A Hand to Hold

By Christy Tonge

One of our favorite parts of each day was the walk to Achungo and back. Early on, when we were still only slowly making friends at Achungo, children who lived along the roadside reached out to us and befriended us with exuberance. Each day on the path as we approached, we would see a throng of little friends running out to wave and greet us. 
  The sound I will miss most when we leave Kenya --besides the joyful singing-- is the happy shout we heard without fail on our daily walk:
“Mzungu, Mzungu, How awwwww youuuuu?”

Some would holler and wave from a distance, their big grins and their enthusiasm lighting up our spirits. Others became our precious companions who would just walk up to us without a word, take our hand, and walk the path with us in sweet silence like a longtime trusted friend.  

Each time I saw these kids, it was such a tug on my heart. For one, because they were so beautiful and precious. And there was an extra tug when I saw older kids, because I realized that it was a school day, and they weren’t in school.

 

Unlike in America where every child can attend school for free, here, only those families who can afford the uniform and materials fee can send their child to school. The families of these children whom we would see on our walk were likely too poor to send them to school.

 

 
Many times, we would see kids during the school day peering through the fence of Achungo, longing to come in and take part.

In the US, it’s probably the #1 complaint most kids have – that “uggh…they have to go to school.” It sure put things in perspective to see what a dream come true it would be for children here to be able to go to school.

It made me appreciate Achungo that much more.
Since Achungo offers school for free (with uniforms and materials and meals), over 300 orphans and children whose family can’t afford school are getting an education, in an environment of love and hope. How I want to give the same gift to each of these children outside the gate as well.

I will be returning home a passionate advocate for how one person can so significantly change the life of a child. Sponsoring a child’s school fees, for what to us is a minimal amount, will transform the future entirely for that child, and for their family, and for their  children, and so on.

I will cherish those walks along the dirt path, hand in hand with our precious little companions--forever.

 

 

 

 

When I look back on my life and think of the most beautiful moments I have been privileged to have…those walks hand in hand with our treasured little friends will be among the most vivid.

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Meeting the Children of Achungo

By Christy Tonge

We woke up under our mosquito nets in our new home, eager to meet the children of Achungo. It was Monday morning…time for a brand new school week. Vincent, one of the teachers, met us at the Tausi and led us the quarter mile walk along the road to the Achungo gate.

First, we went to the “baby side” where the Preschoolers have class, and there’s a large room where breakfast porridge is served, as well as lunch (and supper for the kids who live in the Boarding House here). It was a mid-morning break for breakfast, so there were kids of all ages in their brown Achungo uniform, lined up with their cups for porridge.

Again, we faced the “all eyes on us” experience.
Kids stuck together in tight clusters, staring at the Mzungu who had arrived.
I went over for a cup of porridge, hoping it would create opportunities for interacting with kids. Not so much. They stayed in clusters, casting stares in our direction.

Fortunately, there were some kids who had no inhibitions--the Preschoolers. They became our haven. We watched them playing gleefully in the yard, and their insatiable curiosity, combined with our attempts to reach out, opened the door for our first interactions.

Hey, I recognize that butterfly backpack! How wonderful to see kids wearing the very backpacks that our friends back home had sponsored. We had purchased them at Target and sent them ahead with a visiting group 3 months before our departure, and they’d made it! :)

Next Vincent took us on a tour, starting with the Preschoolers when they were back in their room after the break. We were met with a warm welcome by teacher Diana, and 2 dozen precious, bright-eyed children. From there, we walked the path to the nearby property where the classrooms for all the other ages were. Vincent took us into each and every room from Kindergarten to 8th grade and introduced us, translating for the younger children in Luo, their local tribal language. The kids all sat in rows in their wooden bench seats. When we entered, they stood and politely greeted Vincent in unison, “Good maawning, Teacher.” There was such order and respect…a very different feel than an American classroom. As we greeted them, more wide-eyed stares fixed on us. I smiled on the outside but sighed on the inside. Starting over was hard.

After our initial introductions, it was class time for us, too. During the next period, Barry and Shayla attended Swahili class with 2nd grade, and Trevor and I chose to visit a math class in his grade—”standard 7”. Again, we were struck by the polite attentiveness of the kids, listening throughout the entire period to the teacher’s explanation at the black board, and quietly taking notes.
We met one  or 2 teachers at a time throughout the morning when they had a free period. We visited a different class each period, taking in the sights and sounds, sometimes in Swahili, sometimes in English. In the 8th grade room there were posters on the walls that students had made about AIDS.

