Second year anniversary!! 17th January, 2012 saw us land here in Kenya. Although we had been travelling many times to Kenya over the years, we have now com-pleted our two years as residents. We are so grateful to God for keeping us safe and to all of you for your continued support, care and prayers.

We arrived here in 2012 with the express purpose of looking after the group of ex-street boys. If you look at them now, you would not know they once lived on the streets of Kenya.

l to r: Kirwa, Ephantus, Peter, Sam, Ibrahim, getting ready to go to the 31st December overnight prayer meeting in their church.

As last year, on 1st January we reached out to the street community. This year we bought 100 loaves of bread, 100 bananas and 200 packets of milk. Then we took these goods to the town and distributed them to street children and families. We met one boy, about 12 years old, who was very sick and hardly had enough energy to sit up and eat what we had given him. One day a year seems rather pathetic, but is all we can manage for the time being. It is heart breaking to see the state of some of the children on the street.

2013 for our young men. Nelson Our eldest boy started his second semester of

the first year in January ‘13 at the University of Nairobi, Law school, but it was very clear to us that his heart was in teaching drama to secondary students. He began to lose his way but with the extra help of one of his spon-sors, who is a foster carer it England, and the generosity of the A-Kili foundation and Mr Kili himself, Nelson is now back on track and, about to start the second year of studies. Nelson has also been working in a law firm for work experience and to show his gratitude to the Kili family.

Daniel Our footballer spent the year training with Nairobi City Stars, a first division team. However he was not signed for them and as 2014 has started, it is clear that he has to consider ‘plan B’. He is looking into starting his own business, or going to a vocational college. We are working with him on this. He is living with Nelson in Nairobi.

Isaac Bible college was the choice for Isaac as he left school in No-vember 2012 and he joined a college in Nairobi in February 2013. His course included a mission to the Garissa area of Kenya, a known trouble spot for Al-Shabbab terrorists. How-ever the course abruptly stopped in July and so he has now gone to business college alongside successfully obtaining a mi-cro-finance loan to join family members in the importing trade. We hope that he will be standing on his own by the end of this

year. He is living at home with us at the moment. Peter This young man feels injustice very keenly and this got him into trouble in July with his school. He was punished for something he did but the accuser should have also been punished, having broken the same rule, but

Nelson in his law office.

got away with it. The upshot of it all was that , due to a reconciliation with his father during the year, he moved from boarding school to a day school near his family. He now lives in his own place besides his fa-ther’s small home and near his sisters’ place too. The boys were given a set of Monopoly at Christmas

and Peter’s shrewd business mind came to the fore!! Sam Sam, as already mentioned, started day school in September and lives at home with us. He has a few allergies and one that affects his eyes. Fortunately, we have met an English optician who diagnosed his problem and he has been treated accord-ingly. Unfortunately the dust in Nakuru exacerbates the problem. Kirwa

Kirwa spent the whole of last year in day school here in Nakuru. He was quickly voted in his school as a prefect and has been on the school council as the aca-demics rep! Kirwa’s headmaster attends the same church as Kirwa, which makes for good relationships. We enjoy Kirwa’s happy disposition.

Ibrahim This young man has a real talent for music. In 2013 he recorded his first song and has an album in production. He is studying computers in school, (the only one in the school), and I am his teacher. I go in twice a week for this. He needed his birth certificate for registration for his final exams and thanks to a friend in the town of Bahati, he got it just in time for the deadline. He also asked if our home could be used as a music video venue! We agreed, and he got to appear in the 3 minute movie!!

Sam in the garden

Kirwa with his niece

Ibrahim with his Mum

Ephantus Daniel’s younger brother is also sporty but realises that he needs to put football, rugby and handball on hold for this last year of school. He is our servant hearted boy. He loves his school and looks forward to completing his schooling this year. He has been asked to speak at the Christian Union in April this year in his school. James The third brother, with Daniel and

Ephantus, started his secondary school in February, 2013 in St Mary’s Boys, Nyeri. Having done a year now, the initial shock of senior school over, he is beginning to understand and get a real grip of the subjects he has to study, but when at home for the holidays he is rather attached to the play station!! Peter, Sam, Kirwa, Ibrahim and Ephantus are in form 4. This is their last year of secon-dary school here. There is a lot of unreasonable pressure to succeed in school, and we are trying to help them see that whatever their grades are at the end of the year, we know that they’ll do their best. The exams they take in Oct/Nov will determine the fu-ture they take. Please pray for them. Christmas 2013 While the boys were on their ‘home visits’ during December, we played host on Christ-mas Day to the Brooks family. Kate’s father had paid for new bikes for the family and we hid them in our house! The whole family came on 25th and having received a small gift each, went out into the garden to play while we brought out the bikes! A great surprise! Later that day we were able to Skype, not only our home church for a few min-utes but many of our family. We love the technology that keeps us in touch with home!

