October 27, 2008

$30,000

Kaylea is in the second grade. Her school is about 3 miles away. I've thought about riding bikes to school with her, but:
  1. The timing isn't easy (we'd have to leave pretty early).
  2. There isn't a shoulder on the main road (highway) on which to ride a bike.
  3. Which means we'd have to ride about 5 miles to go the safe route.
Jamie is home (safely) from Ngerenya, Kenya, Africa--right on the Indian Ocean. There, she saw and even got to teach through a translator at a wonderful Child Development Center that educates children 3-6 years old. The closest primary school is 3 miles away, for kids 7 and older. There is another primary school, but it is already full and not accepting any children. The kids have to provide their own transportation (which means they walk). The Child Development Center has been up and running for almost 2 years now, and they are dreaming new dreams.


They want to build their own primary school. They know and appreciate the value of a good education, and they know that education is the hope for the future.

For $10,000 they can build an additional classroom. And that's got me thinking.

Here are some of my ideas:
  1. I've got a few (hundred) CD's left. If anyone buys a CD (or more than one), the profits will go to the Child Development Center. Or, I could give friends a box of CD's and let them sell them.
  2. There's a part of me that wants to make a new CD, with all of the songs focusing on N'gerenya and the hope of new creation there. I'd write another small devotional book to accompany it, with stories from the people that went on the trip. However, this means that I'd need about $2,000 for the project, and then how in the world could we get the word out and would people actually buy it?
  3. Small fundraising concerts, where I come and sing and take up a love offering going to the people of N'gerenya.
For $30,000, the people of N'gerenya could build classrooms so their 1st through 3rd graders wouldn't have to walk and would be guaranteed a good education.

These kids want to go to school. They love school. They love to learn. Families willingly make sacrifices to pay for their kids to go. It is a travesty that kids are being turned away from schools, unable to learn.

We can make a difference for tomorrow's leaders today.

What do you think?

3 comments:

jenniferharrisdault said...

I'm an easy sell on ideas that benefit great things -- but I'm all for it!
Also, visit my blog and click on the link for the short film "I Want to Be a Pilot." It was made in slum the Kenya team visited. Heartbreaking.

Also: do you know Tom Boone (retired associate pastor of U Heights)? He was able to work out a deal with a cd printer friend for my buddy Chad Johnston when he was putting together a benefit Christmas album... granted, Chad recorded and mixed the thing himself... but Tom might be able to help on the printing cost side of things...

Ethan said...

Yeah, Tom was the Assoc. Pastor at UHBC when I was there. We've played golf hundreds of times and I've spent a few days at Mystic...

jenniferharrisdault said...

RIGHT, I keep forgetting you went there =0) I love that man!