Director’s Blog

by Allison Schlack Phanice, a 17-year old high school junior in Ndoto Everyone told me my wedding week would fly by, and to try to savor it, because afterward it would be hard to remember the details. Hosting a retreat for 300 Ndoto students two days before the wedding, an Ndoto sponsor/student lunch for 50 one day before the wedding, and a rehearsal dinner for 80 the night before the wedding, all led to the joyous blur of the weekend.

Amos 5:24: Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream. by Allison Schlack For all fourteen and a half years I’ve been in Kenya, one thing has always been certain: corruption. Corruption in a very upfront form is a part of life, and honestly, there is often a feeling that anything is possible for the right price. We’ve watched and experienced this sort of corruption in everything from getting jobs and processing paperwork, to bribery at hospitals and airports, to counting votes in national elections.

Frank is one of our college students who has overcome so much and risen above struggle to press on and reach his goals. You may remember us talking about him in our blog entitled Beautiful Redemption.  Below is a sweet update on his life from our Executive Director. One Sunday morning, as I headed for church, I passed Frank, an Ndoto college student, and a friend walking. I stopped and chatted with them, and Frank said they were on the way to the hospital, as his wife was about to give birth at any moment.  

Our church, which meets in a living room, is always overflowing. Each Sunday in the sitting room of the Ndoto office, dozens of people gather to study the Word of God chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Each Sunday, we pull the couch and desk chairs and benches and anything we can find together to make seats for those who will come. We always run out seats and space. About a year ago, we started renting chairs from the community center.

Hospice.  Ugh.  I couldn’t get that word out of my head.  I know what the word means and some of what it entails, but I don’t know much about actual hospice itself, much less what hospice looks like in Kenya.  How much does it cost?  Is morphine all that’s available to relieve pain?  What is it like to watch someone die? The doctor prepared us that at his next appointment we would be looking at surgery to remove the tumor, amputation, or hospice.