"My mom died of a broken heart."

Interview by, Philip M. Renicks, Ed.D
Francis Ikoha

New Dawn Educational Centre, Nairobi Kenya


Francis was born in 1990 into a Christian family in a small farming village in Western Kenya. His parents were productive framers. Francis’ earliest memories of his time on the land with his parents were working with them in the gardens and a jealous uncle who was constantly fighting with his father. The uncle claimed that the land had been divided unfairly and he wanted it all. He finally succeeded in chasing Francis’ father from the land. The family moved to a neighboring village where his father became a construction worker. He worked hard and was very successful. Unfortunately, the jealously of his brother didn’t stop. One day in 1998 they found his father beaten to death along the road. Francis mother went into shock and laid in a coma for 6 months. Following a slow recovery and continuing to mourn within 4 months she also died. Francis said, “My mom died of a broken heart.” Francis was nearly 9 years old and alone in the village with no family to care for he and his brother. He was now a “child head of household” caring for his little brother of 6 years.

Francis remembered the pain of losing both his mother and father. He lamented, “I didn’t know what to do. I started off for Nairobi thinking that I might find a home for boys that would take my brother and raise him. Someone directed me to the Don Bosco home for boys and I left him there where he remains today. From that day I began a struggle all my own. I was on the streets of Nairobi gathering garbage for a few shillings a day as a child laborer. I took the money that I earned and registered for the Kenya Primary School Certificate and I moved from grade 6 to grade 8 and graduated. I knew that I needed an education.”

Francis remained on the streets for 5 years. His time on the streets was frightening! There were the big street boys who wanted to manage him for homosexual favors for their regular clients. Francis said, “I had to hop from place to place to avoid being caught in their trap. At one point I got into a gang and was forced to steal cars and rob their drivers. I had started using glue and cigarettes and tried not to be addicted. I finally came to my senses and went to the chief of the area and asked him for help. Once he got involved, the gang stopped following me and before the month ended I was rescued from the streets by a family who provided me with shelter.”

The family that took Francis into their home connected him to the New Dawn High School. While it’s great that Francis to has a place to stay, he is living 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from school. With no money to use for transport to and from school it takes him 3 ½ hours to walk each way. He said, “I leave home in the dark in the morning and arrive home in the dark at night. After walking that far I am exhausted, I haven’t had anything to eat, and I find it hard to concentrate. I try my best and I am always in the top 10 in my class.’

Francis is a leader in the school. He is the head of the Boy Scout Troop. The Scout Troop is greatly handicapped in that Francis is one of two boys who have a uniform; they have no Scout handbooks, camping equipment or anything to make the Scouting experience real. He said, “We dream one day to have the things we need to make our scouting experience like it should be.”

“I am thankful for those who have stretched their arms across the sea to reach out to me and help me succeed. My experience at New Dawn has given me hope for the future. May God bless you for opening your hearts to me! God says he will protect you for the battle is his. He also says he is our provider for everything. Don’t worry!”

Poverty Never Takes a Holiday, from COZAY Group

“I know poverty because poverty was there before I was born and it has become part of life like the blood through my veins. Poverty is not going empty for a single day and getting something to eat the next day. Poverty is going empty with no hope for the future. Poverty is getting nobody to feel your pain and poverty is when your dreams go in vain because nobody is there to help you. Poverty is watching your mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters die in pain and in sorrow just because they couldn't get something to eat. Poverty is hearing your grandmothers and grandfathers cry out to death to come take them because they are tired of this world. Poverty is watching your own children and grandchildren die in your arms but there is nothing you can do. Poverty is watching your children and grandchildren share tears in their deepest sleep. Poverty is suffering from HIV/AIDS and dying a shameful death but nobody seems to care". " Poverty is when you hide your face and wish nobody could see you just because you feel less than a human being. Poverty is when you dream of bread and fish you never see in the day light. Poverty is when people accuse you and prosecute you for no fault of yours but who is there to say some for you? Poverty is when the hopes of your fathers and grandfathers just vanish within a blink of an eye. I know poverty and I know poverty just like I know my father's name. Poverty never sleeps. Poverty works all day and night. Poverty never takes a holiday" (One Poor African)

Kibera Slums, Nairobi, Kenya

A Day in the Slums of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
23 October 2009

The day started as any normal day would. A warm shower, a good breakfast and then off for a day of looking at schools that are already in a partnership with African Leadership and those that are potential partners. The African Leadership Director in Kenya picked us up at Grace House where we were staying and we headed for Kabira. By now I have come to know Kabira as a place where many people are ministering in the name of God and it seems that there is a church or mosque around every corner. While the churches and Christian schools are beacons of light shining in very dark places some of the mosques have proven to be for breeding ground of hatred and darkness.

We visited one school project known as Faith Community School. To get to the school we actually parked our car at a church where it would be safe and a driver from the community picked us up and drove us to the school. He is known and so is his car. The scene is hard to capture, but imagine shopping stalls made of crude materials that have been salvaged from somewhere crowded so tightly together that you couldn’t squeeze between them. Picture taking had to be done discretely and with great sensitivity. This is an area that was adversely impacted by post election violence. Reconciliation has been slow. There wasn’t enough space for the car to pass. It had been raining and the actual roadway was filled with large puddles of water and mud. The driver was a master navigator. The road was nothing more than a glorified dirt path but it had a name known as “the main road.” The shop keepers had to move their goods out of the roadway for us to pass. I tried taking pictures out the front windshield of the car but there was a glare from the sun that distorted the picture.

As we drove into the school lot the scene ahead of us was one of long corrugated tin shacks that might reminded me of a cattle shed on the farm. There was a series of doors that I surmised were an entrance to a classroom. We were right! Each room was separated from the other by another corrugated tin wall. We sat with the Bishop’s wife who is the visionary for the school. She started the school out of a compassion for the children in the neighborhood who were orphaned of AIDS and those who were so destitute they would never have an opportunity to attend a local government school that is supposed to be free.

The Bishop’s wife gave us a tour, explained her vision and shared some of the children’s stories. The school currently serves students up through grade 3. In order to provide for the students next year they will need an additional teacher. I spent time in the classroom asking the students to tell me their numbers and letters and vowel sounds. Surprisingly, they knew them out of sequence which means the teachers are doing better than just rote memorization.

The kids sat three and four to a desk and seemed bright and eager to learn. While it is obvious that the learning conditions are less than ideal, they are certainly better than nothing and learning is taking place. I am always fascinated by the eyes of children. These children were no different. Some had bright eager eyes while others had a haunting sadness.

The oppression of the evil one is so real in the slums of Kabira that you can feel it in the air. There is obviously a battle going on for the minds and hearts of these children. The school staff is making great sacrifices and a huge investment to rescue these children from the clutches of Satan and bring them into the glorious light of the Gospel. The pastor and his wife manage to scrape together enough money to provide a breakfast of porridge and then lunch before they go home. This is truly a ministry of faith as this precious couple watch and wait on God to provide for these children every day. My prayer is that God will so transform the minds and hearts of these children so that they will shine as the stars of heaven and become ambassadors of the Lord Jesus in the midst of the darkness of sin that has landed them in the midst of the deep poverty that surrounds them every day of their lives. One teacher told me that many of all the girls living in a poverty situation in the Kibera slums are sexually molested by the time they are 9 years old and often become prostitutes as teenagers to find enough money to survive. What will their future be? Hope?



The eyes tell the story—two pictures ─ two very different stories ─ one of sad longing the other hope.