 
It was eye-opening all over again, just like it had been in Uganda, to realize that every child here likely knows someone who had died of AIDS. Tragically, for many of them, it was their own mom, dad, or family member. As I looked at their hand-drawn visuals around the room, I was hit with the sobering reminder that suffering and loss are part of the fabric of life here in East Africa.

For lunch, we walked back to the other property  with teacher Salim, our “first friend” we’d met in town the night before. As we talked, I could see that he was passionate about Social Studies, and that he cared deeply about the kids.

We tried to reach out to the students at lunch time to initiate informal conversation, but they were intimidated. It was still mostly stares from a distance. After our close relationship with the kids at Ilula, we had arrived here ready to develop the same kind of friendship, and we hadn’t expected so much hesitation. But we realized that the kids we’d grown so close to at Empowering Lives were used to having Mzungu visitors, and it was far more foreign for these kids to have much interaction with Westerners. For the rest of the day and for the next few days following, we grafted into the routine at Achungo, reminding ourselves that it would take time before they felt at home with us. Nevertheless, our hearts were sinking on the inside when our efforts failed, especially when some of the kids even scattered and ran when we walked in their direction to greet them. This is going to take longer than we thought.

Meanwhile, we continued enjoying the connection with the little ones who gravitated toward our playful antics (and who couldn’t resist Barry’s silliness!).

 

 

 

It became our routine to start each day in the Preschool classroom. We taught them English songs, and soon enough, they had “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” mastered, in their sweet Kenyan accents and animated hand motions.

When they practiced writing alphabet letters, we got to join in as “teachers” as they came to show us their work when they completed a letter. I noticed that the line-up to show Teacher Trevor and Teacher Shayla, was always longer than the rest!

 
With the older kids, we got to take part in classes, flag pole gatherings, meal times and break times.
  Day by day, we started forming connections, first with one or a few of the braver kids in their class, who became a bridge to the others. The biggest breakthrough came through music! Mercy, one of the brave ones in 4th grade, pleaded with us to come to her classroom during the morning break with the guitar to sing songs. Once we started, no one left for recess. The whole room broke out in song, first with a few songs that we led, and then they took over from there! Everyone joined in, with clapping and motions and laughter.
I loved seeing how music was such a part of them, and how much JOY filled the room. From there, we had “representatives” from other classrooms asking us to visit their class too.

The doors opened for more interaction from there. We got to lead collaborative games at PE, and see their playful and silly sides begin to come out. 

We taught them some things, but they also graciously taught us—
sharing about their culture and their traditions and more. Some adopted us as their pupils and taught us words and phrases in Swahili, and in their mother tongue, too.

Little by little, as they saw that it was safe to interact with this crazy Mzungu family, our relationships began to grow.

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Heading to Achungo Children’s Centre

By Christy Tonge

The 4 hour drive from Empowering Lives in Eldoret Kenya to our next destination was beautiful—a winding road through rolling green hills and lush valleys, and fields of sugar cane waving in the breeze.
As we rode along, though, I felt an ache in my heart the entire way, still reflecting on our emotional goodbyes. I was already missing Kelvin and Mercy and Sarah and Winny and Magdaline, and all our precious “Littles” who came running to take our hands wherever we walked. What do I do with this deep love and longing I feel for several of the children I connected with? Will I get to see them again? How can we take part in their lives? Their smiles, their sparkle, their voices, their stories—they are imprinted deeply on my heart.

Now we would be starting over again—which, we knew from prior experience after pouring ourselves out and becoming really attached—is really hard. We were excited though. We had seen many photos… and heard many stories about the wonderful children at Achungo’s school for orphans, and now we were almost here! It was definitely another “HGAC” (Haven’t Got A Clue) moment for us as we neared the little town of Rodi where Achungo School resides. We didn’t know what our accommodations would be like (this wasn’t it!)…  what food we would eat, whether we would be received warmly or not, and so on. We arrived to our new “home”—a motel a few hundred yards from Achungo school—at about 6pm. It was golden time, so we dropped our bags in our room, eager to explore “town” before the sun was fully set, and before we’d meet Achungo’s founder & Director, Michael Nyangi, for some dinner.

We walked to the corner, which seemed to be the main “intersection” of the town of Rodi. No traffic lights here. We turned right to walk up this bustling “main street.”

There were lots of tin roof shops, and a row of women on each side of the road with their mangos or bananas or pineapples laid out for sale in front of them. Mmmmm…Pineapple! We hadn’t had much fruit beyond bananas during the last 2 months, so we were excited!
We strolled down one side of the road and came back up the other in the glow of dusk. We heard people calling, whispering and uttering “Mzungu” (white one) in our wake, and we felt the parade of “all eyes on us” as we wove our way through the milling crowds. It was impossible to be inconspicuous in Rodi! We were definitely the only “white ones” in town. When we were on our way back to the Tausi motel, a Kenyan man came up to us from behind and asked us, “Are you from California?” Wow…he even spotted that we were from California…are we that obvious!?

