Kisima academy

For people who send Kisima Academy donations directly to FTKI, the address has changed. It is now: FTKI, 6614 Van Winkle Dr., Falls Church, VA 22044.



Kisima Academy, a mission of COS, is a Christian orphanage and school in rural western Kenya.


The rainy season has started bringing relief from the hot, dry, dusty conditions of a Kenyan summer. Crops, which grow in the cooler season, have been planted and fodder for the cows will be available again. The Equator goes right through Kenya but it’s not as hot as you would think because Kisima is at 7000 ft. above sea level.


The government has been rolling out new requirements for continuing teacher education and for extracurricular activities including drama, music, and athletics. A district-wide arts festival was held recently and Kisima came in first overall. The children were excited to take four firsts, in cultural dance, in a play performance, as best male actor, and as best female soloist in cultural dance, and another four second and third places.


In sad news, the cook died very suddenly last week. He was the sole support of his two wives and six children. Please pray for his family.


If you are interested in being a blessing to the children at Kisima (and being blessed in return!) by making a visit there this fall, please contact me. A typical trip includes a day in Nairobi to visit the ele-phant orphanage and the giraffe refuge, five days of activities at Kisima, a day at Kakamega Forest (the last remaining tropical rainforest in Kenya and an area rich with birds and butterflies), and two days of safari in Maasai Mara. Please prayerfully consider going.


Gerda Fink, COS Kisima Committee Chair-person, www.friendsofkisima.org, on Facebook at Friends of Kisima Academy.

update

Plans are shaping up for the October trip to Kisima. There are 12 people going, half from here and half from Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The luggage allowance for Africa is two 50-lb. suitcases so we can take a lot of things to the school. We’ve been asked to bring shoes for the high school students and people here have been generous in donating gently used shoes. We’ll also be bringing books, school supplies, clothes, Frisbees, and whatever else we think would be useful there.


There are eight women and four men going. What each group does that visits Kisima depends on the interests and talents of the individuals going. My goal this time is to establish a library. Thanks to a generous donation from a COS couple and from other donations we have about 250 books so far. I’ve been busy cataloging and processing them. The children have no concept of a library so another former librarian and I will be holding classes to teach check out/check in procedures, the rudiments of the Dewey Decimal System, etc. We’ll be training student “librarians” and the teacher whose job it is to oversee the library.


Dee Butler, from here in Tellico Village, wants to teach sewing. Since home economics was removed from the curriculum several years ago that idea was enthusiastically received. Dee and a couple of others will be teaching how to sew on a button and how to sew a seam and a hem to all the students, girls and boys, from grades 5 to 8. Several others will be helping. Time permitting, she will teach cutting out a pattern, etc. She’ll be providing a sewing kit with scissors, tape measure, different colors of thread, etc., to the 8th grade girls. Martin’s wife, Margaret, said that many of the community children don’t have so much as a needle at home.


I can’t sing but a couple of the others can so I plan to teach some hymns to the younger children. A couple of the men have expressed interest in building a piece of playground equipment. One man’s interests are music and sports so he will be working in those areas. More plans will develop in the coming months.


Gerda Fink