From Paul Pearce, director of international programs:
On a recent trip to Kenya, I met a number of sponsored teenagers whose stories and challenges they are facing in their lives brought me to a new level of humility and appreciation for the promise, potential, and tremendous burdens on these young people. I won't use their names to protect their families' privacy.
In one house, I met a 15-year-old young man, who greeted us with a palpable energy and excitement. He and his mother and three younger brothers live in a very small, simple home on quarter acre of ground just outside town on the skirts of Mt. Kenya.
His father had worked hard and purchased this lot last year. The boy's parents dreamed of moving their family out of their cramped quarters in the town's slum area. In their new home, they would have room to cultivate maize (corn), potatoes and squash to help make ends meet in the most humble of family budgets.
Last year, the family worked with CFCA staff to figure out how they could tailor the benefits toward their goal of building this home. They forfeited the program's nutrition benefits for eight months in order to buy the iron sheets used for the house, where they live now. Then unexpectedly, his father died a few months ago.
We met with this youth and his mother in their little living room. When the social worker began to tell us about what the family had been through, the boy's mother could not keep her emotions in, and had to excuse herself. She stepped outside to cry, and regain her strength to visit.
I could feel the strong spirit of her husband.
The son stayed inside with us. He told us he was preparing for exams coming up that next month and hoped to continue to college. His face was bright as a star as he talked. His mother returned and sat next to him, tears still lining her eyes. She shared that their plans were to save up to run a water pipe to their house so they could begin irrigation.
The group headed outside. The boy lingered in the house a bit, still sitting tall in the chair next to me. I encouraged him in his studies, told him he was on the right path. He nodded in agreement, the same brightness in his face, but this time showing through held back tears.
I think God gave us tears for when words just don't do. I can only imagine the young man's feelings, of perhaps being rudely awakened from adolescence to head of household in a flash, his dreams of school, his father now gone, the responsibility he feels towards his mother, towards his three younger brothers.
We got up and headed outside. The young man took a moment alone to regroup. There were flowers planted around the outside of the house. I could see that they had a few potato plants started that had been watered by hand...
Please visit these blogs from the CFCA community also participating in Blog Action Day '08:
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