It turns out he was a teacher at Achungo School named Salim, walking back home from town (there’s Salim in a photo a few days later with Barry and Trev). He said he had heard we were coming. He told us he was also the Boarding House supervisor for the 7th and 8th grade kids who lived at Achungo. We stood chatting for awhile at the edge of the road as packed moto taxis zoomed by.
We were delighted that we “bumped” into him and grateful for his warm welcome. It made us even more excited to meet the kids of Achungo, and the other teachers.

When we got to the Tausi dining room a little after 7pm, Michael had arrived before us and had already ordered “supper.” (Here’s a photo of Michael with kids of Achungo).

We took a look at the menu and fumbled our way through it, ordering a few items with hopes that it would all work out since we were quite hungry. It wasn’t long before they brought Michael his plate—it was a whole fish, deep fried, with its big “fish eye” staring up at Michael. His meal was accompanied by traditional food we knew quite well already from our last home: ugali (dry, tasteless white pasty stuff), and sukumawiki (kale). As Michael extracted the fish meat from the bones by hand, he shared the story with us of how he had first founded Achungo.

He himself had grown up nearby in a very poor family. He lost his father at the age of 7.  When he was 10, he had had a painful tumor in his leg, which caused him to miss school for 3 years. He described how his friends would come over and he would cry afterwards because they could to go school and he couldn’t. Eventually, someone took him to a prayer meeting on a bicycle, and following the meeting, his tumor was healed! Through the generosity of some caring individuals, he was able to continue schooling, and even go to college. He graduated, with the prospect of a career as an accountant in Nairobi. That wasn’t his destiny, it turns out.

When walking to work along the train tracks in a slum area, his heart was broken at the sight of women, hungry and begging, trying to provide for their family. That prompted him at age 22 to lend $20 from his own pocket to each of two single, destitute women with babies. Each woman turned the money into a business selling roasted corn and other vegetables along a busy railroad track. This was the start of a micro-financing organization he founded, giving up his accounting career and his path of financial security. The organization soon grew to a 15-person office and the success of his endeavors led to Michael’s invitation to speak on poverty before the  UN in 2008. During this time, Michael also started taking orphans into his own home and recruiting some local widows to do likewise. Others noticed Michael's ability to bring together the needed resources to care for the growing number of destitute children, and more children arrived on his doorsteps.

In 2005, Michael officially opened Achungo Children’s Center – a school which has now grown to support over 300 orphaned and/or impoverished kids. He shared how well the first class of 8th grade graduates recently did on their national exam, and how every single one of them qualified to go to secondary school—a huge accomplishment! He went on to share more of his vision now that they had reached some exciting academic milestones. He told us his vision to have a bus to be able to take kids out on field trips and provide them with exposure beyond Rodi. And he wants to open an Achungo secondary school, so kids can continue to thrive in a supportive Achungo environment in high school. And he wants to further develop their farm property to create financial self-sustainability for Achungo. They have 50 chickens now, and he envisions 2,000. He also envisions opening a medical clinic, so the kids can have adequate medical care…And so on! It was moving to hear Michael speak with such passion about orphaned children, and with such hope and conviction about the future. “With God, all things are possible,” he said, with utter certainty. The only thing that seemed impossible was being around Michael and NOT getting energized by the incredible things that were already taking place, and by the possibilities yet to come for these kids, and hundreds more!

We were captivated to hear Michael’s stories—captivated, that is, until our stomachs reminded us how hungry we were. The food was taking a LOOONG time. It had been over an hour, and we didn’t see any sign of it. At one point, they came back to tell Barry that they couldn’t make his vegetable dish, so he chose something else. We immersed further in Michael’s stories, trying to ignore the hunger pangs. I tried to focus wholly on what he was saying, despite my mind wandering to thoughts of “How much longer would it be??” before they brought the food. It was now nearing 9:00pm. What could be taking this long? Were they slaughtering the chicken out back?? I tried casting some compassionate “I-know-this-is-hard” glances across the table to Shay and Trevor.

At one point, I considered acknowledging with Michael that the kids were “hanging in there” since we aren’t used to eating so late and our last meal was over 8 hours ago…and perhaps excusing them to  get a granola bar from our room. But as soon as I had that thought, I could only imagine what would be a natural thought to flash through his mind: “Oh--you know nothing  about hunger, Tonge family.” He has seen orphans go for days without food and weeks or months without meat, I am certain. How many children has he seen with swollen bellies from starvation or malnutrition?
It put things in perspective real fast! Our discomfort was merely a glimpse of the struggle for food that so many children and families face here every day.

