Home Page / WBC News / Global Roundup / Our Strategy & History
Our Projects / Our Stories / What You Can Do / How To S.T.O.P. AIDS
FAQs / Other Resources / Heart for AIDS newsletter / Contact Us / Archive
Hope for Life Center
Josephine Kiarii gave up a good job in Kenya to devote her life to serving orphans through Hope for Life, a ministry that WBC is proud to support.
Josephine Kiarii was a well-paid, educated government official in Kenya several years ago, but she wasn’t content. As she looked around her poor rural community outside the city of Nakuru, she saw poverty everywhere. And lots of orphaned children.
So Josephine did something radical: She quit her job, and devoted herself to saving those kids—many of them orphaned by HIV/AIDS. In early 2004, she formed a ministry called Hope for Life Kenya (HFLK), with the express purpose of reaching out to those kids with the love and compassion of Christ.
As part of its Heart for AIDS Initiative, Wheaton Bible Church partners with Josephine and HFLK with funding and other forms of assistance—including the purchase of a plot of land by Student Body, WBC’s high school group. The 2006 MissionsFest raised $25,000 towards the construction a new main building for HFLK.
Kids Caring 4 Kids, a Wheaton charity, operated by a WBC family member, Kendall Ciesemier, raised an additional $30,000 to help complete the Hope for Life Center.
Josephine says she has been deeply touched by WBC’s partnership and the generosity of Kids Caring 4 Kids.
“I never realized there are people with God’s heart of love,” she says, “people who would be willing to sacrifice themselves and their own good to help improve lives of the needy.”
The WBC connection with Hope for Life came through our missionaries Scott and Barb Harbert in Nakuru, who formed a local AIDS task force on which Josephine also serves.
Partly as a result of WBC’s partnership, HFLK has grown in its scope and outreach. Today, the ministry serves 120 orphans and “vulnerable children,” as Josephine calls them—vulnerable because their parents are often HIV positive.
Hope for Life is not an “orphanage” in that it is not a home for the children. Instead, the children are housed throughout the community by caring Christians and families. But HFLK meets many of the kids’ needs through a daily feeding program, providing for many of them perhaps their only meal of the day. The ministry also attends to the kids’ physical, emotional, educational, vocational and, of course, spiritual needs.
Josephine says her work with these children gives her “fullness of joy.” And when she sees boys and girls move from situations of hopelessness to those of hope and promise, “This makes my heart peaceful, and I give God all the glory.”
She has seen a number of drastic changes among the children, young and old.
Take Simon Muthiora, for example. Life hadn’t been too kind to Simon, who grew up in Nakuru. He never knew his dad. And his mom died of AIDS in 1997, leaving then 11-year-old leaving 11-year-old Simon and his 6-year-old sister orphans, to be raised by their grandmother.
As a teen, Simon started drinking beer and getting into trouble, and even stabbed his uncle in a conflict. He was beaten and then sent away to Nairobi, where he lived with another uncle until graduating from high school.
While in Nairobi, Simon became a Christian, and soon, things began to turn around—especially once he returned to Nakuru and discovered Hope for Life and its vocational training program. Simon is now in the painting program at HFLK, and he hopes to someday earn a living from his art.
Josephine has seen leadership qualities in Simon, and is giving him more and more responsibilities. The young man, now 20, has been up to the task, and his future looks very promising.
He’s come a long way since those difficult days as a young orphan, and some rocky teenage years while experimenting with alcohol. Simon’s testimony is typical of the youth at HFLK. Many used to get into trouble often, but now they’re staying busy—and out of trouble. Elders in the community now respect the youth, and include them in decision-making. They are becoming change agents.
“Our children are changing,” says Josephine, referring not only to Simon, but to all of “her” kids, who are learning about the hope and love of a heavenly Father—an especially comforting notion for those who may have never known an earthly one.
“Never think that you are an orphan,” Josephine likes to tell the children. “Having God is everything.”
Litein Hospital facility
A few hours away from Nakuru, the Africa Inland Church Litein Hospital is also meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of those it serves. The staff is working wonders in the battle against HIV/AIDS, lovingly treating and caring for the sick and dying, but also via preventative and educational programs in the community. They're finishing up a brand-new modern facility, for which WBC has provided funding, including $20,000 for a new kitchen/laundry facility.
For MissionsFest 2006, we set a goal of raising $45,000 to fund these two projects. If you would like to learn more, or perhaps to make a contribution, contact us at 630.588.7188 or AIDS@wheatonbible.org.
_______________________________________________
Ongoing Projects
We have ongoing partnerships with several ministries and programs in Kenya—and elsewhere—as part of our commitment to join the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Nakuru AIDS Initiative (NAI) – The NAI isn’t so much a “project” as it is an ongoing partnership with ministry and community health leaders in Nakuru, Kenya, primarily through the efforts of WBC missionaries Scott and Barb Harbert. The Harberts formed the NAI with local leaders from the church, health care, and various ministries who are on the front lines in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The NAI represents a partnership between WBC and the Africa Inland Church ministries that work with AIDS issues—many of which simply needed funding to help their ministries thrive. WBC has provided some of that funding.
Among the specific ministries funded through the NAI are:
> Hope for Life Kenya: A ministry to 70-some at-risk children in Nakuru, most of them orphaned. The program aims to reach physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the children, via a feeding program, vocational training, and academic assistance.
> Litein Hospital: Though a few hours away from Nakuru, one NAI member—Lois Ooms, a missionary and community health expert who lives in Litein—has arranged for ways for us to support various AIDS-related programs at this missions hospital, operated by the Africa Inland Church.
> VCT training: VCT stands for “Voluntary Counseling and Testing.” The nation is in dire need of VCT counselors to run these clinics, which provide free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. Training the counselors is costly; WBC has provided funds to train about 20 VCT counselors so far.
> Prevention/education programs: Various ministries connected to the NAI are involved in HIV/AIDS education and prevention training, through churches and schools.
> Care for the sick & dying: Various ministries connected to the NAI are involved in providing physical, emotional and spiritual care to those sick and dying of HIV/AIDS.
> Medical care: Provided through various ministries, primarily through free testing kits, PMCT drugs (Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, which keeps the HIV virus from transferring from mom to baby during childbirth), and ARV drugs (Anti-Retroviral drugs, which help keep the HIV virus from turning into full-blown AIDS, thus greatly extending life expectancy).
Kerus Global Education – WBC helped fund the curriculum writing project of the directors of Kerus Global Education, Dr. Marcia Ball and Dr. Jennie Cerullo, through the MissionsFest 2005 project. This HIV/AIDS education/prevention curriculum, written for African pastoral training, was piloted with Samaritan’s Purse in November 2005. WBC’s Dr. Jim Judge was among the initial trainers for a program in Mozambique, while WBC members Justin and Carter Griffin traveled and trained with Kerus in January-March 2006 in Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. The effectiveness and enthusiastic reception of this training will have far reaching effects, as these Samaritan’s Purse trainers in turn take training to thousands of churches in these four countries.
> For more on Kerus, visit www.kerusglobal.org.
Churches Together – Not so much a project as a partnership, WBC was a founding member of Churches Together, a conglomeration of North American Churches that are invested in learning about how to partner with African-led initiatives fighting HIV/AIDS. Our WBC model of ministry is among those described on the CT website.
> For more on Churches Together, visit www.churchestogether.com.
> Other churches may learn about partnership by clicking here and here.
