TLC Children's Trust NEWS UPDATE
14th June 2017
I’m sorry that we did not send out a newsletter in April as we normally do but Marilyn was very ill with infection in her legs and feet and was on very strong steroids but we thank God she is recovering well. Thank you to all who knew about this through Facebook and prayed for her.
Also a very big thank you to those who sent extra gifts over the past few months because as you know we do not yet have enough sponsors and there has been a dramatic increase in food prices in Kenya.
We want to praise God for our trustee Val Norton who has done had a lot of fund raising for the extra things that we need. She makes and sells crafts, does car boot sales, and has set herself up with a trolley with everything she needs to do ladies nails. She is an ex-beauty therapist. In her beautiful garden in East Yorkshire she has a cabin called Ann’s Retreat where people can come and spend time relaxing, praying, reading etc. There is no charge for using the cabin but donations are accepted towards TLC Children’s Trust. You can see pictures at https://www.facebook.com/AnnsRetreat/ or contact to make enquiries or a booking at annsretreat@hotmail.com
Keith, Val’s husband and sidekick, has helped by making a lot of the crafts and he decided that he wanted to do something for the students and children himself so even though he is in his 70th year he trained very hard and ran a 10 km race for which he was sponsored and raised £250 which paid for our children to have nice warm play jumpers as the weather is getting a bit cooler now with the heavy rain.
The jumpers have hoods and are all different because we wanted the children to have jumpers which they liked not which will look like a uniform.
We are delighted that Keith has agreed to become a trustee as well.
We praise God for one of our sponsors who is also a friend who put out a challenge that he would equal any gift of £20 or over that was given for a minimum of 12 months. We thank the three people who took up the challenge and now with the doubling up we receive an extra £240 per month which makes a tremendous difference.
We also want to thank a Christian friend who meets with a businessman who has a charity trust. They meet a few times a year and our friend let’s him know about our needs. As result we were recently given £1000 with which we were able to replace all of our chickens as our previous chickens got a virus and died but they did give us eggs for 18 months. These eggs are so important for our children’s health. With the gift we have also been able to replant our farm field which in the past gave us a lot of vegetables. We also bought medicine and supplies for our first aid room and a volleyball net and other things that the children and students needed for the Saturday clubs.
On Saturdays we have a drama club, debating club, journalism club, first aid club, etc.
We have faced some real challenges but praise God that He has answered our prayers and everything has worked out really well.
Anne our social worker left us two months ago because of personal problems. She was very good with children but could not get on with the rest of the staff.
Hellen, Erick’s wife, had a miscarriage about five months ago when she was two months pregnant and then she started to have emotional problems. We kept asking her if she needed time off but she refused and a month ago, when Erick was away at a conference, she walked out of Home of Peace, packed her bags, said goodbye to her children and left. She came back a week later and we have had medical tests done which showed she was anemic and had hormonal problems. We are trying to arrange appropriate counselling for her but she is no longer working at Home of Peace.
Christine who was a house mother to the small boys has not been well for the last two years and was working part time. She became a really ill just over a month ago and we retired her with full pay but sadly she died last week and her funeral is taking place this Saturday. Please pray for her 2 daughters who are 13 and 15 years old and living in our staff house. Naturally we will do our best to help them now and in the future.
As a result of this we had the problem of no manager, no social worker, and no house mother for the young boy’s. But God has answered our prayers in a wonderful way.
Faith , who was our wonderful girls house mother and assistant matron and left us to go to College to train as a social worker (although she came back to the home every weekend and for school holidays) decided to come back to Home of Peace and to finish her studies at an online College in Nairobi which means she will be able to qualify as a social worker in another year as she already has done a year’s training.
Faith has now become one of our Department Managers in charge of all the female staff. She and Erick went to see the District Children’s Officer and they were so impressed with her that they have said that she can be our Social Worker as long as she continues with her studies and finishes the course.
Erick , our hard working administrator has become the other Department Manager in charge of all the male staff. He also buys all the food and other supplies and maintains the financial records which he sends back to us for checking every month.
This is working well and Marilyn is now the overall manager as she is available whenever they need her.
Previously she was working with Hellen who was the manager and made herself available on a daily basis. Having Marilyn as the Manager takes some of the pressure off of Faith and Erick.
We needed another Senior House Mother and Florence , who was a boy’s house mother has now become the senior house mother and a member of the leadership team with Erick and Faith. For those who have been involved with Home of Peace for a long time you will remember that when we first started we had a voluntary manager for 4 years by the name of Elder James. Florence is his wife
Millicent has been appointed as the house mother for the young boys in the junior dormitory taking over from Christine. In the picture you can see her being shown how things need to be done.
Grace is now the house mother for the girl’s dormitories.
There are both doing a very good job but please do pray for them.
We are actively looking for a man who will be the house father for the boys at night as well as a handyman.
Earlier this year we were approached by the local community elder who said that the community have a 2 acre plot of ground that is not being used.
They said we can have the use of it free for at least 1 year as an additional playing field for our children.
Our staff and older children worked hard and cleared the field so now it can be used for football, volleyball, etc.
Please pray for all of our staff and children and please do pray for more sponsors!
Do You Enjoy A Challenge?
We need a businessman or woman who is willing to take on a challenge to approach other businesses and ask them to help us provide transport for the children and staff at Home of Peace.
We are in a remote location well off the beaten track and have no transport. When anyone is ill and needs to go to the clinic or the hospital, go to the bank, do shopping they have to phone for a TutTut (motorbike taxi). These are not safe and there have been a couple of accidents recently.
When we purchase anything such as groceries or other goods we have to hire a van and driver to have them delivered. This is both costly and not an ideal solution.
We would love to be able to supply Home of Peace with a 4×4 vehicle and have seen them advertised in the area for around £5,000 plus £500 for insurance and tax.
Would you be willing to accept this challenge and make it your project to raise these funds?
It will make an enormous difference to the lives of the children and staff.
If you are interested please contact Ray who is the TLC Treasurer to discuss this with him.
God bless you,
Love in Jesus,
Marilyn and Ray
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God bless you,Ray & Marilyn
Ray & Marilyn