Embassy residents volunteer in Kenya.

In early 2023, two of our residents and some of our staff took part in an amazing mission trip to Kenya. The team worked with the locals to help build a school in the Kibera slum. Cyprian, one of our resettlement workers has reflected on their time there.

The trip was 11 days long and consisted of a variety of activities including building a school, hanging out with kids, participating in the kid’s classes, distributing clothes and food, and a day Safari. Cana Junior school has been trying to build after the government asked them to demolish part of their school to allow for a road to go through. They’ve done well and got onto the first floor but ran out of money. The team from Embassy and Kanzi-Kibera Friends, provided an extra pair of hands and spent close to £2000 on buying materials and paying local experts and handymen to help finish the second floor. “To be honest some of the time we felt like they might have done a faster job without us there!” However, they understood that we facilitated the continuation of the work.

Language barriers frequently got in the way occasioning both difficulty and humour in equal measure. The work was quite heavy at times as the British struggled with non-mechanized methods of building. One of our residents, S, was always going out of his way, sometimes spending his own money to treat the builders, “they work so hard, I’ll get them some water.”

The toughest time was when three of the team got ill, even so they never wanted to be left out; “I don’t want them to think I’m just being lazy.”

The second half of each day would be spent downstairs with the children where they continued their learning on the building site. This was always the teams highlight of the day.

When our resident, R, decided to get his hair braided at the hair salon next door to the building site, a little girl held onto his finger throughout the time. Other children stopped to watch “I have never received so much attention in my life.”

Kanzi-Kibera Friends provide lunch daily to the school. A little girl wasn’t eating her lunch but was saving it to take back to her family. “It was as I was retelling the story back to the team that it hit me - a seven-year-old takes the time to remember her family and saves her food for them.” The team visited all four Kanzi supported schools having similar responses at all of them.

Sophie, a Kanzi volunteer, did most of the cooking “out of all the food we have eaten these eleven days including food courts, uber-eats and takeaways, Sophie, your cooking was the best of all.” This confession was made during the ‘last supper’ as the Embassy and Kanzi team debriefed holding back tears. 

Throughout the time, the children at each of the four schools we visited, entertained us with songs, dances, and poem recitals. The context was always spiritual, which ministered to the team, but also provided plenty of opportunities for our Resettlement Manager, Laighton to speak and pray. The last day with the builders was really special as Laighton shared his story of how he came to faith and two of the builders decided they would like to also know Jesus, one of whom later asked for an English bible.

Huge thank you to everyone who made this possible with your very generous donations, and special thanks to Harry Johnson OBE for his kind efforts to help raise a significant chunk of the funds for the trip. The team are forever grateful for this life changing opportunity.