 
The Sunday before we left Meru, we had a farewell to Meru lunch with some of our young friends there. Then
next Sunday we had a farewell to Kenya lunch with some our young friends in Nairobi. Both were happy gatherings – and
a bit sad for us.
Kenya, August 2024
We visited St. Joseph Shelter of Hope Mission Hospital in Voi and saw the
cervical cancer screening equipment
which Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT donated. Since its installation in April 2023, over 1450 women have
been screened and many of their lives have been saved.
Kenya, July 2024
New Start, the
Ripples International
program for abandoned babies, has 32 little ones who are waiting for a
family to love and care for them. Eighteen are attending Nahal, Ripples School in Kithoka, which is
just outside of Meru. Marilyn took photos of all the children, with the hope that these will help to
find adoptive parents for these children.
Kenya, July 2024
We attended Ripples’ Sports Day, along with a lot of supporters of Nahal School. It was a fun day
watching students run many different races and hearing their parents cheer them on.
Kenya, July 2024
We enjoyed having a young family with us for a weekend. The husband and father is a Manager with
Hand in Hand,
a Swedish NGO, that helps women to start small businesses in Embu County. We have known him since 2005 when we
spent three months with Tumaini Children’s Ministry in Nyeri, Kenya.
Kenya, July 2024
One Friday morning we picked up three friends who had just arrived in Nairobi and took them to Rossholme
School in Kiambiu slum. There they helped to distribute new shoes and uniforms to students who had lost
theirs in the flood that washed away their homes.
Kenya, June 2024
On Saturday morning we did a game drive with seven friends, including two teens and a five-year-old boy,
in Nairobi National Park. And later that morning we went to Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage to see baby
elephants that had been recused after their mothers died – probably at the hands of poachers.
Kenya, June 2024
On Sunday afternoon, we and the six Kenyan mission partners of Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT
gathered for lunch at the Fairview Hotel with 20 people, including 9 teens, from Connecticut and New Jersey,
who had come to Nairobi on a Mission Trip.
Kenya, June 2024
The following Friday, in Kitale, we attended Parents and Guardians Day at St. John Bosco Rehabilitation
Centre. After the workshops for the adults, the children danced, everyone enjoyed lunch - and all 55
parents and guardians, and some grandmothers too, had their photos taken with their children.
Kenya, June 2024
We spent a day at Rossholme School in Kiambiu slum in Nairobi where we saw 503 of 510 students there now for
2nd Term. The heavy rains and floods washed away the homes of many students, so 75 of them are now wearing borrowed
uniforms. The seven students who have not yet returned to Rossholme may be with relatives in upcountry villages.
Kenya, May 2024
On our last Saturday in Meru we went for a short hike to a gorge to see the waterfall, which we saw from
the top ‘cause the trail to the bottom was just too steep for us old folks. Our young friends had fun wading
in the stream not far from where it went over the edge and down the cliff.
Kenya, August 2023
We spent our last Sunday afternoon in Kenya with 20 of our young friends and their children by the pool at the Methodist
Guest House in Nairobi. Three of them are mission partners supported by Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT.
One is a fourth-year med student, one is an evangelist with Life Ministry Kenya, and one is the founder and head
teacher of Rossholme Education Centre.
Kenya, August 2023
We and the chairwoman of AFLIK (American Friends of Leaners in Kenya) and her husband and daughter
spent a Saturday at Rossholme Education Centre in Kiambiu slum in Nairobi. Three hundred children
showed up on this non-school day to greet their new friends, play games with them and have a special lunch.
Kenya, July 2023
We and some of our young friends in Nairobi attended an early Sunday service at St. Andrew
Presbyterian Church along with a mission group from Noroton Presbyterian Church. Then we had
lunch in the garden of the former Karen Blixen Coffee House
in Karen, which is near The Giraffe Centre where later in the day we visited the endangered
Rothchild species who breed there.
Kenya, July 2023
We and two of our Med Student friends traveled to Voi to see the new cervical cancer screening
equipment in St. Joseph Shelter of Hope Mission Hospital. It was dedicated in memory of our friend
Rita Hornlein Ratti.
