I met Leonard on my first visit to Kenya in 2006. Since then, I’ve shared the following story a hundred times, with hundreds of people…
It was my first trip to Kenya to establish The 410 Bridge. We were looking for strong leaders in rural communities. Compassion International’s Country Director at that time (Ben Omollo) suggested that we visit two of their newer projects – Ngaamba & Kiu.
The Ngaamba meeting was held in a small Anglican Church. About a dozen people attended. One of them was Pastor Leonard Kitese.
The meeting went as usual. They’d share their needs with us, and we’d share our model with them. Their top three needs were water, water, and water. They had difficulty even talking about anything other than water. Education, health care, and micro-enterprise… they were important, but water was life.
As usual, I started to wrap up the meeting with words of thanks and appreciation for their time. And then I asked a question: “You shared your strengths with us and you shared your needs with us. Now I’ll ask you to imagine your community five years from today. Imagine it as completely transformed. What does it look like? What do you see?”
Silence.
More silence.
Then a man sitting off to the right, near a window, stood up. He was dressed in a purple dress shirt, with a white pastor’s collar. He was a big man with a warm gentle smile. I remember that he looked a bit uneasy; as if he were taking a risk to speak.
He said, “Thank you for your question. Our community is located in a semi-arid area of Kenya. It rains only two times (seasons) each year. It is very dry. Very dry. We haven’t had a harvest in years. And it has dried up the hearts of our people.”
He continued, “If you can help us enrich the hearts of our people… to help them to realize that they are not victims of the drought…. that they are not victims of government corruption, or crop failures. If you could help us change our hearts and our perspective, then we wouldn’t need your help anymore. Thank you.”
It was that statement from Pastor Leonard that led us to adopt Ngaamba.
Since then, Ngaamba has been sub-divided into four communities. We partnered with the community to solve much of the water problem, and the work continues today. Over 1200 children are being impacted through improved quality education. Small businesses have been started and a strong spiritual development program for children (252 Basics) is being taught in 7 schools.
Most of this wouldn’t have been possible without the work of Pastor Leonard. He even married an American couple in Ngaamba!
This month, Leonard resigned as the Ngaamba Service Team Coordinator. He has served his community and The 410 Bridge well for the past four years. We are very grateful and look forward to his continued involvement in the future.
Thanks Leonard!
[Feel free to write a comment below to Leonard. We’ll see that he gets your notes.]
