A Mission to Kenya
On January 10th, the Council Community Church sponsored a missions trip to Kenya. Pastor Wayne and Marj Freedman, Kathy Sandberg and Daren and Marcella Ward, all members of the church traveled to Kenya to visit the Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope schools and the Medical Clinic that the church supports as part of the Mission’s giving.
The Council Community Church has sponsored Jane (in photo above) since she was a freshman in high school. Jane is now graduating university and is planning on continuing her education to obtain her master’s degree.
In Kenya, free public education ends after middle school. High schools are largely not publicly funded and must be paid for by the student. In 2010, Dr. Vincent Kituku started a 501 (C) 3 foundation, Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope, to provide tuition for vulnerable high school and university students in his native Kenya. Through this foundation, Dr. Kituku started a girls boarding high school in 2015 and one for boys in 2021. A medical clinic for an entire community was started last year. The boys’ school has a capacity of 320 students and the girls’ school has a capacity for 480 students. The medical clinic, although it opened December of 2024, has already helped hundreds of patients, sometimes more than 100 in a day, free of charge with numerous medical conditions.
The Caring Hearts schools are among the top performing schools in Kenya with more than 75% of the students that continue on to university. The large majority of teachers at both the boys’ and girls’ schools are former beneficiaries of the sponsorship program. Some, such as the girls’ school principal, are graduates of the Caring Hearts schools, went to university and are now back to teach at the schools they graduated from.
Anyone interested in becoming a sponsor of a student or helping with the Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope organization can feel free to visit their website;
www.caringheartsandhandsofhope.org or call (208) 376-8724 for further details, including information on future trips. We would also be happy to give a 20 minute slide show presentation to anyone interested in learning more.
Our group was also fortunate to go on two safaris while in Africa, Amboseli National Park and Masai Mara park are the two we visited. We were able to see so many different animals including elephants, lions, zebras, water buffaloes, gazelles, wart hogs, wildebeests, hippopotamus and so many more.
