Dear Friends and Partners in Christ Jesus
 
Christian Greetings! It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This far the Lord has helped us in our building project and we want to share this joy and blessedness with you. Kindly accept our sincere thanks and heartfelt appreciation for your prayers and financial support up to this stage. Now once again we want to request you to stand with us; kindly consider being our prayer partner and help us make the final push to complete the dormitories for my children for the Glory of our God. We have witnessed the hand of the Lord since we started the constructions and it’s our prayer by the end of the year we shall be able to move to the new Church which was my husband’s prayer and that by the end of next year we shall be able to move into the new dormitories.  I want to thank you for continued   generous support both materially and spiritually.  Your help has helped us to deal with our immediate needs and also helped us to improve the living standards of our children. Also God has been so good to us because through our Kenyan friends willing our van has been replaced. God bless you abundantly and I am waiting to hear from you soon. This time we have insured our cars with Co-operative Insurance and fitted them with car trackers. 
 
The children miss the van so much because it belonged to our Dad.  Our son George who had overhauled the car was very hurt and for almost one week he was trying on his own to find his Dad’s car.  We thank God for the family who heard our plight and came forward to help us acquire another van for the school.   We still miss the car very much and we pray that one day it will come back for we still need it.  We got the van because everybody was praying for it since they knew the van was gone.  Thanks to all who stood with us and we appreciate your support deep from our hearts.
                                                                                                                                                        
APRIL 4TH 2009 FUN DAY.
 
For the last three years l have been walking for my children.  I am so happy because it has been one of the fun occasions where every child wants to participate.  This year I did not walk but rather the children asked me if we could change and they ran for me.  Last year on 26th of October we joined Standard Chartered Bank in their marathon and this year we did our own marathon which was 17 miles long and the children finished in time.  The Marathon started in our home but we had six points where we had different cards so that none of the participants could cheat.  The villagers and orphanages in our community joined in the run and later we had different games to compete and after all was done, Mama treated everyone to a very health and hefty meal.  Among our guests we had Mama Ciku and her children, Faith Kamau, Mama Tom, Margaret Kironyo and a great number of our Kenyan musicians, including the one who sings Fundi wa Mbao (Jesus the carpenter).  It was such fun to see orphanages competing and all their Mamas competing and running with eggs on a spoon being held by the teeth.  It was fun having the tug of war, running with sacks and competing in volleyball and basketball. It was fun seeing the children forget the problems and participating in this great occasion. Later everyone present enjoyed a wonderful lunch and each got a bottle of soda.  We called the day the Founder’s Day because that month holds a lot of memoirs for Mum and Dad.  It’s the month they were married on 30th of April, Caroline was born on 12th April and Mum was given her first children by the children department on 25th April.  So we found it worthwhile to celebrate it with other children and we named it Founder’s Day in Huruma.  Every year we will change according to the need.  We love you Mum and our departed Dad for giving us a reason to have fun and smile again!!

APRIL HOLIDAYS 

This is a time when all the hands of Mama are full because all the teachers break for the holidays and even the support staff are gone and she is left alone with very minimal help.  This is one of the times when we appreciate having volunteers around as together we are able to keep the children busy. This holiday the children stayed at home for two weeks and later the upper classes went for tuition for half a day for the rest of the holiday period.  We did various activities with volunteers and some children had a chance to visit various tour sites in our country. The kids toured the Hell’s Gate National Park which is famous for hot water springs and lots of caves. The kids also toured the Giraffe Centre, Animal Orphanage, David Shed Rick orphanage for orphan elephants, the Mamba Village where they saw a lot of crocodiles and they were finally treated to a wonderful lunch package at the Giraffes Centre.  Also the children from the Ngong slums benefited but the fun thing is that we had budgeted for one bus with giraffe centre but when they came all the kids came out and you know you cannot tell them to go back so the giraffe centre had to call for another bus and our volunteers accommodated all the changes with a lot of humor.  Those children in the slums have no opportunity to go for any short safaris or tours thus the slum is the only place they know.  But it so nice to know despite all the problems they go through they are really appreciative of anything given to them until you feel like giving them more. 
 
