From West Seattle to Kenya and back: school building mission returns
From West Seattle to Kenya and back: school building mission returns
A picture of Mulundi-Kwa Muema school on April 3. The name translates to “place of” (kwa) “good” muema. Muema is also the last name of the man who donated his land for the school to be built. On the right is the first completed classroom and next to it is the second room the mission primarily worked on during their week in Kenya. A roof, paint and flooring will be finished in the coming weeks then the villagers will start on the remaining two rooms.
Courtesy of Kate McCormick
Wed, 04/06/2011
On March 2 the Herald met with a crew of five people, four of them members of St. John the Baptist on California Ave s.w., who headed to Mulundi Village, Kenya on March 21 to help villagers build a four-room secondary school.
The mission was led by Janet and Mike Johnson. Janet is originally from Mulundi Village where she met Mike in 2000 while they were both working for humanitarian causes in Kenya. The married couple has been together ever since and the school-building project was the latest in a long line of philanthropy efforts the Johnsons have done to improve education opportunities for Kenyan children.
To read the full story on their mission, please check out the Herald article West Seattle church members on a mission to build Kenya school.
Kate McCormick, who traveled with the crew along with her son James Saadeh, said everyone except Mike and Janet are back in Seattle. The Johnsons are flying back on April 6.
The pictures from McCormick were taken from the last day at the school, April 3.
According to McCormick, the mission achieved the following:
-Assisting with the construction of the second classroom of four classrooms funded by your financial grants and scholarships- the class will be roofed this week and next, then flooring and finally painting.
-Identified and started funding more than 10 scholarships for needy students in Mulundi village attending Kwa Muema or other high schools and colleges
-Buying uniform (two complete sets) for a girl at Kwa Muema (the school they were working on)
-Distributing pens to every student and teacher at Mulundi Primary School, pens provided by Scholasticjourney.org
-Distributing pens to every student and teacher at Kwa Muema Secondary School
-James taught English and distributed literature books to the secondary school students
-Visiting students from the village attending other nearby high schools and paying their school fees
-Teaching Mothers Union at St. James Batavia ACK Mulundi, how to bake corn bread.
-And for fun we visited several game parks and museums in Nairobi and Nakuru.
And a message from Janet and Mike Johnson:
“Each one of us is grateful for your support. On behalf of Mulundi Village, St. James Batavia and the St. Johns mission group we say Asante Sana.”
“Asante Sana” is Swahili for “Thank you very much.”
To see more pictures from their journey, please click here.
