Biography

Please forgive the clichés but after spending the first 20 + years of our adult lives denying that God even existed, our lives were changed forever when we received His amazing grace, through the gift of faith that rescued us and redeemed us and began the lifelong work of transforming us… (with the promise to ultimately lead us to our own transfiguration - thank you to pastor Malcom Duncan for recently bringing that revelation through a KTC online conference!)

It was Christ’s love, and the love of the Father that He revealed to us, that prompted us, as ‘newbies,’ to follow him to Kenya, to learn how to be a beacon of hope in a place where poverty, and injustice, and corruption steal the futures of so many of His children. Barely equipped and lacking any real idea of what we were stepping into, our only strength was recognising our total dependence on God and our trust in the belief that He was going to ‘go with us.’

At the end of our first year, we needed a name for the work that had begun – and this ministry ‘Hope & Kindness’ was born. The first 24 years have far exceeded anything we may have imagined as we boarded that first flight to Kenya. Time and again, we have seen miraculous provision through the generosity of the church, through brothers and sisters and through complete strangers - and we have been blessed with deep friendships that we would never have otherwise known. Today Hope and Kindness looks like a Nursery School, a Primary School and a Junior Secondary School serving 270 children aged between 3 and 16 yrs. It has a church led by lay preachers/teachers which is overseen by Elim Gospel Church Kenya. Both the school and the church serve some of the most vulnerable and ‘at risk’ children and families within walking distance from our centre. As part of our efforts to generate some income here in Kenya, we also have a fish farm producing tilapia fingerlings to sell to the cage fish farmers on Lake Victoria

In spite of seasons where we have allowed ourselves to become too ‘busy,’ (where we have unwittingly worked too much in our own strength,) and in spite of significant health challenges along the way together with some disappointments and discouragements from people we have trusted here in Kenya, we are so grateful to be a part of this little community, in a place where the experience of community has mostly been lost. Together with teachers and church leaders and various support staff, we are still learning what it means to follow our rabbi, King Jesus, to live honest, transparent and accountable lives – and to love as we have been loved.

These are tough times, everywhere. Here in Kenya, opportunities for employment, for the educated as well as the uneducated, are so hard to find. At the same time there have never been so many ‘things’ held out in front of young people to make them aware of all the things they lack and now believe they ‘must have,’ in order to be happy. There is a real battle for their hearts and minds and an urgent need for them to be led into truth. Our hope is that their experiences, in the school and in the church, will inspire them to believe for a better future, for a victorious future, through their education and, most importantly, through growing a stronger faith in the God who created them, who loves them and has promised to always go with them.