PRAISE GOD WE HAVE A NEW VAN 

I want to share of a miracle that happened in April. As many of your know the Huruma Van was stolen by thieves on the 28th of March 2009 as Mama attended a burial of a former director of children. We prayed and we hoped against all hopes that we shall get it back. But as the time went the car was not coming forth and our children were very hurt because it was a reminder of our departed Dad and everyday George and the other boys would go with the other small car to find it.  But with no success.  Earlier one of our Kenyan friends had told me she and her family would like to help but as she was leaving for a trip to Mombassa she promised when she comes back she will call me. The time for opening school was drawing near and I could not imagine myself hiring a van to bring the children in the morning and pick them up in the evening. It made me feel very sad and I cried so much.  The following day I called Rufus, another friend of the home and told him about my worries and l also called the other friend of the home.  When we met she told me she was feeling God telling her to help me buy another car and she asked me which one l wanted.  I told her l would like a small bus, commonly known as a Matatu here in Kenya and together with Rufus who joined the search we found a very good van.  It is 9 years old and the family paid 90% of the total cost and we paid the rest.  We thank God for Co-operate Insurance who have insured the van with comprehensive insurance, the Track It Company which helped to protect the van with trackers and also the company where the van was bought as they gave us two months to pay without interest.  I want to thank our community in Ngong who prayed for the provision of a van since they heard that the car was stolen and also the media who tried to reach the people who stole the car. I know as Kenyans we have a lot of resources which have been given free to us and in Hebrew 6: 7 Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.
 
WITHOUT FOOD AND MONEY THE SITUATION IS BLEAK INDEED

Food need in our country has been growing, but we can say that we have been well serviced by the grace of God through the support of many people. The recent drought produced a great famine throughout the land, causing many people and much livestock to greatly suffer.  People in the outlying areas were surviving on two to three small portions of food per week. Some were reduced to chewing the sap which comes from the Acacia tree. This sap has no nutritional value but helps to make the stomach feel as if it has something in it.

Our continual cry to God, along with the prayer of our faithful friends and partners, moved the hand of God on our behalf and rains have begun to fall. People are searching for seeds and are once again planting in hopes of producing a crop by summer’s end.  We are grateful to the Lord, who made it possible for us to supply for hundreds of families in Mathare slums of Ngong and Orphanages during this difficult time. With the collective support sent to us we have been feeding the masses in a desperate attempt to keep them alive and nourished until this famine ends. We cannot forget to thank Relief food and other supplies for basic needs are needed right now to save lives. I am here in my country trying to help as much as I can and I need your help and financial support which will be of great help to our children. I believe together we can make a big difference in bringing help and hope to the helpless. May God bless Universal Aide Society for being a blessing to our home and the surrounding by sending a container full of food. 
 
PASTOR JOSEPH’S (JOJO) TRIP TO THE USA 

In the Month of April our young Pastor Joseph Kanyiri who is also a former child of the home was able to go to the U.S.A, for a pastoral visit.  This journey was made possible through the help of our great friends known as Dave & Kathy Sweets and he had the best experience, with one of our children by name little Zipporah Wanjiku . He had the opportunity to meet the senior pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, Pastor Linn Winters and his wife Mama Lisa and other pastors of the church thus was able to get a lot of experience in running the church of God.   Cornerstone Church has been of very great help to us and we thank God for them. While he was there the Huruma church was under the management of the church council which was formed early this year and David Makumi, another grown child of the home was the standing pastor. Pastor Jojo was able to stay in the States for three weeks and we thank God for everything He is doing to equip our home. Our pastor came back on 3rd of May, and we were very happy to have him back. He is the first boy from the home to go out side our country. The church is in progress and we are preparing to do the roofing of our new church building. We are thanking God that very soon we will be in our new church and we can have more people even from the community come to church and listen to the gospel. Before our Dad who was our pastor died, he had started a pastor’s fellowship and I thank God that it is still in progress and the pastors meet here in the home for their meetings every Thursday night and I thank God so much for that. We are looking for so much from God, because He has been molding us every day and that is always my prayer. God bless you as we continue fellowshipping together.
 