Ephantus working

at the Shire

James pointing to Lake Elementitia

2013 in and around Nakuru Our lads apart, we have also been involved with other people and charitable works:

Matt: Having some experience of writing for project funding I was asked to write for

two Kenyan works, Baraka Academy and A-Kili foundation. Teaching in the 9-13 Sunday School every other week. Speaking about once a month in the church service Teaching guitar to 13 year old Makena Brooks Designing buildings for the Brooks, and Life

Changing church. Teaching computer studies in one school Taking assemblies, (up to an hour long), in

several secondary schools. Michelle: Teaching in the 4-9(ish) Sunday School with

an interpreter every third week. Making Advent crafts with the Brooks chil-

dren. Helping with the Brooks home schooling

Both: Singing every week with the Sunday School children. Old and new songs. Getting involved with A-Kili foundation by opening Youth Information Centres and a dormi-tory block in Eldoret area. Attending Miss Kili’s Uni graduation and hearing former President Moi speak. Meeting up with other Nakuru Missionaries since September Meeting up with Phil and Fiona Harvey, who

work in St Andrew’s School, Turi Hosting visitors from UK: Kin, Jamie, David, Dave Orange and friends, and re-

cently Chris French, all whose visits have been a blessing. And of course looking after the lads, during the school holidays, and also help-

ing the ones in day school with homework, and directing those who have left school too.

And 2014? And as we look forward to 2014, already we have requests to help with different pro-jects in Eldoret and Oliotokitok. We are also beginning to plan for the future for the five boys who are finishing school this November.

The home for ‘A future and a hope’ the

Brooks’ charitable work, just outside Nakuru.

The mission community in Nakuru at the

Christmas BBQ gathering.

2013 Finances We have been so grateful to everyone one has given towards our project or ourselves personally. We endeavour to thank each one, but several gifts have come in anony-mously , so here is your thanks! God has been very good to meet our needs for the year. We give Him praise for all we have received. Here is the breakdown of the Child2Child costs for the year. This does not include our personal income or expenditure.

Income—£13397 Breakdown Sponsors £6175 Churches & Individuals £4295 Gift aid £ 810 Children £ 255 Local Gifts £1862 Expenditure—£ 11218 Breakdown School & Uni costs £3808 Transport £1117 Medical £ 250 Living costs £5212 Pocket money £ 349 Clothes & shoes £ 299 Other £ 183

Since most of our income is in UK pounds, but all our expenditure is in Kenya shillings, it is not easy to give a perfect breakdown because of the fluctuating exchange rate during the year. The above figures are a rough, but pretty close guide! We personally cover the main house rent and services, but the living costs noted include rent paid on our boys’ Nairobi apartment.

Brought forward from 2012 -£1232.00

Income £13397

Total £12165

Less

Expenditure £11218

Carried forward to 2014 £947

Personal news from 2013 We had a really good time in England during our home visit. The trips home included my small heart operation, our mission confer-

ence, our youngest daughter’s wedding, our eldest daughter’s baptism, our youngest grandchild’s dedication, to name but the highlights! Over here we have benefitted from new friendships with other people and missionaries working

here too. It is really important for us to have contact with those we know whether through a text, a letter, facebook, a phone call, email or Skype. Our homegroup in our church in

Worthing Skyped us in December, and it was so good to see our friends. We talk to our family very often, even reading to Regi once through the computer. Our girls put up pictures of the grand-children regularly so we can see them growing up! Thanks to everyone who prayed, wrote, facebooked, emailed, gave, visited here and at home.

Our Child2Child office is in Manchester and Beccy Judson manages that along with Syl Davis and others, sending out snail mail copies of our news. Our thanks go to them for all they do for us. If you want to be further involved in our project or sponsor one of our boys, then write to them at:

35 Agnes Street, Levenshulme, Manchester, M19 3AY Or email us direct at:

child2child@gmail.com

So in the words of a hymn we use to sing in our home church in Worthing...

“We’ll praise Him for all that is past, And trust Him for all that’s to come”

Matthew and Michelle Barrow Child2Child

P O Box 18112-20100 Nakuru Kenya

+254 702264298 http://child2child.webnode.com

Granddad reads Peppa Pig!