The Difference You Make...

Hope Schools
When classes resumed after the December break, 2,368 children were enrolled in the five centers. The staff now numbers 134, up from 112 in September of 2007. New school facilities are being built for the children at the Joska, Kosovo, and Pangani centers. A visiting church group upgraded the Kibera center recently. Rented facilities are in use in Bondeni and Madoya, and the team is looking for space to rent for a new school in Mathare North. The team has also begun Christian Bible clubs in each center.

Microenterprise Training
The CMF team's microenterprise program currently has 190 clients who have received training and taken out small loans of between $8 and $400. All have participated in a 27-hour training course that includes information on bookkeeping, customer service, marketing, savings, honest, integrity and faithfulness, and have formed into groups for accountability. These groups meet weekly to receive more specific training, pay back loans, receive loans, pray, share their faith, and start smaller discipleship groups within the larger one.

The microenterprise program is a holistic approach to ministry; it functions within a larger framework of the child sponsorship program and the educational/food centers for the children. Joblessness is a primary factor for poverty in the urban areas, so an approach that gets people working can have a huge impact on a family. And as the lives of children and their parents are changed, there is also a positive impact on the community as a whole.

The team is currently working with more than 2,000 children, their parents and their neighbors, so the future for long-lasting physical and spiritual change in Nairobi through microenterprise is limitless. Stay tuned!

Community Health Evangelism (CHE)
Ten CHE training events were held in Nairobi in 2007, and there are now 120 CHE’s actively doing home visits in the slums. The CHE’s share information on preventing disease and personal hygiene and how to do a Bible study and pray.

HIV/AIDS
There were five training sessions for home-based HIV/AIDS care held in Nairobi in 2007, and two “post test clubs” were formed for support for those who live with the virus.

Church Plant
An evangelistic campaign led by Eastside Christian Church of Fullerton, California, in July helped lead 300 people to Christ in 2007. The new converts were formed into 20 cell groups, and three of these formed a new church in Mathare, with an average attendance of 75 people.

Relief work
Due to the political crisis and resulting violence, much of the CMF team’s time since the end of the year has been devoted to the distribution of food, clothing, mattresses, and other home goods to people who have been displaced from their homes to makeshift camps. The team is also helping to restock businesses that were burned or vandalized, and assisting in paying for hospital bills and funeral costs. As a way to encourage reconciliation, the team is sponsoring a soccer tournament, planned by the Kikuyu and Luo youth of Mathare. (The Kikuyu and Luo are the two people groups who are fighting in Nairobi now.) The first meets will be held on February 9, and then continue for several weekends to help people get over their feelings of mistrust and anger.