PASTOR JOJO’S TESTIMONY

I want to thank God for giving me an opportunity to travel out of the country for the first time.  When l went to get my Visa, Mama Zipporah told me to wear like a pastor and she even choose the cloth l was to wear and then she prayed for me. It was my prayer to that she will join me as l went for the visa.  But amazingly she is the one who opened the gate and l saw she was not even ready and my heart went down.  She had our late Dad burial program which she gave me and she later told me l would be asked about the Pastor’s fellowship. Mama gave me Lisa Lopez (a volunteer from Cornerstone Church) and George to escort me to the American Embassy. Amazingly I met God there for l was given a lot of favor and the guy who interviewed me asked me what was all this about the pastor’s fellowship and I told them how our dad/pastor Isaac Kamau, started the fellowship and how he died, and how I heard God calling me to fit in his shoes but I knew that they were too big for me to wear, but God has been helping me with the help of Mama. Then he asked me, Joseph do you mean that you make sure that all these kids who are hundred and fifty come to church, and I told him yes and he told me that I am a great man, and he told me to come for my Visa two days from then. The most amazing thing is that they gave me a one year Visa and I thank God for that. I thank God for everything, and when God calls you to his work, He prepares you and gives you favors, strength and wisdom.  May He be praised!! 
 
NEW DORMITORIES

We want to thank God for his faithfulness in our home.  This is a project which was started by Peter Hartley a friend of the home.  He advised me to put plans together for the home.  In 2000 the plans were drawn up by Peter Hartley as he is one of the Directors in Mentor Management which is a construction company and the plans were approved. We found out that the plans were bigger than the land the home had, and he suggested to me that we put our plans to a neighboring land.  l told him that was not our land and he asked what if the home bought the land.  l thought he was planning to help in buying the land but later l came to realize that l was being taken back to Joshua’s time when God told him wherever he steps God will give him that land.  In the same year in July we had a visit from parents of one of our friends of the home from the UK.  He and his family had come to attend his daughters’ wedding that was taking place in Nairobi. When they visited our home the father said that there is some money he had promised to give because of God healing his only son who was born prematurely. In July 2000 he helped us buy one acre of land and in the beginning of 2001 he helped us buy another two acres of land.  My late husband gave me three acres of land and for every acre l was given God has given another acre. Now we stand on a six acre property where building work started in March 2001 when Evangelist Teresia Wairimu of Faith Evangelistic Ministry in Kenya came and officially broke the ground for the building to start. The building is now finally half complete and registered with a one storey building Primary School with 20 classes and a library which has been furnished. The children are already using the school and even we have been able to extend our school to the less fortunate community in the slums around Ngong town.
 
The Huruma facility underway is a massive improvement to the old house, designed to accommodate up to 400 children. It has a one storey which has complete separate boys’ and girls dormitories and washrooms, together with private rooms for the house mothers. Adjacent to it there is a proper kitchen, dining hall and living areas, a laundry room and indoor toilets. There will be solar panels on the roof, which will provide water heating, light for the children to do homework in the evenings and other preparations for school the following day, a rainwater collection system, and we also pray that there will be a tall security wall around the whole plot which will keep the children safe (and hopefully keep the local goats out of the vegetable garden!). It is still not exactly a four star accommodation, but it is a massive improvement on the old building I and the kids are living in. So to everyone who has contributed and helped make this possible, at least you can join the big team which is making this big dream into a reality. The School, Health Clinic, Dinning Room and Volunteer Guest House are finished.  We are now on the last leg and among all the projects it is the biggest one, and that’s the Dormitories.  So far Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Arizona , Chandler has provided money for construction to continue since February 2009.  The dormitories are built on a hill and we have been working on the foundation which is quite big and it’s my prayer that by the end of July all the work on foundations will be finished so that we can start on the walls.  We also have the church which we are building together with the dormitories for we really felt that God will feel sad if that will be the last project.  We have also been able to fence the memorial Garden for our Late Dad and l think by the end of the year you will be able to see what has been accomplished because right now we are struggling with the ground.
 
