knowing you well enough to share this time of grief with you as we remember our sister Philida.  I wish that I could be there with you, but my heart is there, and I will see you soon.

I am teaching university students right now, and we are completing our term.   Yesterday in class I told them about Philida, her death, and her life.   The students and I had had many weeks of a demanding class in which we had talked about science, technology, and math.  But the class would not have been complete had I not told Philida’s story.  My students, as you know from the ones you have met, are tenderhearted.   When I tell them about your community or when they come to visit you, it is always a struggle for them to make sense of your immense suffering.  Yesterday the students and I talked about the many people in the world who see suffering and death as the enemy, and they try to defeat the pain at all costs.  But there are also people like Philida who take suffering into their hearts and let it be their teacher.   Philida had to experience the pain of losing every single one of her eight children and was utterly alone and had nothing.  But by the time I met her, she was a joyful, rich person, though not in money or possessions.  She had become a part of a new family, Bethlehem Home. 

The great sacrifices and gifts of Pastor Habil and the leaders of Bethlehem Home made the world a hopeful place again.  However, even they could not protect Philida entirely from constant pain and need.  Philida continued to suffer from not having enough food to eat, from seeing her neighbors and friends die, and from seeing her country torn apart in murder and destruction close to her home a few years ago.  The astounding thing is that Philida, in laboring together with God, redeemed her pain and let it carve out more room in her heart for love.  She did not respond in bitterness or hardness.  She knew that we live in a broken world, but that God is faithful to walk through the pain with us and teach us in the midst of it.  Paul said, “For I have learned, in whatever state I am in, to be content.”  That is Philida.

Philida’s story reminds me of Hagar.  Hagar was the slave of Abraham’s wife.  She was used by Abraham to produce a child, and then she was subjected to the murderous contempt of Sarah and the weakness of Abraham.  This couple, to whom God had revealed himself in spectacular ways, abandoned Hagar.  Abraham took her and their own child to the desert and left them there to die.  But that was not the end of the story.  God spoke to Hagar—this invisible woman who was a slave, a foreigner, a woman, an outcast—and also the child of God.  God brought comfort, but also challenge.  She was told to go back to the very people who had cast her out to die with her son.  God did not take her out of her suffering, but was there with her in the desert and walked with her back into the unimaginable pain from which she had come.    Hagar understood the good news—the gospel.  She said to this God whom she now knew, “You are the God who sees me.” 

Though there were many blows that life dealt to her, Philida did not live her life as a victim.  Until the very end of her life, she was giving back to those who had given to her.  She did the tasks that were given to her, and she did them with grace.  During the last part of her life, her task was to take care of a milk goat, and to give its milk to a boy named Brian.  She did that life-giving job with faithfulness and joy, and Brian learned that, even though his parents were gone, there was a woman who chose to care for him and feed him love and milk.  Now Brian will learn once again that good things are taken away and that we live in a broken world.  But he has also seen a model of how to live life with joy and gratefulness.  What could be a more important legacy for a person to leave when they die?  She was the hands and feet of Christ to Brian and to the all of the brothers and sisters in this community. 

Philida is now in God’s kingdom.  But Philida was in God’s kingdom while she was here with us also.  It is in God that we live, and move, and have our being.  Paul said, “Whether I live, I live unto the Lord, or whether I die, I die unto the Lord.  So whether I live or whether I die, it is unto the Lord.”  We who are left behind live by faith and not by sight.  But Philida now knows the fullness of God, even as she is known by Him now in all of her own fullness.  She would want us to dance.

Thanks be to God.

Mama Lisa  

November 2, 2012

Our goal is to collaborate with our BH friends to maximize yields on their farms using sustainable methods that help increase food security.

At the center of our work is the philosophy that any successful farming project must be part of a continuing conversation with BH member farmers. These projects always occur as a partnership between Bethlehem Home and Straw to Bread. Check it out!

For more information on various agricultural topics related to Straw to Bread and Bethlehem Home, click the following links:

History of Agricultural Influences and Projects

Bethlehem Home Kuoko Academy School Garden Project

2012 Agricultural Needs Assessment

The problem:

One of the biggest problems facing the residents of the Nyakach Plateau is the lack of clean drinking water. Water cisterns are a good solution, but their costs, and complex installation make them impractical for large-scale deployment. There is an overwhelming need for a reasonably priced, effective and accessible solution.

