Thursday, May 6, 2010

Daniel

Oh, my heart! I woke up today and went through my normal routine-shower, drop off kids sans makeup (I do NOT care now), come home and snuggle with Collin through Dinosaur Train and then start my work day. Today, when I was checking my email, I received the GREATEST news!

I have often spoke about Priscillah where you can read all about her here. She is such a blessing and joy in my life. Since leaving Kenya in Oct 2008, Priscillah gave birth to a sweet little boy, Daniel. Having a baby at her age-still in Secondary School- in Kenya means she is forced to drop out. Priscillah has spent the past 18 months it's been since I've hugged her living in Kibera slum with her son. I've received 3 videos and a few emails from her always in a very happy, upbeat tone and lots of smiles. She is proud of her son and loves being a mom-but she struggles, a lot.

It breaks my heart.

I spoke here about how we were going to try to get Priscillah into a program in Kitale. To make a long story short "this is Africa" is all I will say, and we were disappointed to learn that it just was not going to work out due to various barriers that came up. I was disappointed. Very. But, I still believe that God has a purpose and place for everyone-everyone....and Jesus is still the same yesterday and today-no matter what.

Last week I learned that Daniel, being almost a year old, is extremely underweight and is not developmentally on track with milestones and needs medical help. With the care of Homeless Children's International, Priscillah starts school on Monday. Daniel will also have all of his medical and nutritional needs met through sponsorship.

Priscillah has to leave her son in Kibera so she can go to school. Her sister, Anne Wango, will be caring for Daniel when Priscillah is in school. It's a huge responsibility for Anne, being she already has 2 kids of her own.

Homeless Children's International gave me permission and blessing to take Daniel for the 2 weeks we are in Kenya and travel with him to Kitale.

I'm stunned, excited, overjoyed by this opportunity. I've never met him, but I am looking forward to getting to know him more next month. I have a lot of fears-has he seen a white person before? How sick is he? I also have will have the opportunity to visit Priscillah in the school she will be at just north of Nairobi. I hope to take him there also to visit his mama-since she will only be home for 30 days every 3 months of school. I can't imagine how hard this much be for her.

Wanna help our team who leaves June 3? We are collecting various school supplies and are looking for crummy suitcases/dufflebags to put all the donations in that can be left in Kenya. If you have any of these to give, please let me know!

3 comments:

Teri said...

The Lutz fam is soooo excited to share the week with sweet Daniel!! And to meet his precious mama!!

Anonymous said...

It is so awesome to see stories like this where you and others like Kristen of We are THAT family are reaching out and spreading hope.
I am now following you on Twitter and
would love for you to follow and stop by for a cup of coffee.
Ginger
@heresmycuplord

Erin Moore said...

precious!