Urgent Appeal

Dear Friends,

We have an urgent appeal for a young student, named Jeremiah Lokol who lives on the border between Turkana and Pokot areas; one of the poorest parts of Kenya. I met him in September when I was on a food relief mission to the people in that area.

Turkana people waiting for food relief

Jeremiah

Jeremiah has just been accepted to the top school in the country and this has made my day with this news.  But he needs tuition and school uniform costs in a matter of days (by the end of this month) so I am making an URGENT appeal to everyone.

Sadly, everything that Jeremiah's family had was stolen by their neighbours just around the time the parents were planning to sell some cows and goats to pay for his education. Some of you will know that in this area the people are pastoralists and they suffer from cattle raiding.

Standing with some Turkana women holding their water cans.

As the boy comes from a family of  9, it looks like his dream of attending the school which is located in Kikuyu town near Nairobi, might not become a reality. He might lose the chance of joining this great school and achieving his dream of becoming a pilot after finishing high school.

What we need to do is gather everyone's support to ensure he can go to school. He needs everyone's support to make this possible.

The fees and costs for term one are 24,943 Kenyan shillings ( $304 Canadian, $275 Australian, $292 US, 222 Euros, 187 GBP) There are additional costs of 6695 Kenyan shillings for school uniforms ( $81 Canadian, $74 Australian, $78 US, 60 Euros, 50 GBP and some modest amount for travelling to the school and making sure he has the other clothing and bedding he needs.

I am praying to God for someone to come forward and answer the prayers for this family and this boy.

Please pray with us and help to raise awareness of the Missions of Hope by using the share buttons at the bottom of this post. If you can do more than pray, please donate now at the donate button on the upper right of this website.

If you have any problem with the Pay Pal button you can send the donation to kerichojoy[at]gmail.com Thank you and may God bless you.

Jonah

What's Happening in My World?

We had another major storm pass through on the weekend. The winds were howling for two nights. I saw on the news that ferries serving the islands off of Vancouver were shut down due to the bad weather and power was knocked out in many places.  I was snug inside and safe from the storms. I was blessed that my power didn't go out at all.

The small amount of snow we had was washed away by the rains and the temperature has warmed up considerably.  I spent the blustery day yesterday making progress on  my goals.

One goal is to finish the baby afghan. I had started out making dishcloth squares in a new-to-me pattern.  One of the ladies in my knitting group suggested I sew them altogether into a baby afghan and I thought that was a great idea. I made about half of the squares last Fall and finished the other squares today. I just have to decide on which colour to use to crochet all these squares together with and I'm leaning toward a cream colour. I also like the blue in the yarn.

I am still a newbie knitter and have only made dishcloths and slippers. I needed to make enough of these squares to practice the stitches but I see I still need more practice*smile.

I also started my second paper book over the weekend (I have a few electronic ones on the go) entitled, Paris, 1919 by Margaret MacMillan.   This one I've had in my library for awhile now and thought I'd better get at it.

Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919 is a colourful, epic history of the momentous days after World War I that saw U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and the other Allied leaders reshape the world. Wilson arrived in France to referee the Paris Peace Conference only a month after the war's end, sailing into a French port past an avenue of British, U.S., and French battleships. The world, horrified by the millions of war deaths, was desperate for peace and embraced Wilson's call for a League of Nations and self-determination for all peoples. Enthusiastic European crowds greeted the U.S. president and posters bearing his face lined the streets.

It was a conference unlike any other in history: attendees redrew borders, rewrote international relations, and tried--unsuccessfully--to contain German militarism. It unfolded in the midst of massive social upheaval as Europeans awoke to widespread hunger and the inequalities of their age. In the pressure cooker of Paris, this bubbling stew of social and political forces boiled over, and many of Wilson's dreams were dashed. The world lives with the legacy of these few months. Not only did the conference produce a new map of Europe and the Middle East, it led to the infamous Versailles Treaty, often blamed for provoking World War II. MacMillan, a University of Toronto history professor, argues that the Allied leaders did their best, and to blame World War II on them is to absolve Hitler and his appeasers. MacMillan could perhaps be accused of bias: her great-grandfather was British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, one of the main political players in 1919. However, her book has been acclaimed by historians and has won Britain's richest nonfiction award. Complete with backroom intrigue, personal drama, and vivid characters, Paris 1919 is a vital contribution to our understanding of the last century and the current one. (Source: Amazon).

I picked this book up several years ago because I was fascinated to learn that political leaders of the day redrew borders. I didn't learn this in history class. I'm not sure why I waited so long to begin reading it other than I have so many books in my library that I have yet to read and this is just another one. I'm sure I will learn a lot from it.

It's great to feel like I'm making progress on my goals for the year.

Having goals helps keep me focussed on the things I want to do and gives structure to my time.

How about you dear reader? Are you making progress on your goals for 2012?

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