OWI Kenya Update, September, 2011

Hello Family and Friends of Ordinary Women, Inc., (OWI)

It has been about a month since my return from Kenya.  I can't believe it, time has gone by so quickly.  We had another great trip to Kenya this year, and I want to share the highlights with you.  Each year I go, the trip is very different.  It is exciting to see what is going to happen every year.

This year, our team of 22 people consisted of nurses, doctors, social workers, therapists, educators, housewives, entrepreneurs, a high school student, and retirees.  We were such a diverse team coming together in unity for the people in Kiminini and the surrounding areas.  Each person that goes, pays his or her own way and/or raises the support needed for the trip.  In these difficult financial times, I know it took a lot of faith just to get to Kenya, even before the trip started.

The medical team partnered with medical staff from Kenya and went to two different slums neighboring Kiminini.  They worked tirelessly for two days, offering a free medical clinic to anyone who walked in.  They saw some extreme cases and saved some lives!  It was exciting hearing from them each day they returned to the house in the evenings.  I think in those two days they saw around 3000 people!  The second day I heard they finally took their lunch around 5pm.  We had a very dedicated team of medical volunteers this year.

While the medical team worked in the slums, I took a social worker and therapist from our team to meet with our Kenyan social workers and Ordinary Women, Inc Kenyan members.  Our US team members told me they loved the enthusiasm of our Kenyan social workers, and their desire to learn more to continue to help our orphans.  We provided trainings for the social workers, and the second day, we discussed some of our orphans who may have learning disabilities.  There is no testing in the Kenyan schools for learning disabilities.  How they handle this issue in Kenya is by the "stick" (this is what I'm told). 

On our team this year were two educators from the US who have their PhD's and their specialties in learning disabilities.  They met with us the second day to educate the social workers on learning disabilities, assist them in the process of talking to the Kenyan teachers about our orphans who may have learning disabilities and to talk about options for our orphans.  I went away from this trip with hope for these identified orphans and a plan to assist them.

Also, we got to go with these two educators to meet their orphans (that they sponsor in our program) for the first time in the orphans' homes.  They got to meet not only their orphans, but the orphans' guardians and families as well.  There was not a dry eye in those houses.  We all cried with joy in these meetings.  Then, we went with the social worker from the US, and her daughter who is a junior in high school in the US, to meet the orphan they sponsor at his boarding high school where he lives.  The high school has about 120 boys that live there.  They were all on the soccer field watching some of them play when we got to the school.  They stopped the game while Paul, the orphan walked from the field to meet his sponsor, Margarita and daughter Jada for the first time.  Again, another very moving and tear filled union of big hugs between Paul and his sponsors.  Each month, these sponsors, just like you, send their sponsorship to support their orphans, and they trust we are doing what we say we do with the money.  And when a sponsor gets to meet their orphan in person that they are sponsoring, it is a very emotional and joyous time!  This was a great afternoon together!

Each year, the ladies in Kiminini ask for a women's conference.  This year, they asked for a conference on how to handle stress in their daily lives.  Some of the nurses and doctors on our team shared some ways to lower stress, and then a lady from our US team who grew up in Kenya shared a message on handling stress in life.  The Kenyan women shared how they were blessed from the day, and I know I was blessed and encouraged by sharing this time with these strong Kenyan women.

The next day, we had the medical clinics for the yearly checkups for our orphans in our Orphan Program and for their guardians and their families.  This was one of the highlights of my trip.  All of our orphans are healthy!  This is the first year that none of our orphans had to go to the hospital.  There were a few who were ill but just needed (and were treated with) antibiotics.  They all look very healthy.  And, the guardians look healthier and younger than I've seen in previous years!  The guardians continue to tell me what a positive difference this Orphan Program has made in their lives, and I saw it in them physically this year.  It was amazing to see with my own eyes!  I praise God for this!

We also got to visit the OWI Cyber Cafe that opened in January, 2011 as a sustainability project for the Orphan Program.  It is up and running with a great staff there to teach internet classes and to assist people in surfing the internet.  All three times I visited the Cafe, it was full of people using the computers.  It is getting to the point where it is self-sustaining, and our hope is that soon it will begin to bring revenue to the Orphan Program.

We ended our time in Kiminini with going to church with our Kenyan partners and friends on Sunday.  In the afternoon, I was invited to an area church to speak in a surrounding village where we drilled one of our deep wells.  They had the official opening ceremony of the well (even though they have been using it since it was drilled) while I was there and gave me a drink of the fresh water.  It tasted so good!  It was a privilege for me to spend the afternoon with the people of Big Tree and to see what a difference in that little community the well has made. 

After seeing the majority of the team off to the US, Marjaana, Debbie, and I (three of the Ordinary Women, Inc. board members) stayed in Kenya to visit other programs that are a step or two ahead of us, so we could catch more of the vision for the direction ahead of us.  It was such a wonderful trip, and we got so much more accomplished than we could have ever imagined!

And this is all thanks to you, because again, without you, our sponsors, none of our programs in Kenya would be possible.  No fresh water wells would be dug, no medical teams would be able to go (the medicines and medical supplies used in the medical clinics are all donated), and we would have no Orphan Program.  So, thank you!

If you are interested in supporting one of the orphans in our Orphan Program for just $35 a month, please go to our website at www.ordinarywomen.org where you can choose your orphan from the profiles.  Or you can write to us at:

                                                          Ordinary Women, Inc.
                                                   26861 Trabuco Road, Suite E#146
                                                         Mission Viejo, Ca. 92691
 
Joining Hands for Global Change,
Darla Morfin
Ordinary Women, Inc.
Executive Director-OWI Orphan Program

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