Home visits

Precious (now called Angela Chepto) is growing up so fast!  This picture was taken last week in her new home:

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to visit 8 of the children that have been adopted from the Baby Centre in the last year or so.  It was an incredible experience to see them in their new homes and to see how drastically they had all improved since getting parents. So many of the kids were confident and outgoing, and the parents were so excited to show them off. One set of parents actually pulled out all of the school work their child had done from that year and showed us every single paper. As much as I didn’t want to look through a huge stack of kindergarten papers I was so moved by the pride the parents obviously had in their new son. Some of the older kids remembered us, but most did not.  Momo even decided to pretend we weren’t there, which was hilarious and his parents played along.  Here’s Momo reading with his dad:

It is humbling to see how God is taking care of each one of the kids and how He has blessed each one individually. He is also taking care of the families that have adopted these kids. Most of the families have no other children and their single child is their absolute pride and joy. In so many cases it is evident that God has sent them the perfect child for their lives. It also amazed me how many of the children looked exactly like their parents! In a culture that sometimes puts too much importance on tribalism, an adopted child looking similar to his or her new tribe can make things much easier.  How great is it that we have a God who takes care of all of the small details!  This cutie is Elizabeth, who is now called Joy:

In other news…. The summer traffic of volunteers has slowed down and now we are trying to manage without all of the extra help. Instead of 7 children that I need to provide with physical therapy, I now have 15 each day! Please be praying that I am able to keep up with all of the kids.

We’re getting up early tomorrow for an all day outing with your youth group to Lake Bagoria.  Pray for us if it comes to mind… we’ll try to post again soon!

Thanks so much for reading!

Colleen

A few more pictures… here’s Ronny with his wonderful parents:

Jeremiah with his mom:

And finally, here is Joshua who is now called Leo.  He was adopted before Cas and I came to Kenya, so we didn’t get to meet him at Baby Centre. 

 

Please pray for all of these children and families, and ask the Lord to bless the current Baby Centre kids with families of their own.  Thanks!

Ngata United FC

A few weeks before Colleen and I went home in June, I looked up my old soccer club (South Central Select from Greenwood, Indiana, now called South Central Soccer Academy)  on the internet and emailed the marketing director to see if they’d be interested in donating anything to my team in Ngata.  Jeremy Neely, VP and marketing  director of SCSA wrote me back and was amazingly receptive to the idea.  While we were home, my dad and I went down to the SCSA fields (a trip we used to make together 3-4 times a week) to meet Jeremy.  He was incredibly nice and gave so much… jerseys, balls, T-shirts, shorts, cleats, pennies, socks, medals, backpacks… it was amazing!  Fortunately we had some additional bags to use for coming back to Kenya, because we had 2 and a half bags of football gear! 

The last few weeks, I’ve been so excited about giving these things to the team!  I had some of the shirts resized and numbers put on the few that didn’t have them, then last week made a big presentation of the gifts to the team at practice.  It really is so much fun to give things away!  We sorted all of the shirts (about 50) and gave some to the junior squad, keeping the red ones to use as their first set of uniforms.  They were so excited!  Then the senior team tried on all of their new gear and posed for some pictures – they especially loved the red jerseys and the backpacks!

After presenting all the gifts and getting team pictures, we had a meeting with speeches and thanks, where the guys expressed their gratitude to me and to SCSA.  I wish I had taken a camera with a video recorder so I could share it!  They were really touched that people in the US want to send them things and support what they are doing.  They said that without the cleats and other donations, they wouldn’t have been able to join the district league that we began a few weeks ago. 

Most of the guys on the team are poorer on the socio-economic scale, and with unemployment in Kenya being around 40%, they don’t have any job prospects.  The football team, Ngata United FC, is really the best thing that many of them feel they have going in life.  Some of the older guys around the team have told me what a great thing it is because it really keeps guys from getting into gangs, alcohol, violence, drugs, etc.  Being supported and encouraged by “wazungu” (white people) from the US is an incredible blessing for them.  We are so thankful to Jeremy Neely and all of South Central Soccer Academy for their generous donation, and we hope to make you proud in your former uniforms this season! 

This past Sunday, we had our third league match on our home ground.  Despite the fact that the linesman didn’t understand the offsides rule, we won 3-1.  It was our first game wearing the kits donated by SCSA, and the guys were excited that they looked so good in all red.  Attendance at home matches continues to go up, as we typically have 150-200 people from town watching on the sideline.  It was a gorgeous day and a great win (we now have 7 points from 3 matches in the league).  The only bad thing was that I missed a wide open header!  The guys teased me a bit after the game, but I definitely deserved it… Here’s a post-victory picture:

It always amazes me how sports can make us feel… some of my most happy and most disappointing moments have been on a basketball court or football pitch.  I love seeing how excited the guys get after we score a goal or win – without sounding too hyperbolic, I really thing that football brings hope to the community.  I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with the guys since we’ve been back, and more have been coming to church with me.  Please pray that this team can continue to be a ministry and bring hope to the players, our opponents, and the town of Ngata.

The guys were asking me if it was possible for me to make them a website, so I made the team a facebook page.  If you’d like to keep up with us, you can “like” the page at facebook.com/NgataUnitedFC.  Also, you can CLICK HERE to see an album of pictures from when we were distributing the uniforms, and CLICK HERE to see one from our game on Sunday.  A big thanks to the lovely Colleen Wittig for taking most of these photographs. 

Thanks so much for your prayers and support,

Cason

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”  -  1 Corinthians 9:24

Some of our fans from the Baby Center came with Colleen to a practice:

Tossing my buddy Brandon into the African sky at football practice – he loves it and keeps saying “tena… tena…” which means “again… again…”:

Some of the cutest fans from our game on Sunday that were all crowded around Colleen:

And finally one of our post game prayer… please keep these guys in your prayers!:

Thanks so much for reading!  God Bless!