Click here
to see more photos of events during that beautiful day.
Kenya, July 2023
We stayed two nights at the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which is right next to a waterhole in East Tsavo Park.
We saved the park entrance fee, and while sitting in the bar and dining room, watched elephants, impalas,
waterbucks, zebras – even a hippo – come for a drink, just two fences from us. East Tsavo is where Denys
Finch Hatten died in 1931 when his plane exploded after taking-off from the Voi airstrip.
Kenya, July 2023
On our first weekend in Meru we attended the funeral and burial of our friend and local taxi driver. It was a daylong
celebration of his life with his family and his many friends and neighbors. He was buried next to his home,
which is a traditional custom here.
Kenya, June 2023
The next weekend we attended the wedding of a young woman that we have known since we and she lived in Tumaini Children’s
Home in Nyeri. It was also a daylong celebration with their families and friends.
Kenya, June 2023
During the last two weeks we visited the St. John Bosco students in Kitali. There are 50 students in primary and
secondary boarding schools who are being sponsored by people of St. John Church in Darien, CT.
Kenya, June 2023
Our visit to the home of one of the St. John Church sponsored students was a real adventure. We climbed up and then
went down narrow, winding dirt roads ‘til we got stuck in a stream, which was a bit too deep. Fortunately, lots of
helpers arrived to dig out the vehicle.
Kenya, June 2023
We enjoyed a Sunday afternoon with young friends in Nairobi. The very youngest ones loved the heated pool, while
the rest of us enjoyed lunch and gathering afterwards in one of the gardens at Methodist Guest House, where we
were staying.
Kenya, May 2023
We visited our friend Joyce and Rossholme Education Centre, which she founded in 2016. It is in Kiambiu slum
in Nairobi, and there are 422 learners there now. They range in age from 3 years to 14 – and are in preschool
and grades 1 to 6.
Kenya, May 2023
The Sunday before we left Kenya in 2022, ten young friends, and their husbands and children, joined us for lunch. We have
known them for more than 10 years – some since 2005 when we and they lived together in Tumaini Children’s Home in Nyeri.
Kenya, August 2022
We attended the funeral for Eunice Muindi. She was the wife of Rev. Bernard Muindi who founded Tumaini Children’s
Home, and she was shosho (grandmother) for the 77 young people who live there now, as well as for all the alumni
who have lived there since Tumaini opened in 2005.
Kenya, July 2022
We and some of our young friends enjoyed lunch with a Meru friend’s sister and her teenage twins. They are from Texas
and are spending six weeks here visiting family, going on safari, swimming in the Indian Ocean and relaxing on a beach
near Mombasa.
Kenya, July 2022
We visited the four-year-old daughter of a young woman whom we have known since she was in this same primary school. It
is the poorest school we have seen this year – in one of the driest areas we’ve been in.
Kenya, July 2022
We went on safari for two days in Meru National Park, where we saw some creatures that we’ve never seen before in a
wildlife park or a conservancy – seven turtles on the edge of a water pan that was home to many hippos, and a Monitor
Lizard.
Kenya, July 2022
We visited two young families in Nyrahururu. We have known the two fathers since 2005 when they were in secondary
school – and now they have good jobs with Hand-in-Hand, a Swedish NGO that helps women to set up small businesses.
Kenya, June 2022
We spent a week in Kitale visiting 50 St. John Bosco students who are sponsored by people of St. John Church in Darien,
CT. Our last day there was Parents/Guardians Day, and students in the Rehab program treated everyone with their dances.
Kenya, June 2022
After church services on Sunday, friends in Eldoret joined us for lunch at Java House in Rupa Mall. Both parents
are electrical engineers. We have known the mother since 2008, when she had finished secondary school. Then she
went to Mombasa to study for five years. Now she is with Kenya Power, and she no longer climbs poles. She
monitors the transmission of electricity on her computer.
