Mercy Care Center

Today I met and began what I hope will be a long friendship with Patrick Lumumba who leads the Mercy Care Center. He met me at the Hilton and we walked and rode buses to the Mathre section of Nairobi where the Center is located. Imagine Tijuana's slums, but poorer and with no Americans spending money. And yet there are lively and huge local markets spread throughout the area.

I got to see the 350+ kids that we feed everyday and see all their classes. Patrick has really squeezed every dime we have sent to maximize the value for the children. When I can get the pictures here you will see.

We talked about how All Souls' might help expand the circle of support for Mercy Care as we have done for Maseno. I am birnging back a proposal to help finish putting water in at the school/farm out in the valley. The lack of water has stalled the development of that sight as a vocational school.

We also talked about his plans for a small "polytechnic." He already has a number of the young women training as tailors and I am hoping we can work with them to import lovely Kenyan skirts and maybe even clergy shirts! But we also talked about helping to get woodworking equipment so that Mercy Care Center could not only train carpenters, but rent the equipment to local woodworkers to bring in more development money.

We had a great lunch and a very creative brainstorming time together. I want us to think about how we can take the solid foundation we provide at MCC and expand it into a development focus. Just providing the money fora daily meal has created new opportunities ofr these kids, including going to academic secondary schools. But there is more that we can do.