The Scoop

The organization that Doug and I are going to Kenya with is called Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).  Some of you may be familiar with MCC and some of you may not.  Here is the link to their website. Read up on it if you like. I (Corinna) grew up in the Mennonite Church so I've been familiar with this faith-based international organization for service/peace work/disaster relief/community development all my life; that's our connection.


Our assignment is called Food Security Coordinators.  For some of you, this may conjure images of walking beside a dusty truck carrying guns to ward off people who may want to steal the food! That image is actually pretty far from what this entails... 


Here's our understanding of the role we're about to get into: We'll be working among a people group called the Maasai in a region that encompasses a number of towns (west of Nairobi, town of Najile).  There already exist various "self-help" projects run by the Maasai themselves to help their communities gain better and more steady access to food and water against the constant threat of drought.  Some of the projects are: catching water off their roofs for cultivation of food, developing a small herd of goats for food and milk, building sand dams for water sources for communities, etc.  

google earth view of our cement block home and the outhouse(?) located on the compound of the local church.

MCC, our organization, helps to fund these self-help groups with various matching programs.  Our role will be to support these Maasai organizations working on projects, to act as liaison between MCC and these groups, and to participate in ways that we can. Our day to day work will take many forms and will develop around Doug and my individual gifts and interests- one of the main roles will be relationship building with these partners.

Some of you have been asking us what the deal is with our financial support while we're working with MCC in Kenya for 3 years. Some of you were interested in helping support us in the area of finances. MCC is committed to covering our basic needs while we're on our volunteer assignment with them.  So our needs are covered by people from all over donating in general to MCC's work.  MCC makes available 2 ways to contribute to service workers.  So, here's the scoop:

To give directly to us, follow this link.  (This is not tax deductible)

To give in support of MCC's work in Kenya follow this link.

Thank you all for being supportive in so many ways and for being part of our lives. We want to remain a part of yours even though we're relocating for a while.

Most of all, we desire your friendships and your prayers- please stay in contact with us, letting us know what is going on in your lives for us to pray on your behalf and lift your prayers on our behalf as we come to mind.