Our proposed solution:

We want to build a factory on the plateau that will produce between 35 and 50 ceramic water filters each day. The filters will be made from local clay mixed with ground rice husks or sawdust. After forming and drying, the pots are fired in a kiln, which burns away the vegetable material, creating a ceramic pot with thousands of tiny pores. The pots are then painted with an antibacterial colloidal silver solution and mated with a plastic pail and spigot. Unfiltered water is poured into the ceramic pot and the water is cleaned and sterilized as it passes through the clay into the plastic bucket below. The filters have been tested and proven to be 99.88% effective at removing pathogens, and they have a lifespan of at least 3 years. The factory will employ 4 to 5 full time employees. The pots generally sell for between $15.00 and $25.00 U.S. We hope to be able to sell in volume to NGO’s while keeping the prices to local residents as low as possible. We are shooting for a go live date of May 2013!

Our partners:

We are working with a non-profit, Potters for Peace that has successfully constructed and launched filter factories in Nicaragua and Tanzania. They will be providing guidance as we work through each step of the project and will also provide an onsite trainer for 30 days when we are ready to go live. The trainer will supervise the construction of the kiln and train the employees on the actual production process.

http://www.pottersforpeace.com

For a further explanation of how these filters work, watch this youtube video:

Potters for Peace Ceramic Water Filter

Benefits for the community and beyond:

The benefits to the local community are numerous. Besides providing much needed full time employment on the plateau, there should be significant trickledown income to clay and rice husk suppliers, carpenters, drivers etc.

We are also considering providing space for local potters to produce products beyond filters. If successful the factory could generate significant income that could be used to finance the Bethlehem Kuoko School, provide support for the Bethlehem Home orphans and elders, or be used to subsidize filters for the poorest members of the community. The biggest impact will be the availability of highly effective water filters to the residents of the plateau for the first time.

What we need:

To make the factory happen we will need to purchase a plot of land large enough to house the operation. We will then need to construct a factory building that is at least 2500 square feet. We will need to purchase two molds and two presses for forming the pots. We will also need to raise money to pay for the expenses Potters for Peace trainer to travel on-site.

Budgeting is still in process, but we will likely need to raise between $25,000 and $30,000 U.S. to get the plant operational. Once running at full capacity, 50 pots per day, we can expect the factory to gross ~ $900.00 U.S. per day.

It is an ambitious project but one that is very realistic given the guidance we will receive from Potters for Peace.  Pastor Habil has already selected a plot of land in the community that could be purchased for this project.

For more details or to make a donation, contact:
Don Roxby at don@wiredsupport.biz
or Eric Goethe at eric_goethe@baylor.edu

Water tanks in 2011

Water quality testing in 2012

A tank and rainwater gutter system on a home in 2011

For an application and further information on the 2013 Kenya trip, click this link.

We send money to Bethlehem Home for food each month as we work toward a sustainable business and agricultural environment there.  We also continue to raise funds for special projects such as our school, Bethlehem Kouko Academy, and our future clinic.

We are so thankful for all of those, on both sides of the ocean, who have been involved in this venture thus far. We are filled with excitement about what the future holds for our partnership with these people whom we have come to love so much. Thank you for taking this journey with us!

And here is a man, eyes set to me, asking with subdued breath if I – a young and privileged mzungu – could give him something to ease the burdens of his life.  I am not new to poverty, but this incredible responsibility he bestowed upon me was unfamiliar.  Michael waited, and Moses’ expectant stare to translate my next words did nothing to ease my shock.  The room was suddenly too crowded, too dark, too troublesome, too much of… everything.  I was helpless.

And like a divine breath of relief, Mama Kim’s words from the night before resonated with such ringing clarity, “If you can’t give anything now, the best thing to always give is prayer.”

By the will of God, I met this man, and by the grace of God, the man is alive against the odds in a land ravaged with death.  What more appropriate gift could have been offered than to pray together as we have done every day?  Prayer, the pinnacle of faith.  We prayed to express gratitude, to ask for forgiveness, and to be nourished by hope.