We are always praying and praising God because of you.  It has not been easy for we started the dream 10 years ago.  We move with our pace and l am so happy that as a church you have taken it in your hand to finish this task.  We shall always feel the gap of my partner who has supported me all a long.  He believed in me even when things did not seem to make sense.  I thank God for both of us were given a very happy 30 years and six months of being together.  Personally l will miss him greatly.  But also the other interesting part which l am looking on is God taking care of me and my children for he says he is the father of the fatherless and husband to the widows.  I have a lot of faith in Him and I know He will never let me down.  I am so happy that God has moved you to help me and my children and l have not enough words to say thank you.  I will ever be in debt of you and feel free to come and see for yourself what is on the ground. 
 
 VOLUNTEERS 

In the Month of April and May we had a number of volunteers from different countries.  Lisa Lopez from Cornerstone Church, Chandler, Arizona came on February to help me as l was going through grieve and she was of great help to us.  She was so easy to get along with, and all the children loved her and time to time she offered her shoulder for me to cry on.  She just left on May and we shall really miss her.   We also received Tim from Australia who was later joined by his fiancée for two weeks on the month of April.  In the same month we received Ina, Anneke and Judith who are some of our greatest friends from Holland who visited for two weeks.  In the month of May we are calling it the month of Canadians because through the month we have received a total of eight volunteers from Canada. At the moment we still have four Canadians in the home but three of them namely Jasmine, Brooke and Jessica will leave the morning of Monday the 8th June. We shall remain with Justin up to the end of the month. 

BROOKE AND JASMINE WRITE UP
Our experience at Huruma Children’s Home has been one in which we will cherish and remember forever. As University students from Canada we were both unsure of what to expect in an orphanage in Kenya. When arriving at the home we were overwhelmed with the love and generosity both Mama Zipporah and her children gave to us as volunteers. Over the past six weeks we have never felt so welcomed and loved as we have while staying at Huruma. The home that Mama has created here is one filled with love and compliance. She has created an environment in which children who have no where to turn can live, get an education, be cared for and have a chance to grow and prosper into the bright leaders of tomorrow. These children have all come from difficult situations and the home provides them with a chance at successful futures and a sense of hope.
 
This home is thriving due to the amount of support and dedication of volunteers and sponsors from both locally and abroad. With this help the children are not only able to be cared for and sheltered but they are able to get quality education and be involved in some great extracurricular activities. These amenities enable the children to have the capacity to be the best of whatever they want to be. We have both had the privilege to work with the children in the classrooms at Huruma and it has become evident to us that these children have the potential and capabilities for greatness. We took classes 5 and 7 to Hell’s Gate National Park and classes 6 and 8 to Nairobi Splash Park. The two field trips showed us that these kids have a passion for life and truly appreciate the small gestures. This was a great experience for the kids and for us! Seeing the smiles on their faces made us undeniably happy and we will never forget these adventures!
 
Mama and her administration are a ray of light and hope not only for the children of Huruma but for the entire community. She welcomes friends and family into the Huruma church and provides jobs and food for those in need. In our time here we have had the pleasure of helping some of the families from the slums as well as Sidai’s Children’s Home with the love and encouragement of Mama. The world, and especially Africa needs a lot more people like Mama Zipporah to share and care for others. If everyone gave a little of what they have to others in need our world would be a much better place. We have been touched and amazed by these children and this home. They will forever be in our hearts and we will always think of Huruma as our African home. We cannot wait to return to Huruma. May god bless these children, this home and Mama Zipporah.
 
We love you and we will miss you,
Brooke Nickel and Jasmine Cuff.
 
CONCLUSION

I want to say thank you so much for standing and supporting us in a great way.  I do not know what we could have done if we didn’t have people like you in our lives.  It is my prayer that God is going to bless abundantly.  I am sorry this is a long newsletter, but l pray you will take time to read it.  We love you so much and we care. 

Continue to pray for us.

We love you and we care. 
 
Mama Zipporah.