Nonetheless, I was filled with gratitude and appreciation for Shayla and Trevor for being such troopers, sitting so patiently listening to 2 hours of “grown-up” conversation after a very looong day of emotional goodbyes, and hours on the road, and facing--at least for us—an “empty stomach.” I wished I could give them a huge hug from across the table for being such good sports through all the unfamiliar and all the unknowns!

FINALLY…the food came!
Yahooooo! Man, did it hit the spot for all of us!
And how fitting perhaps, that we began our time at Achungo with a tiny glimpse of what it feels like to be hungry.

After our meal, we said goodnight to Michael and retired for bed under our mosquito nets, excited for the morning when we would get to meet the kids.

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Friendship Bracelets: Spreading the LOVE

By Shayla Tonge

Many of you have asked for updates on how many Friendship Bracelets we have given to children around the world so far. Thanks to many of you who helped us make a record-breaking number of them (BTW, we are still waiting to hear from Guinness about our record designation, and we’ll let you know when we have official word)—but thanks to you, we have been able to share oooooodles of them with kids of many different languages! Here’s a recap of the joyous giving so far–in India, Thailand, Uganda and our first stop in Kenya.


INDIA – LITTLE FLOCK CHILDREN’S HOME
At Little Flock Children’s Home we shared 30 bracelets with the children whom we’d come to love. It was sweet to give them a special momento when it was time to say farewell. Once we had tied one on each child’s wrist, we had a BIG group hug and sang a song we had sung together: “Here we are, gathered  together as a family…” It most definitely felt like we had formed family ties. It was comforting to remind them that whenever they looked at the colorful bracelet, they would know we are thinking of them. What a precious reminder.


Oh how I love these precious sisters of mine!



INDIA – SNAKE VILLAGE
Snake Village was one of my favorite places to visit near Little Flock and it only felt right to share friendship bracelets with the children there. They had shared so much JOY with us in so little time, and that’s what friends are for. We were able to give about 40 bracelets and each kid absolutely lit up when they got to choose their favorite colors.
















THAILAND – BOYS’ & GIRLS’ HOMES
On our last few visits we tied 60 bracelets in the Girls’ and Boys’ Homes of Help Thailand. They loved it. Even though we couldn’t speak Thai, we had connected through playing UNO, singing together, eating, beading, and playing intense games of badminton and soccer. We shared lots of laughs even when we didn't have the words to say, and we left with such fond memories of our time with them.



THAILAND – HILL TRIBE VISIT
After a magically surreal day visiting a hill tribe village–being invited into homes, witnessing a traditional dance, and holding hands with so many precious little ones in their Chinese New Year robes–we stopped in the road to tie on some colorful friendship bracelets before parting. We gave away about 30 bracelets. We’d hoped to give more, but many of our sweet shadow friends had scurried away into their bamboo homes.

  


UGANDA – YOUTH LEADERSHIP CAMPAt the end of camp in Uganda, the bracelets were the most perfect gift. Our week had been so filled with joy and bonding, I felt like I was walking away with a whole pack of fun, passionate, loving brothers and sisters. It pained me that we had to part. Presenting them each a bracelet, 65 in all, was such a beautiful thing and I hope that it will help them always remember our time together. We referred to the verse “A chord of 3 strands is not easily broken,” using the bracelet with 3 colorful strands as a symbol for that. The three strands are us, them, and God. And because of those 3 components, our friendship and love for each other is not easily broken.

KENYA – SAMRO SCHOOL BOARDING STUDENTS
The friendship we have with the Samro Boarding students sprouted out of our friendship with sweet Magdaline, our first Sudanese friend who invited us to join their devotional gatherings. We loved our time with them and visited with them every chance we could, and they really seemed to latch onto our stories and our presence. When we presented all 70 of them bracelets as a final goodbye, it was a big ordeal and some of them even tied bracelets on me, making me promise not to forget them. And I sure haven’t…
 

KENYA – EMPOWERING LIVES CHILDRENS’ HOME
Saying goodbye to our ELI family was incredibly hard. We shared 60 bracelets with them, and it was the first time to tie them on so many tiny wrists.  The bracelets allowed us to express our love and gratitude for their friendship, and to remind them that there were many people in America that were thinking of them and praying for them too.





That makes a grand total of about 350 friendship bracelets that we have given so far!! We are so grateful to have met so many friends all around the world, and to have the bracelets to give to remind them that they are special and they are loved.
And it’s not over yet…We have many more countries to visit, friends to meet, and bracelets to share. To be continued! :)

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