AFTER YEARS OF WORK, THINGS ARE COMING TOGETHER!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Great start of the day with a run down to the beach.  I made good running time, and did it all by myself which is a miracle.  For those of you that don’t know, I HATE to run.  That is a whole different journey that God has me on, training for a half marathon.  I’ve always been a walking fan.  Walking is the same as running as long as you do it long enough was always my motto, but since I started running in December, I can honestly say that is definitely not true.  Running is so much more.  I hate it, but it is so much better for me than walking or any other type of exercise.  It is a great way to clear your head, tone your body, and increase your energy even if you are miserable even thinking about it! 

When I got to the beach, looking out over the ocean there was a peace.  If God can take care of keeping the oceans where they need to be, He can take care of my small problems, even if they seem large to me to Him it is just another thing.  That brought me final peace without having to constantly remind myself to be peaceful.  I used my Ipod for the first time while running and it was awesome to listen to music and look at the amazing, quiet ocean and beach.  It was a great way to start the day. 

Then we were off to the PARC (Pilgrims Adoption Resource Center) kick off.  PARC is an organization that I, with Vicky Nzoiki (a Kenyan lawyer) and Hellen Macharia (a Kenyan psychologist) have set up to help promote and facilitate adoptions within and outside of Kenya.  We started working on this a few years ago.  (There was actually a God moment at the end of the day when someone quietly came up to Hellen and indicated that, “It is finally coming to together.  A dream you had 2 years ago is here now.”  The God moment is 2 years ago, I was praying and praying for direction on Kenya and some other things in my life and God shared with me my direction – Kenya and adoption, apparently at the same time he was sharing it with Hellen.)   Right now we are mostly focused on dealing with internal issues to make adoptions run more smoothly through the court process.  We are working on educating judges, lawyers, police officials and hospital staff on how important their roles are in the adoptive processes.  Also, adoption is not widely accepted in African cultures in general.  They have a menatality that they should take care of their own families and not reach outside of that and they lack understanding of what adoption is and how it works.  So we are also working on educating the public about what adoption is and how it works through schools, churches and any forums we can get into.  I have also been meeting with various Kenyan government officials and lawyers in Nairobi that are involved in the adoption process to learn more and develop relationships and see where things are at and where they are moving too.  Now I see why God put me through law school, I was beginning to think the $170,000 student loan bill was a waste of time and money (as I’m currently running a home child care center), but God has his way of bringing things around.

In the future I hope to develop an outreach to pregnant woman to let them know that there are options outside of abortion (which is illegal in Kenya), abandoning their babies in pit latrines or on the side of the road or trying to keep a baby they know they cannot provide for in whatever way they feel they cannot or help them to be able to keep their babies by supporting them in some way for a little while and teaching them trades to support themselves with.    I also want to reach out to work on international adoption issues as God provides that opportunity. 

Hellen has adopted 2 children of her own and so her main focus in on educating and counseling the public and also potential adoptive families on how to handle issues that come up through adoption. 

Anyway, I forwarded over some money a month or two before I left and Hellen and Vicky set up a kick-off event in Kenya at a day care center.  They had lawyers, doctors, and other professionals and adoptive families as well as potential adoptive families.  We also had the only adoptive agency in Mombasa - Little Angels - Grace there with us. It was a great event. We did some speeches about what PARC is and will be and who we were.  We had some interactive games to get to know people. We also had a Pastor speak on adoption and it was a great sermon on why we should adopt and how God adopted us.  We had a few fun games to lighten up the mood and keep people engaged.  Had a great lunch and we broke them into 3 smaller groups and they discussed issues they saw that needed to be addressed.  Each group had about 20 people in it and they each elected two group leaders so it will be easier to communicate in the future.  We also asked them to become members of the group to have some start up funds to do the work that we working on. 

They did a great job organizing the event.  There were people of all faiths present at the event which was great to see.  This is a Christ-center organization so it will be a great opportunity to reach out to non-christian on a joint project.   There was a large turn-out.  It was really, really well run and was a great event.  It was hosted at a preschool so there was plenty of room for the kids to run around and have fun and we had an inflatable bouncy thing for the older kids.  The cost of the event was about $950 but it was definitely worth every penny for the turn out and the encouraging support from the professionals and parents.   The MC was great - he is a teacher at SOS which is like the Children's Department at home and he did such a great job wrapping up and pulling all the speakers together and keeping the focus on PARC’s mission – a family for every child and a child for every family. 

The parents had great ideas on what to work on – some that we had heard before and some new ones.   One man, Adbul, suggested we have an international adoption day every year and get Embassies maybe to participate with it to promote it.  We could start with some smaller ones around here in Mombasa and take it to Nairobi - where the embassies are in a few years.  That is very exciting idea and would be good to do in November – International Adoption Month - which is probably why God is leading me to come back in November, that and the fact that some people here may have some special events happening in November.  

Nobody wanted to leave the event.  We started at 10 and at 4 people will still there in full force and not showing any signs of leaving!   But, we had to go look at another property in Mtwapa for a possibly site for the Children’s Home and adoption centre which was encouraging.  The other property, once they saw all the cars and white people visiting raised the price.   This property was much larger but the building was nearly a shell for around the same price and no wall or gate yet.   God is taking care of it.   He closed one door to open another.  We will see what happens. 

Then Paul set up another orphanage visit.  It was in downtown.  It turns out it was someone that I had met when we had our initial parent meeting to start the ideas flowing for PARC a few years ago, and he was there again today at the event.  He ran the only baby orphanage that they had in Mombasa previously - New Life which was located downtown.  New Life wanted to sell their most expensive property and since this location was downtown, they sold that property.  So now there are no specifically baby only orphanages in Mombasa.  (Or so I thought – more on that later.)  He was offered to leave with New Life to start their new center somewhere else, but he chose to stay in Mombasa and try to start up his own baby orphanage.  He is believing God for the funds as he has no specific sponsorship for the place.  He is doing a great job they have a few kids and have lots of space inside for babies.  They do not have a lot of outside space for children to play and they are in a down town area which they see as a problem.  They have so much more room than the babies they have.  Sue and I will be doing a toy, baby equipment drive for them.  Other than beds, they do not have much else for the children.  I'm am glad to have met him he could be instrumental in our Children's Home plans as he has run a place like this for many years, very successfully.  God is so great.   Thank you to Paul for all your help in setting up these meetings. 

Had a really bad headache after the event but kept pushing on with God's strength.  Couldn't wait to get to bed last night though!