Drive Thru

It was a nice peaceful day at the CRF office.

And then it happened.

I thought a bomb went off in the building. It was so loud and so full of destructive sounds — I could think of nothing else. It had to be a bomb.

I quickly ran around the building to see what was demolished and what was the source of this incredible noise. When I got to Julie Castillo’s office, there was a truck that had driven into it. Yes, someone had driven through the outside wall and had entered her office. Just for your information, CRF doesn’t have a drive thru at our building. Well, not until this moment.

What happened? We still don’t know.

The man who opened up our building was from Africa and couldn’t explain it to us. He didn’t speak English well enough. CRF has been very active in going to Africans. Now one was coming to us. He went through great effort to get into our building. He had to drive through a big parking lot of the church building next door. Then he had to jump a big curb. Next he had to drive through our lawn. Ultimately he had to crash through a brick wall.
Julie sits with her desk right up against the wall. Her son needed something at school, and she had left thirty minutes early to help him — or she would have been sitting right where he came through. What a blessing it was that she was not sitting there when the truck came through our building.

Here is what I wanted to share with you besides this bizarre story. We are needing to do some remodeling (or restoring) because of this disaster. Since we are doing this area, it is a good time to freshen up the rest of the building. When I first came to work at the CRF building, it was really in need of refurbishing. But I wanted to focus on the unsponsored children that we had.

Now we’re caught up on all of our sponsored children and we simply need to clean the office up with painting, carpet, etc. With the hole in the building it is time to remodel.

We didn’t see this coming! We didn’t really plan on this need. The insurance company is not paying for all of it. Can you help the helpers? We try not to spend much money on the home front. But now is the time. If you can send us some help for the remodeling, we promise we will continue to use our facility in a great way to help needy children around the world.  - Milton Jones

Could you help us fix our building?


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In Uncategorized

Letters for Lavin

Check out this great blog post from Emily, a CRF Child Sponsor.  You can read more of her posts on her blog, Emily is Smiling.

And for our sponsors: Have you written your child lately?
Why not do it today?

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Every month for 2013, I will be sending a letter to my sponsored daughter, Lavin.  Sponsored children love communicating with their adopted parents.  It means the world to them!
This month, I already sent a letter to Lavin, telling her that I would be returning to Kenya in June of this year.  However, I have another card to send to my sweet girl, so I thought I would share it with you to possibly help inspire you of ideas of what to send to your sponsored child.

(more…)


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Devotions

We’re Putting Libraries in Students’ Hands!

Imagine a school with no books.

This might be difficult for you to fathom — How can students learn without books?

But for students in developing nations this situation is all too familiar. In Kenya, many students are lucky to have one tattered textbook to share with 6 other students. They stay late into the evening copying the content by hand into their personal notebooks — a process that leaves little time for actual study or understanding of the material.

This scarcity of textbooks is a huge roadblock to learning, but we are happy to announce an exciting new solution to put an entire library of books in each of our students’ hands!

CRF has just been approved by WorldReader to be a partner in their efforts to put books into impoverished children’s hands. WorldReader (www.worldreader.org) is a nonprofit organization based in Seattle and founded by a former Amazon.com executive. Their mission statement is pretty simple… Books for all. They have approached most of the publishing houses in the world to get electronic downloads of their libraries for little to no cost. They pre-load these books on eReaders that they sell at cost to nonprofits like CRF to help educate children around the world.

CRF just launched our first eReader program at our new Suzy Peacock Memorial High School in Eldoret, Kenya. Jake Reeves, a missionary from Amarillo has been helping with the launch. We received our first 50 eReaders loaded with Kenyan textbooks and classic literature. And the eReaders even have wi-fi capability so students can do research assignments on the internet.

Our teachers are amazed at the technology, and our students are excited at the opportunity. They know they are blessed with a gift that no other school in the district has.

We think this is just the beginning. Our goal is to have each class at Suzy Peacock outfitted with eReaders. That means we need at least 100 more.

Here is how you can help build on this momentum. Each eReader costs CRF about $200. We have to buy them in blocks of 50, so that is a $10,000 investment. That cost is a fraction of the cost of 100 books and made even more miniscule if you multiply that by the 50 eReaders. We have a generous donor that will match any donation made in 2013 for eReaders up to $10,000! That is a great start. Can you help us get to $10,000 and give every child at Suzy Peacock a chance to learn?

Donate now to provide
more eReaders!


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Education

Elvis Has Left the Building

Elvis Otieno Ohonga in 2008

Elvis is one of our greatest CRF legends. When he was in primary school at the Ring Road Orphan’s Day School, the Kenyan government tried to shut down this school with the putdown that AIDS orphans weren’t smart and our school in the slum was not up to standards. Our school was made to jump through all kinds of hoops until the ultimate challenge came one day.

The government made all of our students take the national achievement test to prove the academic inadequacies of our children. There was one problem for the educational powers that be in Kenya — they underestimated Elvis. (more…)


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Education

UPDATED: Pray for Emmanuel

UPDATE – APRIL 8:

Last Friday we asked  you to pray for Emmanuel Namunyu, the founder and director of Eruli Children’s Center in Bungoma, Kenya.

Emmanuel is a man who has given his life to helping orphans.  And now his life is at risk due to thyroid cancer.

We let you know that Emmanuel was heading into surgery to remove the cancer.  And many of you requested an update as soon as we heard something.

Here is what we know at this time:
Emmanuel’s surgery has been postponed.  On the day of the surgery, doctors decided that some further testing was required before the operation could be completed safely.
While this was some frustrating information to receive, we want the doctors to be absolutely certain that they are treating Emmanuel correctly.

The operation has now been rescheduled for April 25th. Please mark you calendars and remember to pray for Emmanuel on that day.Emmanuel, the Namunyu family and all of Emmanuel’s kids are very grateful for your continued prayer and support.  We will keep you updated via this blog post when Emmanuel is able to have surgery later this month.

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The stories about Emmanuel Namunyu are legendary.

His ministry with CRF is expanding daily. Hundreds of orphans are under his care.

You may have read in our February newsletter that Emmanuel has thyroid cancer. Doctors have told us that the best path forward is extensive surgery and radiation treatment. So Emmanuel is having surgery today.

Emmanuel needs our prayers!

We ask you to join with us at CRF in praying for a successful surgery, a quick recovery and full healing from this cancer.

We need Emmanuel!  We are trusting God to care for him.

Emmanuel never neglects a needy child.  Let us not neglect to pray for Emmanuel in his time of need.

WE WILL BE UPDATING THIS BLOG POST AS WE GET REPORTS.

 


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In Africa, Child Sponsorship, Health