From Seeds to Stories: The Kenya Widows and Orphans Journey

Tim Neal: Good morning.
Hello.
My name is Tim Neal.
I am the executive director of Kenya Widows and Orphans Ministries.
I'm also the executive minister at the Golf Course Road Church of Christ.
About 25 years ago, Golf Course Road was engaged in a ministry called World Bible School.
World Bible School is an old-fashioned correspondence course where you study the Bible with an American,
and we would focus on English-speaking countries all around the world.
Our church got to focus on Kenya.
And through that work, we had a leader who invested a lot of time and energy into the students that he met through that program.
He eventually traveled to Kenya and met with them and hired them to be evangelists,
basically to go out and follow up on the students that World Bible School had been cultivating.
And through that process, he cultivated a core group of leaders in Kenya
that would become the backbone of an orphans care work that is now going on for 15 years.
We didn't set out to take care of orphans.
We had no great plan to be the Americans to come in and save the Kenyan kids.
All we were trying to do was spread the gospel.
That's all.
And God turned it into something spectacular and huge.
So today in Kenya, almost 3,000 orphans and widows receive care and support through Quo Ministries facilities all over the country.
and all that happened because one man was faithful to share the gospel in the way that he knew how
one of the great people that we have met on this road instrumental to its success both in the world
bible school program and through the orphans care work is Mauryn Mbuvi who's with us here today
She is the financial overseer for KWO in Kenya, and she manages all of our funds that go there
and get dispersed to the various directors and orphanages.
And she's my very good friend, and now I'd like for her to speak to you as well.
Please welcome.
Mauryn Mbuvi: God is good, and all the time.
In Kenya we say, "And that is nature."
Wow.
My name is Mauryn Mbuvi. I'm from Kenya, Nairobi.
And I'm so humbled to be here this morning, to be here in the Lubbock University.
And I started working with World Bible School in 1999.
And in 2005, that's when we started our first orphanage.
We have so many success stories of how these orphans have passed through their orphanages
until they went to the vocational training college that's located in Sondu, that's in the western part of Kenya.
And after their graduation, they usually get a job, which is very rare in Kenya,
considering the employment rate, which is very low.
I have so many success stories that I can tell you this morning, but let me focus with one called Kalonzo.
Kalonzo is born in Homa Bay, that's in Nyanza province,
And he has both of his parents.
Then his dad died.
And after a few years, the mom also passed away.
And Kalonzo is left with only his grandmother, who is very old and also is ailing.
We have an orphanage called Ndiwa Orphanage or Gulf Coast Road Orphanage.
They took that name.
And the grandmother took him there.
The director is called Alfayo Bodi.
And Alfayo meets Kalonzo for the first time and took him in.
as a very young boy.
And he went through the primary school in Kenya,
and when he reached grade 8, he went to high school.
And he did the four years in high school, and he finished.
He went to our vocational college called Vocational DeFoe and Mary Sue College.
It's named after the person that you've been told about that started this program.
And he went there and studied electricals or electronics.
and it's only done in one year program.
And Kalonzo persistently did that
and graduated after one year.
Kalonzo went out of the orphanage of the VTC
and went out to look for work.
He got a job and was employed as an electrician
and he did that job so well
and he used to save his money
and Kalonzo opened his own shop
that he sells the electrical stuff
and he also employed himself
that he would go out and look for contracts
for people to just give him
and be able to work the electronic stuff
that you need in your house.
Like right now I'm talking,
we are so proud of Kalonzo
that he managed to buy himself a piece of land
and Kalonzo has built himself a house
and he has employed some of the people in Kenya
in his electrical shop
and it has a bright future just because of this organization.
Like I said earlier, this is just one of the people or the students
that I'm giving you their success stories.
We have so many that have passed through the Kenya Widows and Orphans Ministries
and until the Vocational Training College and are now having their own families
and like they wouldn't have even dreamt of having a family or having their own houses
or having been employed or having getting a job
just because of one person that decided he would be of help to the needy in Kenya.
Thank you so much for listening to us.
We hope that you'll be purpose to be a part of KWO Ministries,
and God bless you.
You are dismissed.
Thank you.