Kenya, June 2022
We visited Nambale Magent School where there are 403 students, and 130 of them are sponsored by Noroton Presbyterian
Church and several other churches in CT. We enjoyed watching students jump like Masai warriors do. The new
curriculum includes this traditional activity.
Kenya, June 2022
And just three days after we arrived in Nairobi, we had lunch by the pool at Methodist Guest House with some of our
young friends there. We have known some of them since 2005 when we spent our first summer in Kenya.
Kenya, May 2022
We spent two days at Rossholme Education Centre in Kiambiu slum in Nairobi. It opened just six years ago with 35 students,
and now there are 371 students in 10 classes. Thanks to a major donor in the UK there are now 11 laptops.
Kenya, May 2022
We spent three days at Nambale Magnet School in Western Kenya, where there are over 400 students,
and we took photos of 83 students who are sponsored by WIKS-USA. These children all have prayer
partners who have gotten their photos so they can see their faces as they pray for them to be well
and to do well in their studies.
Kenya, July 2021
We have stayed at Rondo Retreat and Conference Centre in Kakamega Rain Forest every year since
2009 when we first visited NMS. This year we stayed over a day to hike up the mountain and to
see the many kinds of trees, birds, butterflies and monkeys - and for the view of the tea farms
in the valleys beyond the forest.
Kenya, July 2021
We visited a young Masai woman at Consolata Medical College in Nyeri, where she has learned how to operate
the equipment used in the theatre during surgeries. She is now doing her internship, as well as studying
to raise her Maths grade so that she can start the diploma nursing program next May. One of her teachers
is a young woman we have known since 2005 when we and she lived in Tumaini Children’s Home in Nyeri.
Kenya, July 2021 
We and our Life Ministry friends from Nairobi went to Magado Crater. It was a two-hour drive north
of Meru to a place that looked like the end of the earth. Local herdsmen and boys were taking goats
and cattle down rocky, steep trails to the bottom of the crater to drink from alkaline pools - the
only source of water for miles around. Some women were there too, collecting lumps of salt to sell
as licking salt for animals.
Kenya, July 2021
We went on a one-day safari in Buffalo Springs Reserve with friends who are teachers. Both come from family
homes near Lake Victoria - and neither of them had ever been on a safari to see Kenya’s wildlife. They had
only been to The Giraffe Centre and The Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi.
Kenya, July 2021
We went on a two-day safari to Shaba National Park. We saw baby elephants sleeping in the middle of the Ewasa
Nyira River, which is almost dry. Many animals will die by end of August, if there is not lots of rain before then.
Kenya, June 2021
Our hero of this past year is a second year Med student, who is studying at KeMU (Kenya Methodist University).
While KeMU was closed, he cared for Covid patients in isolation in Lodwar, up near Lake Turkana, where his
family and home are. Conditions were less than ideal – ventilators were unassembled and in storage, and there
was insufficient oxygen for a patient being transferred to Eldoret.
Kenya, June 2021
In Kitale, we visited the 50 students who are sponsored by people of St. John Church in Darien, CT. Two of these
students, a 13-year-old girl in St. Columban Primary School and a 23-year-old young man in St. Bridget Secondary
School, are deaf. At the end of both primary and secondary school, they will write the same National Exams that
non-deaf students write.
Kenya, June 2021 
At St. Paul Boys High School in Kitali, we were happy to see a new borehole and solar panels to run a pump. This
school is in a very dry area, so now there will be lots of water for all the students and for many people in the
surrounding community.
Kenya, June 2021
In Nairobi, we visited Rossholme Education Centre in Kiambiu slum. There are now 237 little students there in six classes.
At the end of July, when everyone advances and the grade 4 students move ahead into grade 5 and new Play Group
children arrive, there will be 260 students.
Kenya, May 2021 
We went to Bisil, which is on the way to Tanzania, to visit three young Masai women. One is in second year
of secondary school, one has finished secondary school and wants to go to an agricultural college, and one
has her own sewing business. Some mothers and members of their Friends Church joined us for our lunch
under the tree.
Kenya, May 2021
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