It has been a while ago that I wrote a newsletter. We moved back to the Netherlands after we went through a lot in Kenya due to the actions of the previous manager. This resulted in a unbearable living condition for us. We were harassed and lived in fear which affected our children a lot. We were forced to leave Kenya for some reasons and to rescue the orphanage!

The tourism business was low throughout the year and volunteers stayed away due to the problems occurring after the elections. This resulted in insufficient funds for the home. But with the support of our mainly English visitors we managed to maintain the home with donations and food supplies brought by the visitors. Thank you so much for that.

The children are doing very fine. They all went back to school and also Faith and Selina will start school. This means that now all the children will be in school. They attend the Kikambala Primary School opposite the old bakery in Kikambala. Only Salome is still in Mtwapa at Bambino cause she wanted to finalize her school time in the same school. Johnson is now in standard 6, while the others are all in 5,4 etc and kindergarten. Johnson is now 18 years and doing fine. As long he will follow the rules and keep on going to school we shall allow him to stay with us. However we are noticing a repeated behavior with children growing up. The area at the coast is not the most perfect area to maintain the way of raising children in African culture and morals. The Western influences and the increasing sex tourism are a concerning factor to take serious for future plans.

The kids are all in good health. They have all improved a lot especially those infected with the HIV virus. If you see photo's of the kids when they came to us and how they look now it is a big difference and that is where we are happy about. Despite everything we feel that we should continue to take care about these children. It is very hard to be far away again from them as we had other plans in mind. We know with Gods help one day we shall return, when time is right and we are ready for it.

We still have plans to built a centre but will inform you as soonest about our plans.

We want to thank al our visitors our friends for their visit, their support, financially or gifts, clothes, food etc. Thank you for encouraging words, emails after we went back to Holland. We all wish you a happy and blessed 2009 and hope to meet you again in Kenya,

Do you want to see the kids? click on the link below.

 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rlgfLOt4B5w

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EYk8zOicrXE