Uhuru Students Give Back

The whole construction crew (Gladys' parents standing on the right)

Last Saturday was a day that I will remember for a long, long time and is quite possibly my favorite day I have spent in Kenya. It all started when our school entered into a Film Contest and decided to make a documentary on IDP camps. As you may or may not know, Uhuru Academy was specifically created to provide scholarships for the education of girls from these Internally Displaced People camps that formed after the post-election violence of 2007. Thus, we had access to first person experiences of what that post-election violence did to Kenyan citizens as a whole and individually.

The students, both paying and scholarship (our school is about 40 percent paying and 60 percent scholarship), began working together to form interview questions and topics of discussion for this documentary. Some of our scholarship students whose parents and families still live in IDP camps were the subjects of the film which gave some of our paying students from a much higher economic class a chance to go and see the places some of their classmates inhabit when they are away from school. 

However, one student's family and living conditions made a HUGE impression.

Her name is Gladys Mbuya (seen with younger sister in left) and she is a Form 2 (sophomore) at Uhuru Academy. She is the 5th born of 10 children in her family, all by the same mother and father. When violence erupted in 2007 her family relocated from their home to a place called the Rift Valley where so many other families were forced to retreat. They literally showed up there with nothing but each other and the clothes on their backs and built a house made of sticks and plastic to live in......and they have lived that way for 7 years!

The beautiful view right outside Gladys' compound.

Due to the vast unemployment rate in Kenya (among other things), it was and still is difficult for Gladys' parents to find steady jobs. During the past 7 years Gladys has been in and out of school, working to help provide for her younger siblings school fees and to help feed her family. I could go on and on about the heart this sweet, selfless, and intelligent girl has but I would be here all day. 

Long story short, 8 people (because her older siblings have moved out) have been living in conditions that most Americans would not even consider good enough for their pet. And this ripped to the core of the hearts of her fellow peers when they saw for themselves while interviewing Gladys' mother.

The house made of any plastic they could find, sticks, and cardboard.

That day, some of the paying students were astonished at the injustice and poverty their fellow classmate was living in and decided to forfeit their portion of meat for a month to pay for the materials needed to build Gladys and her family a real house. Once this news got around to other students at Uhuru Academy, everyone joined in. Even the staff at Uhuru gave donations towards Gladys' real house fund. Before you knew it, there was enough for all the materials needed to build it and enrich the livelihood of this dear family. All that was needed were workers.

So, last saturday, all 41 of the Uhuru students, 6 Uhuru Child staff, 2 Uhuru Academy staff, 6 US college students (on a 2 week service trip with Uhuru Child), and 6 members of the community banded together to make this dream a reality! In true Kenyan fashion, the members of the community hired to help do the work (to ensure it was done properly) had put the majority of the house together by the time we arrived saturday at noon. So, we all jumped in where ever we could, carrying stones, dirt, and cement, smashing stones, digging the vegetable garden, painting the metal walls (called mabati) and rooftop, spreading manure, planting, and working together to make something meaningful and beautiful for a girl we all dearly love.

Form 1, Dorcas, digging in the shamba! 

The stones were carried and crushed, the dirt carried and spread, the cement mixed, poured, and spread evenly to form the floor inside the house (Gladys' previous floor was a dirt floor).

Form 3, Teresia, crushing the stones for the foundation.

The almost finished concrete floor is being smoothed out.

The new Mabati house! Complete with cement flooring, windows, a paint job, and stability!

As for the farm (shamba in Swahili), we dug the field, deweeded it, dug holes, spread manure, planted sukumawiki (kales), and watered them! We also dug up a lot of sweet potatoes in the process in the old garden which was also something they now don't have to do but can enjoy from our labor!

Digging the shamba barefooted!

 All smiles from  Form 3, Ann Gathoni who is no stranger to digging!

 Form 3, Gladys was teaching me how to dig like a real Kenyan!

Gladys' mom (right) and friend picking through the sweet potatoes we dug up.

Form 1, Miriam, planting sukumawiki (kales) in the newly revamped shamba (farm)!

Finished!

In addition to the new painted house, concrete floor, and revamped garden, the money also bought them a rain harvest tank. This provides them with fresh water that is at their disposal as the rains come so they don't have to walk for miles to fetch water in 5 gallon jugs.

Everyone involved in this process was touched by the amount of love that was poured out on this family, all because the students at Uhuru Academy took "love thy neighbor as thy self" literally (as it was meant to be) and denied themselves a luxury so they could provide their classmate with a necessity.

At the end of the day, once almost all the work was finished, Gladys gave a short but incredibly mature and heart-wrenching "thank you" to those who came to help. Not only was it a heartfelt thank you from her and her family, but it was acknowledgement of God's presence in the hearts of the girls at Uhuru Academy that led to this process. Gladys said,

"I know this did not happen to my family because I have been good, but only because of God's grace and mercy towards me. He has used all of you as vessels of Christ's love and He has been  glorified this day through you."

Gladys expressing her gratitude

Talk about tear-jerking! Not only was she giving us a mental picture of the gospel, but the fact that she was able to articulate it so precisely was more than I could handle! It was one of those moments where I just was so overwhelmed by God's faithfulness at Uhuru Academy to send wisdom and understanding of the TRUE gospel into the hearts and minds of these girls! The best part about what Gladys said was that they were not just words. She lives her life based on them, as do the students who understood the gift Christ has given them. Because od this, they were able in a large way, to give a selfless gift to a loved in need as an example of the free gift they have been given, eternal life.

It brings to mind a verse that is said a lot around here at Uhuru,

"Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity."

1 Timothy 4:12

I have seen examples of all of these qualities through being around these students. No, they are not perfect. Yes, they have the same problems all teenage girls have. Yes, they can be selfish like you and me.....BUT, they fight. They fight to know Jesus and show him to one another and the world. 

Thank God for the gifts of these young women and how they have shaped and impacted me more than they will ever know.