Goat Day in Lurare!
Want an easy way to make someone smile? Give them a gift!
This past weekend our sponsored kids and staff at the Lurare Primary School were able to smile big as each received a goat as a gift from some very special CRF donors.
The Lurare Primary School is one of our newest programs in Kenya. We started sponsoring orphan children there just this summer. The school is located in Kimilili, Kenya, in the Northern Province. The program is run by the husband and wife team of Samson and Ruth Wangila. The community has been devastated by AIDS and tribal warfare. While we have quickly found sponsors for 12 children, we still have 32 orphans in the school who need sponsoring out of a total of 150 students in grades 1-8. While all the students and staff are poor, our priority is caring for the orphans first. The school fees we pay for each of our sponsored kids ensures that there are good teachers on staff and 1 nutritious meal per day for all the children and staff. The teachers are paid less than $20 a month to work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. The orphan children live with guardian families from the local church who are willing to take in an orphan while still struggling to feed their own.
We have very generous donors and we love them for that. One donor sponsors two kids from the Lurare program. She had spent time in Africa as a youth and remembered how tough life was for the village. She thought a gift of chickens or goats to her sponsored children would help their guardian families a little. Other donors have given money specifically to purchase farm animals for our programs.
With those donations, it was decided that we could send more goats to Lurare. We were able to send enough to provide 1 goat per sponsored child and teaching staff, or 21 goats in total. The donor who started this sent enough for her sponsored kids to have 4 goats each!
When Samson and Ruth Wangila heard the news, they were overcome with gratitude, praise, and joy. They planned a special morning for all the sponsored children and their guardians to come to their house along with the teaching staff. They did not tell them what was going on, but that a special meeting would take place. They prepared breakfast for everyone and then gave them the news (and the goats). There was a spontaneous worship service, songs of praise sung, and prayers offered up to God in thanksgiving. We guess that a goat is a pretty nice gift. It has symbolism that we can’t understand. But we do understand how that gift from a donor is worth rejoicing and giving praise to God. For “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” (James 1:17)
A goat might not be our cup of tea, but it’s creating quite a stir in the community of Kimilili, Kenya.