A simple “thank you” was what I received in return.  It was and has been the most powerful “thank you” I have ever heard.

________________________________________

One can never truly expect to know the full breadth of circumstance without experience.  I came to Kenya with a research project in mind, and I knew that the process would require me to reach into a state of vulnerability to truly connect with the individuals I was interviewing.  ”Transformative” is the best word to describe the process, and although, it would seem at first that these profound stories of suffering and hope make the research appear trivial in the midst of real-world hardship, it is, in fact, these stories that enriched and provided intimate meaning to my research experience.

There’s really no secret to it. You just do, when it happens to you.

I was a little intimidated the first night, after such a long day (or two days??) of traveling. I stood in the Nairobi airport late at night, the minutes dragging longer and longer as I waited for that obnoxious lime green suitcase to finally scoot around the corner on that taunting black belt. This was normal, I told myself. I always have to wait forever for my suitcase to show up. It’s just my luck.

But right now I’m convinced that it wasn’t luck that caused my suitcase to get lost, but God’s will, even a blessing.

I was amazed by how much I didn’t need. I had planned and started collecting what I would need in Africa for months in advance. I packed and repacked my suitcase twice to make sure I had everything I needed. And I thought that was the bare minimum.

So during those two weeks, I lived on my backpack that I carried on the plane, $15 of essentials I got at the Nakumatt (the Kenyan Walmart), and the generosity of my teammates.

And I was never lacking. Ever.

People kept telling me they were impressed that I didn’t complain. But there was no way I could complain on a mission trip in Africa. The monetary value of what I had in my backpack probably totaled more than most of those families had to their names…. Sometimes I was embarrassed by how rich I am.

I got to learn a whole new perspective of the blessing of the privileged life I’ve been given. And I learned about what’s vital and what’s not. And how many things are just… things. Stuff that I surround myself with and try to find my security in.

I have never lived for two weeks with so little, but I have never lived two weeks feeling like I had so much.

-Elizabeth Uhlig- Baylor ’15

The extreme transition from the well-kept boulevards, the buildings and houses and cars and ever-advancing technology of the Western world to the rocky dirt roads, the stagnant swampy mosquito-filled waters, and the filthy, ramshackle, pest-infested mud and dung homes of rural Kenya made me realize exactly how wealthy and well off we really are compared to many parts of the world. We constantly take things for granted each and every day, whether we are aware of it or not, and it made me extremely guilty and ashamed of all the times I had grumbled or whined about how exhausted or how busy I was from school, work, and all the other aspects of the typical Western life when there were kids out there barely six years old who were out in fields driving sheep and cattle and taking care of a number of younger siblings and all the while they were fighting malaria and other tropical diseases and wishing they had just enough money to purchase a uniform so that they could go to school.

During my fourth day in Kenya as I was doing patient intakes, I met a 14-year-old boy named Frederick who was never able to go to school because his family was too poor to buy him a uniform for school. Later on, I got to know a 13-year old orphan from Bethlehem Home named Vivian who told me that her dream is to go to America to study to become a doctor so that she could help her people upon the plateau. I also had the privilege of going to a primary school with Stephanie Allen and a group of girls to teach the female students about HIV and AIDS.

These moments struck me so critically as I understood one of the most key aspects in our world: there are so many people out there yearning for a basic education while many of us in America squander it, striving only to make the bare minimum of requirements and wasting our potential just so that we could go out and find a decent job and live a decent life. And there is nothing wrong with that, but throughout the trip, God has showed me that we as the inhabitants of a richer country are privileged with the responsibility to fulfill the needs of less fortunate nations. The value of an education is priceless because it opens up a world of opportunity and is the foundation for solving many of the world’s problems. These experiences among many others inspired me so that when the chance came, I chose to co-sponsor a 5-year old orphan girl named Phoebe so that she could go to school. In the end, I left Kenya with an invaluable wealth of knowledge and experiences that would further fire my passion for future fostering and promoting of higher education, especially in youths.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2

-Vivian Nguyen – Baylor ’14